MORE THINGS HAPPENING
THE Reeds were aristocrats of the first rank. There were no men in the
family at all, no one but old Mrs. Reed, who had been a widow for at
least forty years, and her two old maid daughters, Miss Elizabeth and
Miss Margaret.
Weston was a beautiful place if somewhat gone to seed by reason of the
impossibility of obtaining the necessary labor to keep it up. The house
was a low rambling building, part brick and part frame, where rooms had
been added on in days gone by when the family was waxing instead of
waning, as was now the case.
Miss Elizabeth insisted upon my coming in the house although I longed to
be allowed the privilege of exploring the garden, which I had remembered
with great pleasure from former visits with my father. No matter if
potatoes had to go unplanted and wheat uncut, the ladies of Weston had
never permitted the flower garden to be neglected. I could see it from
the window of the parlor through the half closed blinds. Cosmos and
chrysanthemums were massed in glowing clumps, holding their own in spite
of a light frost we had had the night before. The monthly roses, huge
bushes that looked as though they had been there for centuries, were
blooming profusely.
Mrs. Reed was very, very low, so low that her daughters feared the
worst. A door opened from the parlor into her bedroom, which the
daughters spoke of always with a kind of reverence as "the chamber."
Through this door I could hear the low clear voice of the old lady as
she greeted the doctor.
"How do you do, James? I am glad to see you once more."
"Yes, Mrs. Reed, I am more than glad of the privilege of seeing you. May
I feel your pulse?" His tone was that of a man who requests to kiss
one's hand.
"You may, James, but there is no use. I am quite easy now, but only a
few moments ago my heart quite stopped beating. Each time I swing a
little lower. Did I hear someone say you had little Page with you?"
"Yes, madame! She is in the parlor."
"I want to see the child."
I heard quite distinctly but I did not want to go in, shrinking
instinctively from the ordeal of speaking to the old lady who was
swinging so low.
Miss Elizabeth came for me. It seemed impossible to me that anyone could
be older than Miss Elizabeth, who looked a hundred. She was in reality
almost seventy. The mother was ninety but did not look any older than
the daughter nor much more fragile. Miss Margaret was much more buxom
than Miss Elizabeth and perhaps ten years younger. She was regarded by
the two older ladies as nothing more than a child.
"Mother wants to see you," whispered the weeping Miss Elizabeth. Miss
Elizabeth always did weep about everything. In fact, in the course of
her threescore years and almost ten, so many tears had flowed down her
cheeks that they had worn a little furrow from the corner of her eye to
the corner of her mouth, where it made a neat little twist outward just
in time to keep the salt water out of her mouth. These wrinkles in the
poor lady's cheeks gave to her countenance a whimsical expression of
laughter. The little twist at the end of the furrow was responsible for
this.
I went as bidden and hoped no one knew how I hated it.
"Page, Mrs. Reed wants to see you a moment," said Father very gently.
"How do you do?" I whispered in such a wee voice that I felt as though
someone away off had said it and not I. I knew that Mrs. Reed was deaf,
too, and that I should have spoken in a loud tone.
"I'll be better soon, child," answered the old lady, who did not seem to
be deaf at all. They say sometimes just before death that faculties
become quite acute.
"How pretty you are, my dear, almost as pretty as your mother. I hope
you appreciate what a good man your father is." Her voice was very low
and I had to lean over to catch what she was saying. Her thin old hands
were lying on the outside of the counterpane and they seemed to me to
look already dead. I had never seen a dead person but I fancied that
their hands must look just that way. I was deeply grateful to Fate that
I did not have to take one of those hands.
"Yes; ma'am--I--believe I do. He is the best man in the world."
"He is so honest. Now he knows I am almost gone and he would not tell me
a lie about it for anything,--would you, James?"
"No, madame!" and Father put his finger again on her wrist. Miss
Elizabeth wept silently and Miss Margaret sobbed aloud.
"Tell me, has Ellen Miller's baby come?"
"Yes, I have just come from there. It is a fine boy and mother and baby
doing well."
"Good! I am glad when I hear some men are being born into the county.
Too many women! Too many women! What are you girls crying for?" she
asked, turning her head a little on the pillow and looking with wonder
at the two old ladies she called girls. "There is no use in crying for
me. I am glad to die,--not that I have not been happy in my life,--yes,
very happy! But there are more on the other side than this side now for
me. Your father and brothers, my father and mother and brothers and
sisters, all my friends. Do you think I'll know them, James?"
"Yes, madame, I think you will."
"I don't expect them to know me," the faint old voice went on. "How
could they know me, so old and wrinkled and feeble? My husband was only
fifty-five when he died and I was still nothing more than a child of
fifty. My hair had not turned and I was very lively. Do you think he
will be disappointed to find me so old?"
Her mind was wandering now and her voice trailed off to the finest
thread. Father motioned me to go, but before I could turn the old lady
suddenly sat up in bed and called to her daughters:
"Don't forget to have the giant-of-battle rose trimmed back and those
hollyhocks transplanted!" Then she fell back on her pillow and closed
her eyes.
I slipped out of the room and ran into the garden where Father found me
a half hour later.
"How is Mrs. Reed, Father?" I asked. He looked at me wonderingly.
"She is well again," he answered gently. "She was dead, my dear, before
you left the room."
"Oh, Father!" I gasped.
"I was sorry for you to be there, but I got fooled. I thought the old
lady was going to live a few hours longer, but doctors know mighty
little when you come down to life and death. Come, honey! We must go. I
have a sick child to see on my way home."
We had to stop at a little country store on the way to see the sick
child to get some chewing-gum for the youthful patient. Father always
had chewing-gum for the sick kiddies and that kept him in high favor
with them. Doc Allison was looked upon as a kind of concrete Santy who
gave un-Christmas presents. He carried peppermints always in his pocket,
and when a child was told to poke out his tongue he more than likely
would find a peppermint on it before he pulled it in again.
The child was better and our stay did not have to be very lengthy. All
the children in the family had insisted upon showing their tongues to
the giver of peppermints, which delayed us a few moments.
"And now for home!" said Father, who was looking tired. He actually
handed the reins to me to drive while he filled his pipe for a peaceful
smoke.
We were passing through a settlement where there was the usual
post-office, country store, church and schoolhouse, with a few houses
straggling around, when a young man ran out into the road and called
desperately to Father to stop. I drew rein and he came panting to the
buggy.
"Doc Allison, please come be witness for us!"
"Witness? What for?"
"Well, Julia and I have walked off to get married. I won't say 'run off'
because both of us are of age and have been of age for a good five
years. But Julia's mother is that cantankerous that she won't let her
get married if she knows about it, and so we have come to the parson's
with license and all; but he says we must have witnesses and there's no
one in the settlement right now but the postmaster and the storekeeper
and they can't leave their jobs, and besides they are afraid of the old
lady. She is on her way here now, I believe, so you'll have to hurry."
We found the bride in the parson's parlor looking nervously out of the
window. She, too, was afraid of the old lady. I was sorry for the parson
because he must have been afraid, too, but he went manfully through the
ceremony. He had hardly finished with: "Whom God hath united let no man
put asunder," when there was a terrible commotion in the road. An old
lady came driving up in a spring wagon. She had blood in her eye, a
terribly rampagious old lady. She stepped out of the wagon and I noticed
she had on top boots. She wore a short, scant skirt and a workman's blue
chambray shirt and a man's hat pulled down over as determined a
countenance as I have ever seen.
"Mrs. Henderson!" gasped the preacher, turning pale, and well he might
as Mrs. Henderson was someone to stand in awe of.
"Come on home here, girl!" she said roughly, as she made her way into
the parson's parlor.
"Her home is where I live now," said the young man, putting his arm
around the bride.
"Nonsense! I never got too late to anything in my life. I telephoned
these folks over here that they had better not stand as witness to any
ceremony until I got here, and I know they wouldn't do it." She had been
too enraged to notice Father and me, but now when Father stepped up and
spoke to her, she fell back in confusion.
"My daughter and I were fortunately in time to witness the ceremony," he
said quietly. "It is all over now and your daughter is safely married."
"Married!"
"Yes, Mrs. Henderson, and I advise you to sit still a moment and compose
yourself. You will have apoplexy some of these days flying off in these
rages." He looked at her very sternly. "Your daughter has married a good
young fellow and she will be much happier than she would be remaining
single."
"What business is it of yours, I'd like to know?"
"No business at all, except that I was asked to witness the ceremony by
your son-in-law; and if you should get sick from the excitement you are
working yourself into, you will send for me post haste," answered Father
coolly.
"Never! Not after the bad turn you have done me!"
"Well, that's as you choose," he laughed.
Then he kissed the bride, who had said never a word but clung to her
husband; shook hands with the groom and the parson; held out his hand to
the irate, booted old woman. She would have none of him, however, but
folded her arms and sniffed indignantly. She made me think of:
"But Douglas 'round him drew his cloak,
Folded his arms and thus he spoke:"
One couldn't help laughing at her but feeling sorry for her, too.
"She'll have to pay for this," said Father, as we started again for
home. "She has been going into rages like this all her life and usually
has a spell of sickness after one like to-day's."
"But, Father, you surely would not go to her after the way she spoke to
you!"
"Of course I would if she needs me. Country doctors can't be too touchy.
It isn't as though she could get someone else as she could in town. In
cities a doctor isn't so important as he is in the country. There are
always plenty more to answer a call that he turns down. I have never in
my life refused a patient."
We had a quiet drive home, Father smoking his pipe, while I gave
undivided attention to the prancings and shyings of the colt. I was
thinking of all the happenings of the day.
"A penny for your thoughts!" he said, pinching my ear. "I bet I know
what you are ruminating."
"Well!"
"You have come to the conclusion that a good deal can happen in a
country neighborhood in a day: a birth, a death, a marriage and a
quarrel."