"Something is always happening, I suppose."
I know Aunt Naomi well enough to understand that the quickest way of
coming at her tidings was to pretend indifference, so I asked no more
questions, but made a careless remark about the weather.
"What made you think anything had happened?" persisted she.
"It was simply an idea that came into my head," was my reply. "I hope
Deacon Daniel keeps the vestry warm in these days."
Aunt Naomi was not proof against this parade of indifference, and in a
moment she broke out with her story.
"Well," she declared, "Tom Webbe seems bound to be talked about."
"Tom Webbe!" I echoed. "What is it now?"
I confess my heart sank with the fear that he had become desperate with
the pressure of weary days, and had somehow defied all the narrow
conventionalities which hem him in here in this little town.
"It's the Brownrig woman," Aunt Naomi announced. "If you get mixed up
with that sort of creatures there's no knowing what you'll come to."
"But what about her?" I demanded so eagerly that I became suddenly
conscious of the keen curiosity which my manner brought into her glance.
"What has she been doing?" I went on, trying to be cool.
It was only by much questioning that I got the story. Had it not been
for my real interest in Tom I would not have bothered so much, but as it
was she had me at her mercy, and knew it. What happened, so far as I can
make out, is this: The Brownrig woman has been worse than ever since
Julia's death. She has been drunk in the streets more than once, and I
am afraid the help she has had from Tom and others has only led her to
greater excesses. Once Deacon Richards came upon her lying in the ditch
beside the road, and she has made trouble more than once, besides
disturbing the prayer-meeting.
Last evening Tom came upon a mob of men and boys down by the Flatiron
Wharf, and in the midst of them was Mrs. Brownrig, singing and howling.
They were baiting her, and saying things to provoke her to more
outrageous profanity.
"They do say," observed Aunt Naomi with what seemed to me, I am ashamed
to say, an unholy relish, "her swearing was something awful. John Deland
told me he never heard anything like it. He said no man could begin to
come up to it."
"John Deland, that owns the smoke-houses?" I put in. "What was he doing
there? I always thought he was a decent man."
"So he is. He says," she returned with her drollest smile, "he was just
passing by and couldn't help hearing. I dare say you couldn't have
helped hearing if you'd been passing by."
"I should have passed pretty quickly then; but what did Tom Webbe do?"
She went on to say that Tom had come upon this disgraceful scene, and
found the crowd made up of all the lowest fellows in town. The men were
shouting with laughter, and the old woman was shrieking with rage and
intoxication.
"John Deland says as soon as Tom saw what was going on and who the woman
was, he broke through the crowd, and took her by the arm, and told her
to come home. She cursed him, and said she wouldn't go; and then she
cried, and they had a dreadful time. Then somebody in the crowd--John
says he thinks it was one of the Bagley boys that burnt Micah Sprague's
barn. You remember about that, don't you? They live somewhere down
beyond the old shipyard"--
"I remember that the Spragues' barn was burned," answered I; "but what
did the Bagley boy do last night?"
"He called out to Tom Webbe to get out of the way, and not spoil the
fun. Then Tom turned on the crowd, and I guess he gave it to them hot
and heavy."
"I'm sure I hope he did!" I said fervently.
"He said he thought they might be in better business than tormenting an
old drunken woman like that, and called them cowards to their faces.
They got mad, and wanted to know what business it was of his, anyway.
Then he blazed out again, and said"--
I do not know whether the pause Aunt Naomi made was intentionally
designed to rouse me still further, or whether she hesitated
unconsciously; but I was too excited to care.
"What did he say?" I asked breathlessly.
"He told them she was his mother-in-law."
"Tom Webbe said that? To that crowd?" cried I, and I felt the tears
spring into my eyes. It was chiefly excitement, of course, but the pluck
of it and the hurt to Tom came over me in a flash. "What did they do?"
"They just muttered, and got out of the way. John Deland said it wasn't
two minutes before Tom was left alone with the old woman, and then he
took her home. It's a pity she wouldn't drink herself to death."
"I think it is, Aunt Naomi," was my answer; though I wished to add that
the sentiment was rather a queer one to come from anybody who believes
as she does.
I do not know what else Aunt Naomi said. Indeed when she had told her
tale she seemed in something of a hurry to leave, and I suspect her of
going on to repeat it somewhere else. Tom's sin has left a trail of
consequences behind it which he could never have dreamed of. I cannot
tell whether I pity him more for this or honor him for the courage with
which he stood up. Poor Tom!
October 24. An odd thing has happened to the Westons. A man came in the
storm last night and dropped insensible on the doorstep. He might have
lain there all night, and very likely would have died before morning,
but George, when he started for bed, chanced to open the door to look at
the weather. He found the tramp wet and covered with sleet, and at first
thought that he was either dead or drunk. When he had got him in and
thawed out by the kitchen fire, the man proved to be ill. George sent
for Dr. Wentworth, and had a bed made up in the shed-chamber, but when
he told me this morning he said it seemed rather doubtful if the tramp
could live.
"What did Mrs. Weston say?" I asked.
I do not know how I came to ask such a question, and I meant nothing by
it. George, however, stiffened in a moment as if he suspected me of
something unkind.
"Mrs. Weston didn't like my taking him into the house," he said. "She
thought I ought to have sent him off to the poor-farm."
"You could hardly do that last night," I returned, wondering how I could
have offended him. "I am afraid the tramp's looks set her against him."
"She hasn't seen him. She'd gone to bed before I found him last night,
and this morning he is pretty sick. Dr. Wentworth says he can't be moved
now. He's in a high fever, and keeps talking all the time."
It is so very seldom we hear of tramps in Tuskamuck that it is strange
to have one appear like this, and it is odd he chose George's house to
tumble down at, as it is a little out of the road. Tramps have a law of
their own, however, and never do what one would expect of them. I hope
his illness will not be serious. I offered to do what I could, but
George said they could take care of the man for the present. Then he
hesitated, and flushed a little as if confused.
"I am sorry," he said, "it should happen just now, for Gertrude ought
not to be troubled when--when she isn't well."
It is a pity, and I hope no harm will come of it, but if Mrs. Weston has
not seen the tramp and has not been startled, I do not see why any
should.
October 26. If I could be superstitious, I think I should be now; but of
course the whole thing is nonsense. People are talking--in forty-eight
hours! How gossip does spring and spread!--as if there were something
peculiar about that tramp. There is nothing definite to say except that
he came to George's house, which is a little off from the main street,
and that in his delirium he keeps calling for some person he says he
knows is there, and he will surely find, no matter how she hides. The
idea of the sick in a delirium is always painful, and the talk about
this man makes it doubly so. I am afraid the fact that Mrs. Weston's
servants do not like her has something to do with the whispers in the
air. Dislike will create suspicion on the slightest excuse, and there
can be nothing to connect her with this dying tramp. What could there
be? I wish Aunt Naomi would not repeat such unpleasant things.
October 27. I have been with Tom hanging the pictures in the new
reading-room, and everything is ready for the opening when the magazines
and the books come. Next Wednesday is the first of the month, and then
we will have it opened. Tom has already a list of over twenty men and
boys who have joined, and lame Peter Tobey is to be janitor. It is
delightful to see how proud and pleased he is. He can help his mother
now, and the poor boy was pathetic in the way he spoke of that. He only
mentioned it, but his tone touched me to the quick.
Tom and I had a delightful afternoon, hanging pictures, arranging the
furniture, and seeing that everything was right. Mr. Turner and Deacon
Richards came in just as we finished, and the three men were so simple
in their interest, and so hearty about it, that I feel as if everything
was going forward in just the right spirit. Mr. Turner saw where a
bracket was needed for one of the lamps, and said at once he would make
one to-morrow. It was charming to see how pleased he was to find there
was something he could furnish, and which nobody else at hand could have
supplied. We are always pleased to find we are not only needed, but we
are needed in some particular way which marks our personal fitness for
the thing to be done. Deacon Daniel brought a big braided rug that an
old woman at the Rim had made by his orders. He was in good spirits
because he had helped the old woman and the reading-room at the same
time. Tom was happy because he was at work, and in an atmosphere that
was friendly; and I was happy because I could not help it. And so when
we locked the room, and came home in the early twilight, I felt at peace
with all the world.
Tom came in and had a frolic with Tomine, and when he went he held my
hand a moment, looking into my face as if to impress me with what he
said.
"Thank you, Ruth," were the words; "I think you'll succeed in making me
human again. Good-night."
If I am helping him to be reconciled with the world and himself I am
more glad than I can tell.
October 28. The earthquake always finds us unprepared, and to-night it
has come. I feel dazed and queer, as if life had been shaken to its
foundations, and as if it were trembling about me.
George came in suddenly--My hand trembles so that I am writing like an
old woman. If the chief object of keeping a journal is to help myself to
be sane and rational, I must have better control over my nerves.
About seven o'clock, as I sat sewing, I heard Hannah open the front door
to somebody. I half expected a deacon, as it generally is a deacon in
the evening, but the door opened, and George came rushing in. His hurry
and his excited manner made me see at once that something unusual had
happened. His face was pale, his eyes wild, and somehow his whole air
was terrifying.
"What is the matter?" I cried, jumping up to meet him.
He tried to speak, but only gave a sort of choking gasp.
"Has anything happened?" I asked him. "Your wife"--
"I haven't any wife," he interrupted.
The shock was terrible, for I thought at once she must be dead, and I
made some sort of a horrified exclamation. Then we stared at each other
a minute. I supposed something had happened to her, and that he had from
the force of old habit come to me in hope of comfort.
"I never had a wife," he went on, almost angrily, and as if I had
disputed him.
I do not know what we said then or how we said it. It was a long time
before I could understand, and even now it seems like a bad dream.
Somehow he made me understand that the tramp who was sick at their house
had kept calling out in his delirium for Gertrude and declaring he had
found her, that she need not hide, for he would surely find her wherever
she hid. The servants talked of it, and George knew it a day or two ago.
I do not know whether he suspected anything or not. Very likely he could
hardly tell himself. Finally one of the girls told Mrs. Weston, and she
acted very strangely. She wanted to have a description of the man, and
at last she insisted on going herself to peep at him, to see what he was
like. George happened to come home just at the time Mrs. Weston had
crept up to the door of the shed-chamber. Some exclamation of hers when
she saw her husband roused the sick man, who sat up in bed and screamed
that he knew his wife's voice, and he would see her. George caught her
by the arm, pushed the door wide open with his foot, and led her into
the chamber. She held back, and cried out, and the tramp, half wild with
delirium, sprang out of bed, shouting to George: "Take your hands off of
my wife!"
George declares that even then he should not have believed the tramp was
really speaking the truth if Gertrude hadn't confirmed it. He thought
the man was out of his head, and the worst of his suspicion was that the
stranger had known Mrs. Weston somewhere. As soon as the tramp spoke,
however, she fell down on her knees and caught George's hand, crying
over and over: "I thought he was dead! I thought he was dead!" It must
have been a fearful thing for both of them; and then Gertrude fainted
dead away at George's feet. The girl who had been taking care of the
tramp was out of the room at the moment, but she heard George calling,
and came in time to take her mistress away; while George got the tramp
back to bed, and soothed him into some sort of quiet. Then he rushed
over here. I urged him to go back at once, telling him his wife would
want him, and that it might after all be a mistake.
"I don't want ever to set eyes on her again," he declared doggedly.
"She's cheated me. She told me I was the first man she ever cared for,
and I never had a hint she'd been married. She made a fool of me, but
thank God I'm out of that mess."
"What do you mean?" I asked him. "You are talking about your wife."
"She isn't my wife, I tell you," persisted he. "I'll never live with her
again."
He must have seen how he shocked me, and at last he was persuaded to go
home. I know I must see him to-morrow, and I have a cowardly desire to
run away. I have a hateful feeling of repulsion against him, but that is
something to be overcome. At any rate both he and his poor wife need a
friend if they ever did, and I must do the best I can.
I cannot wonder George should be deeply hurt by finding that Mrs. Weston
had a husband before and did not tell him. She can hardly have loved
him or she must have been honest with him. It may have been through her
love and fear of losing him that she did not dare to tell; though from
what I have seen of her I haven't thought her much given to sentiment.
How dreadful it must be to live a life resting on concealment. I have
very likely been uncharitable in judging her, for she must always have
been uneasy and of course could not be her true self.
October 29. Some rumor of the truth has flown about the town, as I was
sure when I saw Aunt Naomi coming up the walk this forenoon. Sometimes I
think she sees written on walls and fences the things which have
happened or been said in the houses which they surround. She has almost
a second sight; and if I wished to do anything secret I would not
venture to be in the same county with her.
She seated herself comfortably in a patch of sunshine, and looked with
the greatest interest at the mahonia in bloom on the flower-stand by the
south window. She spoke of the weather and of Peter's silliness, told me
where the sewing-circle was to be next week, and approached the real
object of her call with the deliberation of a cat who is creeping up
behind a mouse. When she did speak, she startled me.
"I suppose you know that tramp over to the Westons' died this morning,"
she remarked, so carelessly it might have seemed an accident if her eye
had not fairly gleamed with eagerness.
"Died!" I echoed.
"Yes, he's dead," she went on. "He had some sort of excitement
yesterday, they say, and it seems to have been the end of him."
She watched me as if to see whether I would give any sign of knowing
more of the matter than she did, but for once I hope I baffled her
penetration. I made some ordinary comment, which could not have told her
much.
"It's very queer a tramp should go to that particular house to die,"
observed Aunt Naomi, as if she were stating an abstract truth in which
she had no especial interest.