BROTHERLY WAYS
"You'll stay to dinner, Cal?" said Mr. Sim.
"Calvin, you'll eat dinner with us?" cried Mr. Sam.
Calvin Parks looked at Miss Sands, and saw hospitality beaming in her
face.
"Thank ye, Sim;" he said, "I'm obliged to you, Sam; I'll stay with
pleasure, Miss Hands!"
It was a singular meal. Mary Sands sat at the head of the table, with
all the dishes before her, and helped the three men largely to the
excellent boiled dinner. Calvin Parks faced her at the foot, and the
twins sat on either side. They talked cheerfully with their visitor and
Miss Sands, but did not address each other directly.
Calvin remarked upon the excellence of the beef. "Fancy brisket, ain't
it?" he asked.
"Yes!" replied Mr. Sim. "It's the best cut on the critter for cornin'."
Mr. Sam looked at his cousin. "Tell him I don't agree with him!" he
said.
"Cousin Sim, Cousin Sam don't agree with you!" said Mary Sands placidly.
"Tell him the aitch bone is better!" continued Mr. Sam with some heat.
"He says the aitch bone is better!" repeated Mary Sands.
"Tell him it ain't!" said Mr. Sim.
"Cousin Sim says it ain't, Cousin Sam," said Mary, "and that's enough on
the subject."
She spoke with calm and cheerful authority; the twins glowered at the
corned beef in silence.
"Speakin' of critters," said Calvin Parks hastily, "how many head are
you carryin' now, boys?"
There was no reply. Looking at Miss Sands, her eyes directed his glance
to Mr. Sam.
"How many head are you carryin', Sam?" he repeated.
"Twenty!" replied Mr. Sam.
"That's a nice herd," said Calvin. "Hereford, be they?"
"Holstein!" said Sam. "They're the best milkers, and the best beef
critters too."
Mr. Sim looked at Mary Sands with kindling eyes. "Tell him it ain't so!"
he said. "Tell him he knows better!"
"Cousin Sim says it ain't so, and you know better, Cousin Sam," said
Mary Sands.
"Tell him he knows wuss!" grunted Mr. Sam.
"Cousin Sam says you know wuss, Cousin Sim, and that will do!" said
Mary Sands quietly.
It was the same at dessert. Calvin praised the admirable quality of the
pie.
"Now this," he said, "is my idee of a squash pie. It isn't slickin' up
and tryin' to look like custard, nor yet it don't make believe it's
pumpkin; it just says, 'I am a squash pie, and if there's a better
article you may let me know.'"
"I'm real pleased you like it," said Mary Sands modestly; "it's Cousin
Lucindy's recipe. She must have been a master hand at pies."
"She certinly was!" said Mr. Sam. "Squash and pumpkin and cranberry, Ma
was fust-rate in all; but mince was her best holt."
"Tell him it warn't," said Mr. Sim, fixing his cousin with a burning
eye. "Tell him her apple bet it holler."
"Cousin Sim says it warn't, Cousin Sam, and her apple bet it holler,"
repeated Mary Sands cheerfully.
"Tell him he's a turnip-head!" said Mr. Sam.
"I don't repeat no calling names," said Mary Sands. "Mr. Parks, will you
have some more of the pie? Cousin Sam, another piece? Cousin Sim? well,
then, the meal is finished, Cousins!"
Each twin, as he rose from the table, cast a glance of invitation at
Calvin Parks; but he hastily seized a dish. "I'm going to help Miss
Hands clear off," he said; and he followed Mary Sands into the kitchen.
"Oh! Mr. Parks," said Mary, "you no need to do that! I'm well used to
washing dishes!"
"I should suppose you was," responded Calvin Parks gallantly, "but if
you'll let me help, Miss Hands, it would be an accommodation, now it
would. Fact is," he continued, "I expect I shall bust if I don't find
out what this all means, and I want you to tell me. How long have the
boys been actin' this way?"
"How long?" repeated Mary Sands. "Ever since I come. Haven't they always
been so?"
"Always been so?" repeated Calvin Parks. "Why, Miss Hands--why--" he
looked about him helplessly. "Well, I am blowed!" he said plaintively.
"I'll have to ask you to excuse the expression, Miss Hands, but I really
am! Perhaps I'd better tell you how things used to be in this house, and
then you can see how--how blowed I am at findin' them as they be."
"I should be real pleased if you would!" said Mary Sands. "I've been
wonderin' and wonderin', ever since I come, but there's no near
neighbors, you know, and I don't know as I should have cared to ask 'em
if there had been; but you are a friend of both, I see, and it seems
different."
"I'll wash to your wipin'," said Calvin Parks, taking off his coat and
rolling up his shirt sleeves, "and we can talk as we go; I'm an old hand
at dishes too. Well! Friend of both? well, I should remark! I lived on
the next ro'd, not more'n half a mile across lots. You might have seen a
burnt cellar hole?--Well, that was our home. First I remember of Sam and
Sim was them sittin' together in their chair. 'Twas a queer chair, made
o' purpose to hold the two of 'em. There they set, and tell 'tother from
which was more than I could do, or anybody else for that matter, except
their Ma. They might ha' been nine then, and I s'pose I was four or
five. I rec'lect I went up to 'em and says, 'Be you one boy cut in two?'
Cur'us things children are, sure enough. They was dressed alike, then
and always; fed alike, and reared alike, every human way of it. Doctored
alike, too, poor young ones! One time when they was babies the wrong
one got the medicine, and after that Ma Sills always dosed 'em both,
whichever was sick. 'There's goin' to be no partiality!' she says; 'the
Lord made them children off the same last, and they're goin' to stay the
same!' Why, Miss Hands, she wouldn't so much as allow they could _think_
different. If they got to scrappin', same as all boys do, y'know, Ma
would take 'em by the scruff of their necks and haul 'em up to the
looking-glass. 'Look at there!' she'd say. 'Do you see them boys? do you
see the way they look? Now I give you to understand that your souls
inside is just as much alike as your bodies outside. I ain't sure but
it's two halves of the same soul,' she'd say, 'and do you think I'm
goin' to let 'em quarrel? You make up and love each other pretty right
away, or I'll take the back of the hairbrush to you both!'
"So they'd make up; they had to! There! Ma Sills certinly did rule the
roost, and no mistake. She'd been a widder ever since the boys were a
year old, so she had to do for herself and them, and she done it. She
was a master hand; a master hand!"
He shook his head, and washed the platter vigorously.
"Did it keep on that way after they grew up?" asked Mary Sands.
"Did it?" repeated Calvin. "Yes, it did! Neither one of 'em could stand
against their Ma. Folks thought the boys would marry, and that would
break it up like, but Ma wouldn't have that. 'When I find two girls as
much alike as they is boys,' she'd say, 'we'll talk about gettin'
married; till then they're wife enough for each other.'
"That was when Sam was takin' notice of Ivy Bell. She was a girl from
Vermont, come visitin' Ammi Bean's folks; her mother was sister to
Ammi. She was a pretty, slim little creatur', and I expect Sam thought
she was all creation for a spell; but she never could tell him from Sim,
and Sim didn't take to her no way, shape or manner. That suited their Ma
first rate, and she'd take a day when Sam was off to market, and then
she'd send Sim on an errant down to Bean's. I rec'lect I was there one
day when he come,--I guess I was some taken with Ivy myself, for she was
a pretty piece. When she see him she begun to roll her eyes and simper
up the way gals do--I ask your pardon, Miss Hands! I don't mean all
gals, nor I shouldn't want you to think it."
"Thank you, Mr. Parks!" said Mary demurely; "I won't!"
"Well, she did," said Calvin; "no two ways about that. 'Good mornin',
Mr. Sills,' she says, 'was you wishin' to see anyone?'
"'Yes!' says Sim, 'I want to see Mr. Bean.'
"'He's down in the medder,' says Ivy; and then she kind o' hung down her
head and looked up at him sideways. 'I don't suppose there's anyone else
would do instead, Mr. Sills?'
"'No, there ain't!' says Sim; and off he legged it to the medder."
"My!" said Mary Sands, "What did she say to that?"
"Why, I snickered right out in meetin'," said Calvin. "I just couldn't
help it; and she was so mad she whisked into the house and slammed the
door in my face, and that was the last _I_ saw of Ivy.
"But next time poor old Sam come along, slicked up for courtin', with
his heart in his vest pocket all ready to hand out, why, he got the door
in his face, too, and had to start in all over again. Well, sir--I beg
your pardon, ma'am, or I should rather say miss--that was pretty much
the way things was when I quit home, and that was pretty much the way I
expected to find 'em when I come back. It didn't seem as if a trifle of
fifteen years was going to make much difference in Ma Sill, nor yet in
Sam and Sim; they seemed sort of permanent, don't you know, like the old
well-sweep, or the big willows. I s'pose when Ma was laid away the boys
commenced to feel as if they was two minds as well as two bodies. You
don't know what started them actin' this way?"
Miss Sands reflected a moment.
"I shouldn't be surprised," she said, "if it was their vests."
"Their vests?" repeated Calvin.
"Yes! You noticed Cousin Sam had on a red one and Cousin Sim a black
one? Well--but suppose I tell you my end of it, Mr. Parks, just as it
come to me."
"I should be fairly pleased to death if you would!" said Calvin Parks.
"That's what I've been layin' for right along. Yes, I spotted them vests
first thing, I guess it's the first stitch ever they had on that was
anyways different. Well! you was going to say?"
Mary Sands was silent a moment, gazing thoughtfully at the blue platter
she held.
"I'm a lone woman!" she said at last. "I was an only child, and parents
died when I was but young. I've kept house these ten years for my uncle
over to Tupham Corners. He was a widower with one son, and a real good
man; like a father to me, he was. Last year he died, and left the farm
to Reuben,--that was his son,--and the schooner, a coasting schooner he
was owner of, to me. I expect he thought--" she paused, and a bright
color crept into her warm brown cheek; "well," she continued, "anyhow,
Reuben and I didn't hit it off real well, and I left. I was staying with
friends when a letter come from Cousins statin' their Ma had passed
away and would I come to keep house for them. I'd never visited here,
but Cousin Lucindy was own cousin to my mother, and we'd met at
conference and like that, but yet I'd never seen the boys. Well, I
thought about it a spell, and I thought I'd come and try, and if we
suited, well and good, and if not there'd be no bones broke. So I packed
up and come over by the stage. Well!"
She stopped to laugh, a little mellow tinkling laugh. "I guess I sha'n't
forget my first sight of Cousins. I come up the steps kind of quiet. The
door stood open, and I knocked and waited a minute, hearin' voices; then
I stepped inside the hall. The front sittin'-room door was open too, and
Cousins was standin' back to it, them same brown backs, each one the
other over again, and one of them was holdin' a red vest in each hand.
I coughed, but they didn't hear me, and he went right on speakin'.
"'Ma bought this red flannel at the bankrupt sale,' he said. 'She
allowed 'twould keep us in vests and her in petticuts and thro't
bandages for ten years, and I'm not going to begin to waste the minute
she's under ground. She would say, "you go on wearin' them vests!" and
I'm goin' to.'
"'She wouldn't!' said the other. 'She'd say, "you go on wearin' the coat
and pants, but if you are in mournin' for me, show it by puttin' on a
black vest, as is no more than decent."'
"'I can mourn just as well in red flannel as what I can in black!' says
the first one.
"'You can't!' says the other.
"'I'll show you whether I can or not!' says the first.
"And at that they turned face to face to each other and sideways to me,
and each riz up his right arm--honest, Mr. Parks, I couldn't believe
but 'twas the same person and him reflected in a mirror, they was so
like. I thought they was goin' to strike each other, so I stepped
forward and said, 'Good mornin', Cousins; I've come!'"
Again she tinkled a laugh. "You never see men more surprised than what
they was; but they shook hands real pleasant, made me welcome, and then
walked one off one way and one the other, and so it has remained. At
first they wanted to eat in different rooms, but I told 'em I couldn't
have that, nor yet I couldn't have no quarrellin', so now we get on real
pleasant, as you see. But isn't it comical? There! when I see them--"
At this moment a prolonged cough was heard from the direction of the
sitting-room; and at the same time a thin high voice called, "Calvin!
you got lost, or what?"
"Cousins are gettin' uneasy!" said Mary Sands. "You'd best go in, Mr.
Parks, and I'm a thousand times obliged to you for helpin' me with the
dishes. You are an elegant washer, I must say."
"Miss Hands," replied Calvin Parks as he drew on his coat, "the man who
wouldn't wash good to such wipin' as yours wouldn't deserve to eat out
of a dish. The thanks is on my side for enjoyin' the privilege."