NEIGHBORS
On a morning in late March, with a sweet and fresh wind blowing, a
clear sun shining, and a sky so full of soft white woolly clouds that
you might fancy the sky-people had turned their fleecy flock out to
graze in the deep blue pastures, Laurence Mayne and I brought John
Flint downstairs and rolled him out into the glad, green garden, in
the comfortable wheel-chair that the mill-people had given us for a
Christmas present; my mother and Clélie followed, and our little dog
Pitache marched ahead, putting on ridiculous airs of responsibility;
he being a dog with a great idea of his own importance and wholly
given over to the notion that nothing could go right if he were not
there to superintend and oversee it.
The wistaria was in her zenith, girdling the tree-tops with amethyst;
the Cherokee rose had just begun to reign, all in snow-white velvet,
with a gold crown and a green girdle for greater glory; the greedy
brown grumbling bees came to her table in dusty cohorts, and over her
green bowers floated her gayer lovers the early butterflies, clothed
delicately as in kings' raiment. In the corners glowed the
ruby-colored Japanese quince, and the long sprays of that flower I
most dearly love, the spring-like spirea which the children call
bridal wreath, brushed you gently as you passed the gate. I never see
it deck itself in bridal white, I never inhale its shy, clean scent,
without a tightening of the throat, a misting of the eyes, a melting
of the heart.
Across our garden and across Miss Sally Ruth Dexter's you could see in
Major Appleby Cartwright's yard the peach trees in pink party dresses,
ruffled by the wind. Down the paths marched my mother's daffodils and
hyacinths, with honey-breathing sweet alyssum in between. Robins and
wrens, orioles and mocking-birds, blue jays and jackdaws, thrushes and
blue-birds and cardinals, all were busy house-building; one heard
calls and answers, saw flashes of painted wings, followed by outbursts
of ecstasy. If one should lay one's ear to the ground on such a
morning I think one might hear the heart of the world.
"_Hallelujah! Risen! Risen!_" breathed the glad, green things, pushing
from the warm mother-mold.
"_Living! Living! Loving! Loving!_" flashed and fluted the flying
things, joyously.
We wheeled our man out into this divine freshness of renewed life,
stopping the chair under a glossy, stately magnolia. My mother and
Clélie and Laurence and I bustled about to make him comfortable.
Pitache stood stock still, his tail stuck up like a sternly
admonishing forefinger, a-bossing everything and everybody. We spread
a light shawl over the man's knees, for it is not easy to bear a cruel
physical infirmity, to see oneself marred and crippled, in the growing
spring. He looked about him, snuffed, and wrinkled his forehead; his
eyes had something of the wistful, wondering satisfaction of an
animal's. He had never sat in a garden before, in all his life! Think
of it!
Whenever we bring one of our Guest Roomers downstairs, Miss Sally Ruth
Dexter promptly comes to her side of the fence to look him over. She
came this morning, looked at our man critically, and showed plain
disapproval of him in every line of her face.
On principle Miss Sally Ruth disapproves of most men and many women.
She does not believe in wasting too much sympathy upon people either;
she says folks get no more than they deserve and generally not half as
much.
Miss Sally Ruth Dexter is a rather important person in Appleboro. She
is fifty-six years old, stout, brown-eyed, suffers from a congenital
incapacity to refrain from telling the unwelcome truth when people are
madly trying to save their faces,--she calls this being frank,--is
tactless, independent, generous, and the possessor of what she herself
complacently refers to as "a Figure."
For a woman so convinced we're all full of natural and total
depravity, unoriginal sinners, worms of the dust, and the devil's
natural fire-fodder, Miss Sally Ruth manages to retain a simple and
unaffected goodness of practical charity toward the unelect, such as
makes one marvel. You may be predestined to be lost, but while you're
here you shall lack no jelly, wine, soup, chicken-with-cream,
preserves, gumbo, neither such marvelous raised bread as Miss Sally
Ruth knows how to make with a perfection beyond all praise.
She has a tiny house and a tiny income, which satisfies her; she has
never married. She told my mother once, cheerfully, that she guessed
she must be one of those born eunuchs of the spirit the Bible
mentions--it was intended for her, and she was glad of it, for it had
certainly saved her a sight of worry and trouble.
There is a cherished legend in our town that Major Appleby Cartwright
once went over to Savannah on a festive occasion and was there
joyously entertained by the honorable the Chatham Artillery. The
Chatham Artillery brews a Punch; insidious, delectable, deceptive, but
withal a pernicious strong drink that is raging, a wine that mocketh
and maketh mad. And they gave it to Major Appleby Cartwright in
copious draughts.
Coming home upon the heels of this, the major arose, put on his Prince
Albert, donned his top hat, picked a huge bunch of zinnias, and at
nine o'clock in the morning marched over to Miss Sally Ruth Dexter's.
We differ as to certain unimportant details of that historic call, but
we are in the main agreed upon the conversation that ensued.
"Sally Ruth," said the major, depositing his bulky person in a rocking
chair, his hat upon the floor, and wiping his forehead with a spotless
handkerchief the size of a respectable sheet, "Sally Ruth, you like
Old Maids?" Here he presented the zinnias.
"Why, I've got a yard full of 'em myself, Major. Whatever made you
bother to pick 'em? But to whom much hath more shall be given, I
suppose," said she, resignedly, and put them on the whatnot.
"Sally Ruth," said the major solemnly, ignoring this indifferent
reception of his offering. "Sally Ruth, come to think of it, an Old
Maid's a miserable, stiff, scentless sort of a flower. You might
think, when you first glance at 'em, that they're just like any other
flowers, but they're not; they're without one single, solitary
redeemin' particle of sweetness! The Lord made 'em for a warnin' to
women.
"What good under God's sky does it do you to be an old maid, Sally
Ruth? You're flyin' in the face of Providence. No lady should fly in
the face of Providence--she'd a sight better fly to the bosom of some
man, where she belongs. This mawnin' I looked out of my window and my
eye fell upon these unfortunate flowers. Right away I thought of you,
livin' over here all alone and by yourself, with no man's bosom to
lean on--you haven't really got anything but a few fowls and the Lord
to love, have you? And, Sally Ruth, tears came to my eyes. Talk not of
tears till you have seen the tears of warlike men! I believe it would
almost scare you to death to see me cryin', Sally Ruth! I got to
thinkin', and I said to myself: 'Appleby Cartwright, you have always
done your duty like a man. You charged up to the very muzzle of Yankee
guns once, and you weren't scared wu'th a damn! Are you goin' to be
scared now? There's a plain duty ahead of you; Sally Ruth's a fine
figure of a woman, and she ought to have a man's bosom to lean on. Go
offer Sally Ruth yours!' So here I am, Sally Ruth!" said the major
valiantly.
Miss Sally Ruth regarded him critically; then:
"You're drunk, Appleby Cartwright, that's what's the matter with you.
You and your bosom! Why, it's not respectable to talk like that! At
your age, too! I'm ashamed of you!"
"I was a little upset, over in Savannah," admitted the major. "Those
fellows must have gotten me to swallow over a gallon of their infernal
brew--and it goes down like silk, too. Listen at me: don't you ever
let 'em make you drink a gallon of that punch, Sally Ruth."
"I've seen its effects before. Go home and sleep it off," said Miss
Sally Ruth, not unkindly. "If you came over to warn me about filling
up on Artillery Punch, your duty's done--I've never been entertained
by the Chatham Artillery, and I don't ever expect to be. I suppose it
was intended for you to be a born goose, Appleby, so it'd be a waste
of time for me to fuss with you about it. Go on home, now, do, and let
Cæsar put you to bed. Tell him to tie a wet rag about your head and to
keep it wet. That'll help to cool you off."
"Sally Ruth," said the major, laying his hand upon his heart and
trying desperately to focus her with an eye that would waver in spite
of him, "Sally Ruth, _somebody's_ got to do something for you, and it
might as well be me. My God, Sally Ruth, _you're settin' like
clabber!_ It's a shame; it's a cryin' shame, for you're a fine woman.
I don't mean to scare or flutter you, Sally Ruth,--no gentleman ought
to scare or flutter a lady--but I'm offerin' you my hand and heart;
here's my bosom for you to lean on."
"That Savannah brew is worse even than I thought--it's run the man
stark crazy," said Miss Sally Ruth, viewing him with growing concern.
"Me crazy! Why, I'm askin' you," said the major with awful dignity,
"I'm askin' you to marry me!"
"Marry _you_? Marry fiddlesticks! Shucks!" said the lady.
"You won't?" Amazement made him sag down in his chair. He stared at
her owl-like. "Woman," said he solemnly, "when I see my duty I try to
do it. But I warn you--it's your last chance."
"I hope," said Miss Sally Ruth tartly, "that it's my last chance to
make a born fool of myself. Why, you old gasbag, if I had to stay in
the same house with you I'd be tempted to stick a darning needle in
you to hear you explode! Appleby, I'm like that woman that had a
chimney that smoked, a dog that growled, a parrot that swore, and a
cat that stayed out nights; _she_ didn't need a man--and no more do
I."
"Sally Ruth," said the major feelingly, "when I came here this mawnin'
it wasn't for my own good--it was for yours. And to think this is all
the thanks I get for bein' willin' to sacrifice myself! My God! The
ingratitude of women!"
He looked at Miss Sally Ruth, and Miss Sally Ruth looked at him. And
then suddenly, without a moment's warning, Miss Sally Ruth rose, and
took Major Appleby Cartwright, who on a time had charged Yankee guns
and hadn't been scared wu'th a damn, by the ear. She tugged, and the
major rose, as one pulled upward by his bootstraps.
"Ouch! Turn loose! I take it back! The devil! It wasn't intended for
any mortal man to marry you--Sally Ruth, I wouldn't marry you now for
forty billion dollars and a mule! Turn loose, you hussy! Turn loose!"
screeched the major.
Unheeding his anguished protests, which brought Judge Hammond Mayne on
the run, thinking somebody was being murdered, Miss Sally Ruth marched
her suitor out of her house and led him to her front gate. Here she
paused, jaws firmly set, eyes glittering, and, as with hooks of
steel, took firm hold upon the gallant major's other ear. Then she
shook him; his big crimson countenance, resembling a huge overripe
tomato, waggled deliriously to and fro.
"I was born"--_shake_--"an old maid,"--_shake, shake, shake_--"I have
lived--by the grace of God"--_shake, shake, shake_--"an old maid, and
I expect"--_shake_--"to die an old maid! I don't propose to
have"--_shake_--"an old windbag offering _me_ his blubbery old
bosom"--_shake, shake, SHAKE_--"at this time of my life!--and don't
you forget it, Appleby Cartwright! _THERE!_ You go back home"--_shake,
shake, shake_--"and sober up, you old gander, you!"
Major Appleby Cartwright stood not upon the order of his going, but
went at once, galloping as if a company of those Yankees with whom he
had once fought were upon his hindquarters with fixed bayonets.
However, they being next-door neighbors and friends of a lifetime's
standing, peace was finally patched up. In Appleboro we do not mention
this historic meeting when either of the participants can hear us,
though it is one of our classics and no home is complete without it.
The Major ever afterward eschewed Artillery Punch.
This morning, over the fence, Miss Sally Ruth addressed our invalid
directly and without prelude, after her wont. She doesn't believe in
beating about the bush:
"The wages of walking up and down the earth and going to and fro in
it, tramping like Satan, is a lost leg. Not that it wasn't intended
you should lose yours--and I hope and pray it will be a lesson to
you."
"Well, take it from me," he said grimly, "there's nobody but me
collecting my wages."
A quick approval of this plain truth showed in Miss Sally Ruth's
snapping eyes.
"Come!" said she, briskly. "If you've got sense enough to see _that_,
you're not so far away from the truth as you might be. Collecting your
wages is the good and the bad thing about life, I reckon. But
everything's intended, so you don't need to be too sorry for yourself,
any way you look at it. And you could just as well have lost _both_
legs while you were at it, you know." She paused reflectively. "Let's
see: I've got chicken-broth and fresh rolls to-day--I'll send you over
some, after awhile." She nodded, and went back to her housework.
Laurence went on to High School, Madame had her house to oversee, I
had many overdue calls; so we left Pitache and John Flint together,
out in the birdhaunted, sweet-scented, sun-dappled garden, in the
golden morning hours. No one can be quite heartless in a green garden,
quite hopeless in the spring, or quite desolate when there's a dog's
friendly nose to be thrust into one's hand.
I am afraid that at first he missed all this; for he could think of
nothing but himself and that which had befallen him, coming upon him
as a bolt from the blue. He had had, heretofore, nothing but his
body--and now his body had betrayed him! It had become, not the
splendid engine which obeyed his slightest wish, but a drag upon him.
Realizing this acutely, untrained, undisciplined, he was savagely
sullen, impenetrably morose. He tired of Laurence's reading--I think
the boy's free quickness of movement, his well-knit, handsome body,
the fact that he could run and jump as pleased him, irked and chafed
the man new and unused to his own physical infirmity.
He seemed to want none of us; I have seen him savagely repulse the
dog, who, shocked and outraged at this exhibition of depravity,
withdrew, casting backward glances of horrified and indignant
reproach.
But as the lovely, peaceful, healing days passed, that bitter and
contracted heart had to expand somewhat. Gradually the ferocity faded,
leaving in its room an anxious and brooding wonder. God knows what
thoughts passed through that somber mind in those long hours, when,
concentrated upon himself, he must have faced the problem of his
future and, like one before an impassable stone wall, had to fall
back, baffled. He could be sure of only one thing: that never again
could he be what he had been once--"the slickest cracksman in
America." This in itself tortured him. Heretofore, life had been
exactly what he chose to make it: he had put himself to the test, and
he had proven himself the most daring, the coolest, shrewdest, most
cunning, in that sinister world in which he had shone with so evil a
light. _He had been Slippy McGee_. Sure of himself, his had been that
curious inverted pride which is the stigmata of the criminal.
More than once I saw him writhe in his chair, tormented, shaken, spent
with futile curses, impotently lamenting his lost kingdom. He still
had the skill, the cold calculating brain, the wit, the will; and now,
by a cruel chance and a stupid accident, he had lost out! The end had
come for him, and he in his heyday! There were moments when, watching
him, I had the sensation as of witnessing almost visibly, here in our
calm sunny garden, the Dark Powers fighting openly for a soul.
_"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."_