WATCHING AND WAITING
The pink and white blossoms of the apple trees by the pump in Aunt
Barbara's back yard were dropping their snowy petals upon the clean,
bright grass, and the frogs in the meadows were croaking their sad
music, when Richard Markham came again to Chicopee. He had started for
home the morning after his memorable interview with Mrs. Dr. Van Buren,
and to Aunt Barbara had fallen the task of telling her troubles to the
colonel's family, asking that the affair be kept as quiet as possible,
inasmuch as Ethie might soon be found, and matters between her and
Richard be made right. Every day, after the mail came from the West, the
colonel rang at Aunt Barbara's door and asked solemnly, "if there was
any news"--good news, he meant--and Aunt Barbara always shook her head,
while her face grew thinner, and her round, straight figure began to get
a stoop and a look of greater age than the family Bible would warrant.
Ethelyn had not been heard from, and search as he would, Richard could
find no trace of her whatever. She had effectually covered her tracks,
so that not even a clew to her whereabouts was found. No one had seen
her, or any person like her, and the suspense and anxiety of those
three--Richard, Aunt Barbara, and Andy--who loved her so well, was
getting to be terrible, when there came to Andy a letter--a letter in
the dear, familiar handwriting. A few lines only, and they read:
"NEW YORK, May--.
"MY DARLING ANDY: I know you have not forgotten me, and I am
superstitious enough to fancy that you are with me in spirit constantly.
I do not know why I am writing this to you, but something impels me to
do it, and tell you that I am well. I cannot say happy yet, for the
sundering of every earthly relation made too deep a wound for me not to
feel the pain for months and may be for years. I have employment,
though--constant employment--that helps me to bear, and keeps me from
dwelling too much upon the past.
"Andy, I want you to tell Richard that in thinking over my married life
I see many places where I did very wrong and tried him terribly. I am
sorry for that, and hope he will forgive me. I wish I had never crossed
his path and left so dark a shadow on his life.
"Tell your mother that I know now I did not try to make her like me.
Perhaps I could not if I had; but I might at least have tried. I am
sorry I troubled her so much.
"Tell Melinda Jones, and James and John, that I remember all their
kindness, and thank them so much. And Eunice, too. She was good to me,
always. And oh! Andy, please get word somehow to dear Aunt Barbara that
her lost Ethie is well, and so sorry to give her pain, as I know I do. I
would write to her myself, but I am afraid she blames me for going away
and bringing a kind of disgrace upon her and Aunt Van Buren. I cannot
say yet I am sorry for the step I took, and, until I am sorry I cannot
write to Aunt Barbara. But you must tell her for me how much I love her,
and how every night of my life I dream I am back in the dear old home
under the maples, and see upon the hills the swelling buds and leaves of
spring. Tell her not to forget me, and be sure that wherever I am or
whatever may befall me, she will be remembered as the dearest, most
precious memory of my life. Next to her Andy, you come; my darling Andy,
who was always so kind to me when my heart was aching so hard.
"Good-by, Andy, good-by."
This was the letter which Andy read with streaming eyes, while around
him, on tiptoe, to look over his and each other's shoulders, stood the
entire family, all anxious and eager to know what the runaway had
written. It was a very conciliatory letter, and it left a sadly pleasant
impression on those who read it, making even the mother wipe her eyes
with the corner of her apron as she washed her supper dishes in the sink
and whispered to herself, "She didn't trouble me so very much more than
I did her. I might have done different, too."
Richard made no comment whatever, but, like Andy, he conned the letter
over and over until he knew it by heart, especially the part referring
to himself. She had cast a shadow upon his life, but she was very dear
to him for all that, and he would gladly have taken back the substance,
had that been possible. This letter Richard carried to Aunt Barbara,
whom he found sitting in her pleasant porch, with the May moonlight
falling upon her face, and her eyes wearing the look of one who is
constantly expecting something which never comes. And Aunt Barbara was
expecting Ethie. It could not be that a young girl like her would stay
away for long. She might return at any time, and every morning the good
woman said to herself, "She will be here to-day;" every night, "She will
come home to-morrow." The letter, however, did not warrant such a
conclusion There was no talk of coming back, but the postmark, "New
York," told where she was, and that was something gained. They could
surely find her now, Aunt Barbara said, and she and Richard talked long
together about what he was going to do, for he was on his way then to
the great city.
"Bring her to me at once. It is my privilege to have her first," Aunt
Barbara said, next morning, as she bade Richard good-by, and then began
to watch and wait for tidings which never came.
Richard could not find Ethelyn, or any trace of her, and after a
protracted search of six long weeks, he went back to his Iowa home,
sick, worn out, and discouraged. Aunt Barbara roused herself for action.
"Men were good for nothing to hunt. They could not find a thing if it
was right before their face and eyes. It took a woman; and she was going
to see what she could do," she said to Mrs. Van Buren, who was up at the
homestead for a few days, and who looked aghast at her sister's
proposition, that she should accompany her, and help her hunt up Ethie.
"Was Barbara crazy, that she thought of going to New York in this hot
weather, when the smallpox, and the dysentery, and the plague, and mercy
knew what was there? Besides that, how did Barbara intend to manage?
What was she going to do?"
Barbara hardly knew herself how she should manage, or what she should
do. "Providence would direct," she said, though to be sure she had an
idea. Ethie had written that she had found employment, and what was more
probable than to suppose that the employment was giving music lessons,
for which she was well qualified, or teaching in some gentleman's
family. Taking this as her basis, Aunt Barbara intended to inquire for
every governess and teacher in the city, besides watching every house
where such an appendage would be likely to be found. Still her great
hope was in the street and the Park. She should surely meet Ethie there
some day--at least she would try the effect of her plan; and she went
quietly on with her preparations, while Mrs. Van Buren tried to dissuade
her from a scheme which seemed so foolish and utterly impracticable.
"Suppose Ethie was a governess, the family most likely would be out of
town at that season; and what good would it do for Aunt Barbara to risk
her life and health in the crowded city?"
This view of the matter was rather dampening to Aunt Barbara's zeal; but
trusting that Providence would interfere in her behalf, she still
insisted that she should go, and again expressed a wish that Sophia
would go with her. "It would not be so lonesome, and would look better,
too," she said, "while you know more of city ways than I do, and would
not get imposed upon."
Mrs. Van Buren could go far beyond her sister in abusing Richard, but
when it came to a sacrifice of her own comfort and pleasure, she held
back. Nothing could induce her to go to New York. She preferred the cool
seaside, where she was to join a party of Boston élite. Her dresses were
made, her room engaged, and she must go, she said, urging that Nettie's
health required the change--Nettie, who had given to her husband a
sickly, puny child, which lived just long enough to warrant a grand
funeral, and then was laid to rest under the shadow of the Van Buren
monument, out in pleasant Mount Auburn.
So Mrs. Van Buren went back to Boston, while Aunt Barbara gave all
needful directions to Betty with regard to the management of the house,
and the garden, and plants, and cellar door, which must be shut nights,
and the spot on the roof which sometimes leaked when it rained, and the
burdocks and dandelions which must be dug up, and the grass which Uncle
Billy Thompson must cut once in two weeks, and the old cat, Tabby, and
the young cat, Jim, who had come to the door in a storm, and was now the
pet of the house, and the canary bird, and the yeast, and look in the
vinegar barrel to see that all was right, and be sure and scald the
milk-pans, and turn them up in the sun for an hour, and keep the doors
locked, and the silver up in the scuttle-hole; and if she heard the rat
which baffled and tormented them so long, get some poison and kill it,
but not on any account let it get in the cistern; and keep the
door-steps clean, and the stoop, and once in a while sweep the low roof
at the back of the house, and not sit up late nights, or sleep very long
in the morning; and inasmuch as there would be so little to do, she
might as well finish up all her new sewing, and make the pile of sheets
and pillow-cases which had been cut out since March. These were Aunt
Barbara's directions, which Betty, nothing appalled, promised to heed,
telling her mistress not to worry an atom, as things should be attended
to, even better than if she were at home to see to them herself.
Aunt Barbara knew she could trust old Betty, and so, after getting
herself vaccinated in both arms, as a precaution against the smallpox,
and procuring various disinfecting agents, and having underpockets put
in all her dresses, by way of eluding pickpockets, the good woman
started one hot July morning on her mission in search of Ethie. But,
alas, finding Ethie, or anyone, in New York, was like "hunting for a
needle in a hay mow," as Aunt Barbara began to think after she had been
for four weeks or more an inmate of an uptown boarding house,
recommended as first-class, but terrible to Aunt Barbara, from the
contrast it presented to her own clean, roomy home beneath the maple
trees, which came up to her so vividly, with all its delicious coolness
and fragrance, and blossoming shrubs, and newly cut grass, with the dew
sparkling like diamonds upon it.
Aunt Barbara was terribly homesick from the first, but she would not
give up; so day after day she traversed one street after another,
looking wistfully in every face she met for the one she sought,
questioning children playing in the parks and squares as to whether they
knew any teacher by the name of Markham or Grant, ringing the door-bells
of every pretentious-looking house and putting the same question to the
servants, until the bombazine dress and black Stella shawl, and brown
Neapolitan hat, and old-fashioned lace veil, and large sun umbrella
became pretty well known in various parts of New York, while the owner
thereof grew to be a suspicious character, whom servants watched from
the basement and ladies from the parlor windows, and children shunned on
the sidewalk, while even the police were cautioned with regard to the
strange woman who went up and down day after day, sometimes in stages,
sometimes in cars, but oftener on foot, staring at everyone she met,
especially if they chanced to be young or pretty, and had any children
near them. Once down near Washington Square, as she was hurrying toward
a group of children, in the center of which stood a figure much like
Ethie's, a tall man in the blue uniform accosted her, inquiring into her
reasons for wandering about so constantly.
Aunt Barbara's honest face, which she turned full toward the officer,
was a sufficient voucher for her with the simple, straightforward
explanation which she made to the effect that her niece had left home
some time ago--run away, in fact--and she was hunting for her here in
New York, where her letter was dated. "But it's wearisome work for an
old woman like me, walking all over New York, as I have," Aunt Barbara
said, and her lip began to quiver as she sat down upon one of the seats
in the square, and looked helplessly up at the policeman. She was not
afraid of him, nor of the five others of the craft who knew her by
sight, and stopped to hear what she had to say. She never dreamed that
they could suspect her of wrong, and they did not when they heard her
story, and saw the truthful, motherly face. Perhaps they could help her,
they said, and they asked the name of the runaway.
At first Aunt Barbara refused to give it, wishing to spare Ethie this
notoriety; but she finally yielded so far as to say, "She might call
herself either Markham or Grant," and that was all they could get from
her; but after that day the bombazine dress, and black Stella shawl, and
large sun umbrella were safe from the surveillance of the police, save
as each had a kindly care for the owner, and an interest in the object
of her search.
The light-fingered gentry, however, were not as chary of her. The sweet,
motherly face, and wistful, pleading, timid eyes, did not deter them in
the least. On the contrary, they saw in the bombazine and Stella shawl a
fine field for their operations; and twice, on returning to her boarding
house, the good soul was horrified to find her purse was missing,
notwithstanding that she had kept her hand upon her pocket every
instant, except once, when the man who looked like a minister had kindly
opened the car window for her, and she had gathered up her dress to make
more room for him at her side, and once when she got entangled in a
crowd, and had to hold on to her shawl to keep it on her shoulders. Ten
dollars was the entire sum purloined, so the villains did not make much
out of her, Aunt Barbara reflected with a good deal of complacency; but
when they stole her gold-bowed glasses from her pocket, and adroitly
snatched from her hand the parcel containing the dress she had bought
for Betty at Stewart's, she began to look upon herself as specially
marked by a gang of thieves for one on whom to commit their
depredations; and when at last a fire broke out in the very block where
she was boarding, and she, with others was driven from her bed at
midnight, with her bombazine only half on, and her hoops left behind,
she made up her mind that the fates were against her, and wrote to Betty
that she was coming home, following her letter in the next train so that
both reached Chicopee the same day, the very last day of summer.
It was sooner than Betty expected her, but the clean, cool house,
peeping out from the dense shadows of the maples, looked like a paradise
to the tired, dusty woman, who rode down the street in the village hack
and surprised Betty sitting in the back door cutting off corn to dry and
talking to Uncle Billy, whose scythe lay on the grass while he drank
from the gourd swimming on top of the water-pail.
Betty was glad to see her mistress, and lamented that she did not know
of her coming, so as to have a nice hot cup of tea ready, with a
delicate morsel of something. Aunt Barbara was satisfied to be home on
any terms, though her nose did go up a little, and something which
sounded like "P-shew!" dropped from her lips as she entered the dark
sitting room, where the odor was not the best in the world.
"It's the rat, ma'am, I think," Betty said, opening both blinds and
windows. "I put the pizen for him as you said, and all I could do he
would die in the wall. It ain't as bad as it has been, and I've got some
stuff here to kill it, though I think it smells worse than the rat
himself," and Betty held her nose as she pointed out to her mistress the
saucer of chloride of lime which, at Mrs. Col. Markham's suggestion, she
had put in the sitting room.
Aside from the rat in the wall, things were mostly as Aunt Barbara could
wish them to be. The vinegar had made beautifully. There was fresh
yeast, brewed the day before, in the jug. The milk-pans were bright and
sweet; the cellar door was fastened; the garden was looking its best;
the silver was all up the scuttle-hole, Betty climbing up and risking
her neck every morning to see if it were safe; the stoop and steps were
scrubbed, the roof was swept, and both the cats, Tabby and Jim, were so
fat that they could scarcely walk as they came up to greet their
mistress. Only two mishaps Betty had to relate. Jim had eaten up the
canary bird, and she had broken the kitchen tongs. She had also failed
to accomplish as much sewing as she had hoped to do, and the pile of
work was not greatly diminished.
"There is so many steps to take when a body is alone, and with you gone
I was more particular," she said, by way of apology, as she confessed to
the rat, and the canary bird, and the kitchen tongs, and the small
amount of sewing she had done.
These were all the points wherein she had been remiss, and Aunt Barbara
was content, and even happy, as she laid aside her Stella shawl and
brown Neapolitan, and out in her pleasant dining room sat down to the
hasty meal which Betty improvised, of bread and butter, Dutch cheese,
baked apples, and huckleberry pie, with a cup of delicious tea, such as
Aunt Barbara did not believe the people of New York had ever tasted.
Most certainly those who were fortunate enough to board at first-class
boarding-houses had not; and as she sipped her favorite beverage with
Tabby on her dress and the criminal Tim in her lap, his head
occasionally peering over the table, she felt comforted and rested, and
thankful for her cozy home, albeit it lay like a heavy weight upon her
that her trouble had been for nothing, and no tidings of Ethie had
been obtained.
She wrote to Richard the next day, of her unsuccessful search, and asked
what they should do next.
"We can do nothing but wait and hope," Richard wrote in reply, but Aunt
Barbara added to it, "we can pray;" and so all through the autumn, when
the soft, hazy days which Ethie had loved so well kept the lost one
forever in mind, Aunt Barbara waited and hoped, and prayed and watched
for Ethie's coming home, feeling always a sensation of expectancy when
the Western whistle sounded and the Western train went thundering
through the town; and when the hack came up from the depot and did not
stop at her door, she said to herself, "She would walk up, maybe," and
then waiting again she would watch from her window and look far up the
quiet street, where the leaves of crimson and gold were lying upon the
walk. No Ethie was to be seen. Then as the days grew shorter and the
nights fell earlier upon the Chicopee hills, and the bleak winds blew
across the meadow, and the waters of the river looked blue and dark and
cold in the November light, she said: "She will be here sure by
Christmas. She always liked that day best," and her fingers were busy
with the lamb's wool stockings she was knitting for her darling.
"It won't be much," she said to Betty, "but it will show she is not
forgotten;" and so the stocking grew, and was shaped from a half-worn
pair which Ethelyn used to wear, and on which Aunt Barbara's tears
dropped as she thought of the dear little feet, now wandered so far
away, which the stockings used to cover.
Christmas came, and Susie Granger sang of Bethlehem in the old stone
church, and other fingers than Ethie's swept the organ keys, and the
Christmas tree was set up, and the presents were hung upon the boughs,
and the names were called, and Aunt Barbara was there, but the
lamb's-wool stockings were at home in the bureau drawer; there was no
one to wear them, no one to take them from the tree, if they had been
put there; Ethie had not come.