October 5. I went this afternoon to walk on the Rim road. The day was
beyond words in its beauty,--crisp, and clear, and rich with all that
vitality which nature seems so full of in autumn, as if it were filling
itself with life to withstand the long strain of the winter. The leaves
were splendid in their color, and shone against the sky as if they were
full of happiness. Perhaps it was the day that made it possible for me
to see the red house without a pang, but I think it was the sense of
baby at home, well and happy, and learning, unconsciously of course, to
love me with every day that goes over her small head. A thin thread of
smoke trickled up from the chimney, and I thought I ought to go in to
see if the old grandmother was there. I wonder if it is right not to try
if the blessed granddaughter might not soften her old heart, battered
and begrimed if it be. Nobody answered my knock, however, and so I did
not see Mrs. Brownrig, for which I was selfishly glad. She has not been
very gracious when I have sent her things, so I was not, I confess,
especially anxious for an interview. I went away smiling to myself over
a saying of Father's: "There is nothing so pleasant as a disagreeable
duty conscientiously escaped."
October 6. I really know something which has escaped the acuteness of
Aunt Naomi, and I feel greatly puffed up in consequence. Deacon Richards
has been here this evening, and as it was rather cool I had a brisk,
cheery fire.
"I do like to be warm," he said, stretching out his hand luxuriously to
the blaze. "I never could understand why I feel the cold so. I should
think it was age, if it hadn't always been so from the time I was a
boy."
I thought of the cold vestry, and smiled to myself as I wondered if
Deacon Daniel had ascetic ideas of self-torture.
"Then I should think you would be fond of big fires," I observed.
"I am," he responded, "only they make me sleepy. I'm like a kitten; I go
to sleep when I get warmed through."
I laughed outright, and when he asked me what I was laughing at I told
him it was partly at the idea of his being like a kitten, and partly
because I had found him out.
"It is all very well for you to keep the vestry as cold as a barn so
that you can keep awake," I added; "but don't you think it is unfair to
the rest of the congregation to freeze them too?"
He looked rather disconcerted a moment, and then grinned, though
sheepishly.
"Heat makes other people sleepy too," he said defensively.
I chaffed him a little, and told him I should send a couple of loads of
wood to the vestry, and that if it were necessary I would give him a
bottle of smelling-salts to keep him awake, but certainly the room must
be warmer. I declared I would not have dear old lady Andrews exposed to
the danger of pneumonia, even if he was like a kitten. It is really
quite as touching as it is absurd to think of his sitting in
prayer-meeting shivering and uncomfortable because he feels it his duty
to keep awake. In biblical times dancing before the Lord was a
legitimate form of worship; it is almost a pity that sleeping before the
Lord cannot be put among proper religious observances. Dear Miss
Charlotte always sleeps--devoutly, I am sure--at every prayer-meeting,
and then comes out declaring it has been a beautiful meeting. I have no
doubt she has been spiritually refreshed, even if she has nodded. Father
used to say that no religion could be permanent until men were able to
give their deity a sense of humor; and I do think a supreme being which
could not see the humorous side of Deacon Richards' pathetic
mortification of the flesh in his frosty vestry could hardly have the
qualifications necessary to manage the universe properly.
October 12. Ranny Gargan has settled the question of marriage for the
present at least. He has remarried his first wife to prevent her from
bringing suit against him. As Miss Charlotte rather boldly said, he has
legitimized the beating by marrying the woman.
Rosa takes the matter coolly. She says she is glad to have things so she
can't think of Ranny, for now she can take Dennis, and not bother any
more about it.
"It's a comfort to any woman not to have to decide what man she'll
marry," she remarked with her amazing philosophy.
"Then you'd like to have somebody arrange a marriage for you, Rosa," I
said, rather for the sake of saying something.
"Arrange, is it?" she cried, bristling up suddenly. "What for would I
have somebody making my marriage? I'd like to see anybody that would
dare!"
The moral of which seems to be that if Rosa is so much of a philosopher
that she sometimes seems to me to be talking scraps out of old heathen
sages, she is yet only a woman.
October 20. Aunt Naomi had about her when she came stealthily in this
afternoon an air of excitement so evident as almost to be contagious. I
could see by the very hurry of her sliding step and the extra tightness
of her veil that something had stirred her greatly.
"What is it, Aunt Naomi?" I asked at once. "You fairly bristle with
news. What's happened?"
She smiled and gave a little cluck, but my salutation made her instantly
moderate her movements. She sat down with a composed and self-contained
air, and only by the unusually vigorous swinging of her foot showed that
she was not as serene as on ordinary occasions.
"Who said anything had happened?" she demanded.