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"SOME SAY"
NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS
BY
LAURA E. RICHARDS
Author of "Captain January," "Melody," "Queen Hildegarde,"
"Five-Minute Stories," "When I Was Your Age,"
"Narcissa," "Marie," "Nautilus," etc.
TWELFTH THOUSAND
[Illustration]
BOSTON
DANA ESTES & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1896_,
BY ESTES & LAURIAT
_All rights reserved_
Colonial Press:
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
Electrotyped by Geo. C. Scott & Sons
"SOME SAY"
TO MY
Dear Sister,
FLORENCE HOWE HALL,
THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED
* * * * *
"SOME SAY."
Part I.
"And some say, she expects to get him married to Rose Ellen before the
year's out!"
"I want to know if she does!"
"Her sister married a minister, and her father was a deacon, so mebbe
she thinks she's got a master-key to the Kingdom. But I don't feel so
sure of her gettin' this minister for Rose Ellen. Some say he's so
wropped up in his garden truck that he don't know a gal from a
gooseberry bush. He! he!"
The shrill cackle was answered by a slow, unctuous chuckle, as of a
fat and wheezy person; then a door was closed, and silence fell.
The minister looked up apprehensively; his fair face was flushed, and
his mild, blue eyes looked troubled. He gazed at the broad back of his
landlady, as she stood dusting, with minute care, the china ornaments
on the mantelpiece; but her back gave no sign. He coughed once or
twice; he said, "Mrs. Mellen!" tentatively, first low, then in his
ordinary voice, but there was no reply. Was Mrs. Mellen deaf? he had
not noticed it before. He pondered distressfully for a few moments;
then dropped his eyes, and the book swallowed him again. Yet the sting
remained, for when presently the figure at the mantelpiece turned
round, he looked up hastily, and flushed again as he met his hostess'
gaze, calm and untroubled as a summer pool.
"There, sir!" said Mrs. Mellen, cheerfully. "I guess that's done to
suit. Is there anything more I can do for you before I go?"
The minister's mind hovered between two perplexities; a glance at the
book before him decided their relative importance.
"Have you ever noticed, Mrs. Mellen, whether woodcocks are more apt to
fly on moonshiny nights, as White assures us?"
"Woodbox?" said Mrs. Mellen. "Why, yes, sir, it's handy by; and when
there's no moon, the lantern always hangs in the porch. But I'll see
that Si Jones keeps it full up, after this."
Decidedly, the good woman was deaf, and she had not heard. Could those
harpies be right? If any such idea as they suggested were actually in
his hostess' mind, he must go away, for his work must not be
interfered with, and he must not encourage hopes,--the minister
blushed again, and glanced around to see if any one could see him.
But he was so comfortable here, and Miss Mellen was so intelligent, so
helpful; and this seemed the ideal spot on which to compile his New
England "Selborne."
He sighed, and thought of the woodcock again. Why should the bird
prefer a moonshiny night? Was it likely that the creature had any
appreciation of the beauties of nature? Shakespeare uses the woodcock
as a simile of folly, to express a person without brains. Ha!
The door opened, and Rose Ellen came in, her eyes shining with
pleasure, her hands full of gold and green.
"I've found the 'Squarrosa,' Mr. Lindsay!" she announced. "See, this
is it, surely!"
The minister rose, and inspected the flowers delightedly. "This is it,
surely!" he repeated. "Stem stout, hairy above; leaves large, oblong,
or the lower spatulate-oval, and tapering into a marginal petiole,
serrate veiny; heads numerous; seeds obtuse or acute; disk-flowers, 16
x 24. This is, indeed, a treasure, for Gray calls it 'rare in New
England.' I congratulate you, Miss Mellen."
"Late, sir?" said Mrs. Mellen, calmly. "Oh, no, 'tisn't hardly five
o'clock yet. Still, 'tis time for me to be thinkin' of gettin'
supper."
"Don't you want I should make some biscuit for supper, mother?" asked
Rose Ellen, coming out of her rapt contemplation of the goldenrod that
Gray condescended to call rare, he to whom all things were common.
Her mother made no answer.
"Don't you want I should make a pan of biscuit?" Rose Ellen repeated.
Still there was no reply, and the girl turned to look at her mother in
some alarm.
"Why, mother, what is the matter? why don't you answer me?"
"Your mother's deafness," the minister put in, hurriedly, "seems
suddenly increased: probably a cold,--"
"Was you speakin' to me, Rose Ellen?" said Mrs. Mellen.
"Why, yes!" said the girl, in distress.
"Why, mother, how did you get this cold? you seemed all right when I
went out."
"Gettin' old!" cried Mrs. Mellen. "'Tis nothin' of the sort, Rose
Ellen! I've took a cold, I shouldn't wonder. I went out without my
shawl just for a minute. I expect 'twas careless, but there! life is
too short to be thinkin' all the time about the flesh, 'specially when
there's as much of it as I have. I've ben expectin' I should grow hard
of hearin', though, these two years past. The Bowlers do, you know,
Rose Ellen, 'long about middle life. There was your Uncle Lihu. I can
hear him snort now, sittin' in his chair, like a pig for all the
world, and with no idea he was makin' a sound."
"But it's come on so sudden!" cried Rose Ellen, in distress.
"That's Bowler!" said her mother. "Bowler for all the world! They take
things suddin, whether it's hoarsin' up, or breakin' out, or what it
is. There! you've heard me tell how my Aunt Phoebe 'Lizabeth come out
with spots all over her face, when she was standin' up to be married.
Chicken-pox it was, and they never knew where she got it; but my
grand'ther said 'twas pure Bowler, wherever it come from."
She gazed placidly at her daughter's troubled face; then, patting her
with her broad hand, pushed her gently out of the room before her.
"Mr. Lindsay's heard enough of my bein' hard of hearin', I expect,"
she said, cheerfully, as they passed into the kitchen.
"Don't you fret, Rose Ellen! You won't have to get a fog-horn yet
awhile. I don't know but it would be a good plan for you to mix up a
mess o' biscuit, if you felt to: Mr. Lindsay likes your biscuit real
well, I heard him say so."
"That's what I was going to do," said Rose Ellen, still depressed. "I
wish't you'd see the doctor, mother. I don't believe but he could help
your hearing, if you take it before it's got settled on you."
"Well, I won't, certain!" said Mrs. Mellen. "The idea, strong and well
as I be! Bowler blood's comin' out, that's all; and the only wonder is
it hasn't come out before."
All that day, and the next, the minister did not seem like himself. He
was no more absent-minded than usual, perhaps,--that could hardly be.
But he was grave and troubled, and the usual happy laugh did not come
when Rose Ellen checked him gently as he was about to put pepper into
his tea. Several times he seemed about to speak: his eye dwelt
anxiously on the cream-jug, in which he seemed to be seeking
inspiration; but each time his heart failed him, and he relapsed with
a sigh into his melancholy reverie.
Rose Ellen was silent, too, and the burden of the talk fell on her
mother. At supper on the second day, midway between the ham and the
griddle-cakes, Mrs. Mellen announced:
"Rose Ellen, I expect you'd better go down to Tupham to-morrow, and
stay a spell with your grandm'ther. She seems to be right poorly, and
I expect it'd be a comfort to her to have you with her. I guess you'd
better get ready to-night, and Calvin Parks can take you up as he goes
along."
Rose Ellen and the minister both looked up with a start, and both
flushed, and both opened wide eyes of astonishment.
"Why, mother!" said the girl. "I can't go away and leave you now, with
this cold on you."
Her mother did not hear her, so Rose Ellen repeated the words in a
clear, high-pitched voice, with a note of anxiety which brought a
momentary shade to Mrs. Mellen's smooth brow. The next moment,
however, the brow cleared again.
"I guess you'd better go!" she said again. "It'd be a pity if Mr.
Lindsay and I couldn't get along for a month or six weeks; and I wrote
mother yesterday that you would be up along to-morrow, so she'll be
looking for you. I don't like to have mother disappointed of a thing
at her age, it gives her the palpitations."
"You--wrote--that I was coming!" repeated Rose Ellen. "And you never
told me you was writing, mother? I--I should have liked to have known
before you wrote."
"Coat?" said Mrs. Mellen. "Oh, your coat'll do well enough, Rose
Ellen. Why, you've only just had it bound new, and new buttons put on.
I should take my figured muslin, if I was you, and have Miss Turner
look at it and see how you could do it over: she has good ideas,
sometimes, and it'd be a little different from what the girls here was
doin', maybe. Anyway, I'd take it, and your light sack, too. 'Twon't
do no harm to have 'em gone over a little."
Rose Ellen looked ready to cry, but she kept the tears back
resolutely.
"I--don't--want to leave you, with this deafness coming on!" she
shouted, her usually soft voice ringing like a bugle across the
tea-table.
"There! there! don't you grow foolish," her mother replied, with
absolute calm.
"Why, I can hear ye as well as ever, when you raise your voice a mite,
like that. I should admire to know why you should stay at home on my
account. I suppose I know my way about the house, if I be losin' my
hearing just a dite. It isn't going to spoil my cooking, that I can
see; and I guess Mr. Lindsay won't make no opposition to your going,
for any difference it'll make to him."
Mr. Lindsay, thus appealed to, stammered, and blushed up to his eyes,
and stammered again; but finally managed to say, with more or less
distinctness, that of course whatever was agreeable to Mrs. and Miss
Mellen was agreeable to him, and that he begged not to be considered
in any way in the formation of their plans.
"That's just what I was thinking!" said his hostess. "A man don't want
no botheration of plans. So that's settled, Rose Ellen."
Rose Ellen knew it was settled. She was a girl of character and
resolution, but she had never resisted her mother's will, nor had any
one else, so far as she knew. She cried a good deal over her packing,
and dropped a tear on her silk waist, the pride of her heart, and was
surprised to find that she did not care. "There's no one there to care
whether I look nice or not!" she said aloud; and then blushed
furiously, and looked around the room, fearfully, to be sure that she
was alone.
Early next morning the crack of a whip was heard, and Calvin Parks's
voice, shouting cheerfully for his passenger. The minister, razor in
hand, peeped between his shutters, and saw Rose Ellen come from the
house, wiping her eyes, and looking back, with anxious eyes. A wave of
feeling swept through him, and he felt, for the moment, that he hated
Mrs. Mellen. He had never hated any one before in his innocent life;
while he was pondering on this new and awful sensation, the pale,
pretty face had sunk back in the depths of the old red-lined stage,
the whip cracked, and Calvin drove away with his prey.
Mrs. Mellen came out on the steps, and looked after the stage. Then,
with a movement singularly swift for so stout a person, she made a few
paces down the walk, and, turning, looked up at the windows of the
houses on either side of her own. In both houses a figure was leaning
from a window, thrown half out over the sill, in an attitude of eager
inquiry. At sight of Mrs. Mellen they dodged back, and only a slight
waving of curtains betrayed their presence. The good woman folded her
arms deliberately, and stood for five minutes, absorbed in the distant
landscape; then she turned, and went slowly back to the house.
"There!" she said, as she closed the door behind her. "That'll keep
'em occupied for one while!" and there was infinite content in her
tone.
Mr. Lindsay, coming in to breakfast, found his hostess beaming behind
the teakettle, placid and cheerful as usual. He still hated her, and
found difficulty in replying with alacrity to her remarks on the
beauty of the morning.
"I expect you and me'll have a right cozy time together!" she
announced. "You no need to put yourself out to talk to me, 'cause I
reelly don't seem to be hearing very good; and I won't talk to you,
save and except when you feel inclined. I know an elder does love to
have a quiet house about him. My sister married a minister, and my
father was a deacon himself, so I'm accustomed to the ways of the
ministry."
Mr. Lindsay stirred his tea, gloomily. The words recalled to his mind
those which had so disturbed him a day or two ago, just when all this
queer business of the deafness had come on. He remembered the spiteful
tones of the two neighbours, and recalled how the words had hissed in
his ears. He had thought of going away himself, lest he should
encourage false hopes in the breast of his gentle young friend--or her
mother; surely Rose Ellen,--as he said the name to himself, he felt
his ears growing pink, and knew that he had not said the name before,
even to himself; straightway said it again, to prove the absurdity of
something, he was not sure what, and felt his throat dry and hot. Now
Rose Ellen herself was gone, and for an indefinite time. She had not
gone willingly, of that he was sure; but it was equally evident that
her mother had no such thoughts as those two harridans had suggested.
He glanced up furtively, to meet a broad, beaming glance, and the
question whether he felt feverish any.
"You seem to flush up easy!" said Mrs. Mellen. "I should be careful,
if I was you, Mr. Lindsay, and not go messing round ponds and such at
this season of the year. It's just this time we commonly look for
sickness rising in the air."
Mr. Lindsay stirred his tea again, and sighed. His mind seemed
singularly distracted; and that, too, when the most precious moments
of the year were passing. He must put all other matters out of his
head, and think only of his great work.
Had the Blackburnian Warbler been seen in this neighbourhood, as he
had been told? He could hardly believe in such good fortune. The shy,
mistrustful bird, hunting the thickest foliage of the tallest forest
trees,--how should his landlady's daughter have seen it when she was
seeking for ferns? yet her description had been exactly that of the
books: "Upper parts nearly uniform black, with a whitish scapular
stripe and a large white patch in the middle of the wing coverts; an
oblong patch--" but she had not been positive about the head. No, but
she _was_ positive as to the bright orange-red on chin, throat, and
forepart of the breast, and the three white tail-feathers. Ah! why was
she gone? why was she not here to show him the way, as she promised,
to the place where she had seen the rare visitor? He might possibly
have found the nest, that rare nest which Samuels never saw, which
only Audubon had described: "composed externally of different
textures, and lined with silky fibres and thin, delicate strips of
bark, over which lies a thick bed of feathers and horsehair."
It should be found in a small fork of a tree, should it? five or six
feet from the ground, near a brook? well, he might still search, the
next time he went out; meanwhile, there were the ferns to analyze, and
that curious moss to determine, if might be. "But mosses are almost
hopeless!" he said aloud, with an appealing glance across the table,
where he was wont to look for sympathy and encouragement.
"Soap dish?" said Mrs. Mellen, with alacrity.
"Well, I don't wonder you ask, Mr. Lindsay. Why, I found it full of
frogs' eggs this very morning, and I hove 'em away and scalt it out.
It's drying in the sun this minute, and I'll bring it right up to your
room directly."
She beamed on him, and left the room. Mr. Lindsay groaned; looked
about him for help, but found none, and retired, groaning, to his
study.
Part II.
The minister had had a delightful but exhausting afternoon. He had
gone to look for the nest of a marsh-hen, which he had some reason to
think might be in a certain swamp, about five miles from the village.
He did not find the nest, but he found plenty of other things: his
pockets bulged with mosses and roots, his hat was wound with a curious
vine that might possibly be Clematis Verticillaris, and both hands
were filled with specimens of every conceivable kind. Incidentally the
mosquitoes and black flies had found him: his face was purple, and,
like that of the lady at the Brick Lane Branch tea-party, "swellin'
wisibly;" and blood was trickling down his well-shaped nose from a
bramble-scratch. He had fallen down once or twice in the bog, with
results to his clothes; and altogether he presented a singular figure
to the view of his parishioners as he strode hastily through the
street. Heads were thrust out of windows, staid eyes rolled in horror,
but the minister saw nothing. He was tired, and absorbed in his new
possessions. It was good to sit down in his study, and spread his
treasures out on the broad table, and gloat over them. A clump of damp
moss rested quietly on his new sermon, "The Slough of Despond," but he
took no note. He was looking for a place to put this curious little
lizard in, and after anxious thought selected the gilt celluloid box,
lined with pink satin, which the Mission Circle had given him on
Christmas for his collars and cuffs. He felt, vaguely, that it was not
the right place for the lizard, but there seemed to be nothing else in
reach,--except the flitter-work pen-box, and Rose Ellen had made that
for him. Ah! if Rose Ellen were here now, how much she could help him!
it was so much easier for two to analyze than one. He at the
microscope, and Rose Ellen corroborating, correcting from the
textbook,--it was a perfect arrangement.
The minister sighed heavily. Mrs. Mellen brought in his tea, for it
was Wednesday evening, and he preferred an early cup of tea, and a
modest supper after the meeting. Food distracted his mind, he was apt
to say, from thought, a statement which his landlady treated with
indulgent contempt, as she had never known him to remark the
difference between "riz" bread and the soda article.
She set the cup down before him, and he promptly dipped a fern root
into it; then started back with a cry of dismay.
"Well indeed, sir!" said Mrs. Mellen, "I should think so, truly! What
did you do that for, and spoil your tea?"
"The--tea--a--that is, it is of no consequence about the tea!" said
Mr. Lindsay, hastily.
"I fear I have injured the root. I thought it was water. Dear! dear!
Miss Mellen was in the habit of bringing me a glass of water when I
brought plants home."
Mrs. Mellen said nothing, but brought the water, and a fresh cup of
tea; but Mr. Lindsay had fallen into the depths of the moss, and took
no notice of either.
She left the room, but presently returned, knitting in hand, and
stood, unnoticed, in the doorway, glancing from time to time at the
minister. He certainly was "a sight to behold," as she said to
herself. She may have thought other things beside, but her face gave
no sign. Presently the bell began to ring for Wednesday evening
meeting. Mrs. Mellen glanced again at the minister, but he heard
nothing. The botany was open before him, and he was muttering strange
words that sounded like witch-talk.
"Stamens six, hypogenous! anthers introrse! capsule cartilaginous,
loculicidally three-valved, scurfy-leaved epiphytic!" What did it all
mean? A slow flush crept over the woman's broad, placid face; her
eyelids quivered, her eye roamed restlessly about the room. She
shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and breathed heavily,
as if in distress; and still her eyes came back to the slender figure
in the great chair, bent in absorbed interest over the table.
Ding! dong! ding! the notes came dropping through the air, clear and
resonant. Even a deaf person might hear them, perhaps. Mrs. Mellen was
evidently struggling with herself. Once she opened her lips as if to
speak; once she stepped forward with outstretched hand, as if to shake
the man into wakefulness and attention; but she did not speak, and her
hand dropped again; and presently the bell stopped, and Sophronia
Mellen went away to her sitting-room, hanging her head.
Half an hour later there was knocking at the door, and the sound of
many voices, anxious voices, pitched high and loud, on account of Mrs.
Mellen's deafness.
"How's Mr. Lindsay? When was he took sick? Have ye had the doctor?"
"Do you think it's ketchin', Mis' Mellen? Think of all the young
children in this parish, if anythin' should get the rounds! My! it's
awful!"
"How does he look? Some say he was pupple in the face when they see
him coming home through the street. Most everybody did see him, and he
was a sight! Apoplexy, most likely!"
"Has he ever had fits, think? he don't look fitty, but you never can
tell."
"Have ye sent for his folks? You'd feel better to, I sh'd think, if
he's taken; some say he has a mother rollin' in wealth, down Brunswick
way."
"Well, some say he ain't nothin' of the sort. Christiana Bean saw an
aunt of his once, and she hadn't flesh enough on her to bait a
mouse-trap with, Christiana said so."
"Does he know you, Mis' Mellen? it's awful to see folks out of their
heads; I don't know how any one kin bear to see it; you'd better let
me come in and spell you a bit; you look clean tuckered out with the
fright you've had."
Mrs. Mellen stood and looked quietly at the crowd of "members" that
surged and cackled about her.
"I could hear better if one'd speak at a time!" she said, mildly.
"Did you want to see Elder Lindsay? it--it must be gettin' near
meetin'-time, isn't it?"
"Meetin'-time! meetin's over, and Mr. Lindsay never come nigh. Do you
mean to say he ain't sick? do you mean to say--"
"What _do_ you mean to say, Mis' Mellen?"
Mrs. Mellen held the door in her hand, and still gazed quietly at the
excited throng. At length,--
"Whatever's the matter with Mr. Lindsay," she said, in clear incisive
tones, "I ain't going to let in no lunatic asylum to drive him clean
out of his mind. Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd, if you'll step this
way, I presume Mr. Lindsay'll be pleased to see you. And if the rest
of you 'ud go home quiet, mebbe it might seem more consistent. There
has been a meetin', you say? the Baptists will be just about comin'
out now."
An hour later, the two deacons were taking their leave of Mr. Lindsay.
They stood, hat in hand, and were looking at the young man with
pitying eyes. They were elderly men, of kind disposition.
"Well, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Todd was saying; "I guess we've said about
all there is to say. Of course 'twas a pity, and such things make
talk; but 'twon't occur again, I dare say. Some say--"
"It _may_ occur again," cried the young minister. He was sitting with
his head in his hand, and despair in his face.
"It may occur again! I seem to have no mind, no memory! I am unfit to
be a minister of the Christian Church. My brethren, what shall I do?"
The elder men exchanged glances: then Deacon Strong stepped forward
and laid his hands on the young man's shoulder, for he loved him.
"Mr. Lindsay," he said, kindly, "so far as I can see, there's only one
thing the matter with you; you want a wife!"
"A wife!" repeated Charles Lindsay. His tone suggested that he had
never heard of the article.
"A wife!" the deacon said again, with emphasis; and his fellow deacon
nodded assent.
"A sensible, clever young woman, who will help you in parish matters,
and be a comfort to you in every way,--a--hem! yes, in every way." The
deacon reddened through his beard, and glanced at Deacon Todd; but the
latter was a kind man, and knew Mrs. Strong, and gazed out of the
window.
"And--and tell you when it was time for meeting. I don't know as you'd
have to look more'n a hundred miles for the very young woman that
would make the right kind of helpmeet for you, but you know best about
that. Anyway, Mr. Lindsay, it is not good for man to be alone, we have
Scripture for that: and it's quite evident that it's particularly bad
for you to be alone, with your--a--your love of nature" (the deacon
caught sight of the lizard, peering disconsolately out of the gilt
celluloid box, and brought his remarks to a hasty conclusion). "And so
we'll be going, Mr. Lindsay, and don't you fret about to-night's
meeting, for we'll make it all right."
Mr. Lindsay bowed them out, with vague thanks, and muttered
expressions of regret. He hardly heard their adieux; the words that
were saying themselves over and over in his head were,--
"You want a wife!"
Did he want a wife? Was that what was the matter with him? Was that
why he went about all day and every day, these last weeks, feeling as
if half of him were asleep? He had always been a strong advocate of
the celibacy of the clergy, as far as his own case went. Nothing, he
had always assured himself, should ever come between him and his work.
A wife would be a perpetual distraction: she would want money, and
amusement, and a thousand things that he never thought about; and she
would interfere with his sermons, and with his collections, and--and
altogether, he would never marry. But now,--
And what was it that happened only the other day, here in the village?
A man and his wife had been quarrelling, to the scandal of the whole
congregation. They were an elderly couple, and when it came to
smashing crockery and emptying pails of water over each other, the
minister felt it his duty to interfere. So he called on the wife,
intending to reason with her first alone, and then, when she was
softened and convinced, to call in the husband and reconcile them, and
perhaps pray with them, since both were "members." But before he had
spoken a dozen of his well-arranged and logical sentences, he was
interrupted by loud and tearful outcries.
The lady never thought it would come to this, no, never! Some thought
she had enough to bear without this, but she knew how to submit to
the will of Providence, and no one should say she struv nor hollered.
She knew what was due to a minister, even if he was only just in
pants; she only hoped Mr. Lindsay wouldn't see fit to say anything to
her husband. Take Reuben Meecher when he was roused, and tigers was
tame by him: and if he should know that his wife was spoke to so, by
them as wasn't born or thought of when they was married, and nobody
couldn't say but they had lived respectable for forty years, and now
to come to this! The lady was well used to ministers, and some of the
most aged in the country, and she knew what was due to them; but for
her part, she thought 'twas well for ministers, as well as others, to
speak of what they'd had exper'ence in, and then there would be no
feeling!
The visit was not a success, nor did it cheer the minister to hear the
old couple chuckling to each other as he went sadly away, and to feel
that they were laughing at him.
But he was very humble, and he laid the spiteful words to heart.
What did he know? What had he to say to his people, when it came to
the real, terrible things of life? What had he had in his whole life,
save kindness and a sheltered home, and then study, and a little
divinity, and a little science? He sat and gazed at the image of
himself in his mind's glass, and found it a gibbering phantom, with
emptiness where should be eyes, and dry dust where should be living
waters.
As he sat thus sadly pondering, the sound of voices struck upon his
ear. The window was open, and now that his mind was awake, there was
no question of his hearing, when the two next-door neighbours leaned
out of their back windows, across Mrs. Mellen's back yard. He had
grown to loathe the sound of those two voices, the shrill cackling
one, and the fat chuckle that was even more hateful. What were they
saying now?
"You don't tell me she wants to git him for herself? speak jest a dite
louder! She can't hear ye, and he's so muddled up he never heard the
bell for meetin', some say; but there's others think he'd ben
drinkin', and Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd jest leagued together with
Sophrony Mellen to hide it. He was black in the face when he came
home, and reelin' in his walk, for I see him with these eyes."
Charles Lindsay started as if stung by a venomous snake. He put out
his hand to the window, but now the sharp voice broke in, anxious to
have its turn.
"Well, I shouldn't be a mite surprised if 'twas so, Mis' Bean, and
you've had experience, I'm sure, in such matters, after what you
suffered with Mr. Bean. But what I was sayin', some do say Phrony
Mellen's bound to have the minister for herself, and that's why she
sent Rose Ellen off, traipsin' way down to Tupham, when her grandma'am
don't need her no more'n a toad needs a tail."
"I want to know if they say that!" replied Mrs. Bean. "But you know,
some say Rose Ellen's got a beau down to Tupham, and that's why she
went off without askin' leave or license, and her ma deef and all. I
see her go myself, and she went off early in the mornin', and if ever
I see a person what you may call slink away secret, like she'd done
somethin' to be 'shamed of, 'twas that girl. _She_ knew what she was
goin' for, well enough. Rose Ellen ain't no fool, for all she's as
smooth as baked custard. Now you mark my words, Mis' Peake,--"
At this moment, the back door opened with a loud clang. Mrs. Mellen
stood on the doorstep, and her eyes were very bright. She said
nothing, but gazed calmly up and down the yard, as if considering the
beauty of the night. Then, after a few minutes, she turned and
scrutinized her neighbours' windows. Nothing was to be seen, only a
white muslin curtain waved gently in the moonlight: nothing was to be
heard, only a faint rustle, probably of the same curtain.
"It's an elegant night!" said Mrs. Mellen, aloud. "I thought I heard
voices, but my hearin' does play me such tricks, these days."
Her calm, sensible voice fell like balm on the distracted ears of the
minister. He was soothed, he knew not why. The horrors that those
harpies suggested,--could there be truth in them? Rose Ellen with
a--his mind refused to frame the detestable word! Was there anything
true in the world? Was it all scandal and hatefulness and untruth?
He rose and paced his study in anguish of mind, but his ears were
still awake,--he thought he never should regain the joy of losing
himself,--and now another sound came to them, the sound of wheels. Why
did his heart stop, and then beat violently? What was there in the
sound of wheels? It was the late stage, of course, and Calvin Parks
was driving fast, as usual, to get to his home, five miles away,
before ten o'clock at night. But that stage came from Tupham, and
Tupham meant Rose Ellen. Rose Ellen, who was as smooth as baked
custard, and who had a--the wheels were slacking; the steady beat of
the horses' feet stopped; the stage had paused at the Widow Mellen's
door.
"Here we be!" said Calvin Parks. "Take my hand, Rosy! so, thar she
goes! Hope ye'll find yer ma right smart! Give her my respects and
tell her,--wal, I swan!"
For the door flew open, and out ran the minister, torn and stained and
covered with dust, and caught Rose Ellen by both hands and drew her
almost forcibly into the house.
"Mother!" cried the girl. "How is she? I--I got so scared, not hearing
from her, I couldn't stay another day, Mr. Lindsay!"
"Oh,--your mother?" said Mr. Lindsay, incoherently. "She--a--she seems
to be in excellent health, except for her deafness. It is I who am
ill, Rose Ellen: very ill, and wanting you more than I could bear!"
"Wanting me?" faltered Rose Ellen, with lips wide, with blue eyes
brimming over. "You, Mr. Lindsay, wanting me?"
"Yes, Rose Ellen!" cried the minister. They were still standing in the
passage, and he was still holding her hands, and it was quite absurd,
only neither of them seemed to realize it.
"I have always wanted you, but I have only just found it out. I cannot
live at all without you: I have been only half alive since you went
away. I want you for my own, for always."
"Oh, you can have me!" cried Rose Ellen, and the blue eyes brimmed
over altogether with happy shining tears. "Oh, I was yours all the
time, only I didn't know you--I didn't know--"
She faltered, and then hurried on. "It--it wasn't only that I was
scared about mother, Mr. Lindsay. I couldn't stay away from--oh, some
said--some said you were going to be married, and I couldn't bear it,
no, I couldn't!"
But when Charles Lindsay heard that, he drew Rose Ellen by both hands
into the study, and shut the door. And only the lizard knew what
happened next.
* * * * *
It was a month later.
There had been a wedding, the prettiest wedding that the village had
ever seen. The whole world seemed turned to roses, and the sweetest
rose of all, Rose Ellen Lindsay, had gone away on her husband's arm,
and Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd were shaking hands very hard, and
blowing peals of joy with their pocket-handkerchiefs. Mrs. Mellen had
preserved her usual calm aspect at the wedding, and looked young
enough to be her own daughter, "some said," in her gray silk and white
straw bonnet. But when it was all over, the wedding party gone, and
the neighbours scattered to their homes again, Sophronia Mellen did a
strange thing. She went round deliberately, and opened every window of
her house. The house stood quite apart, with only the two houses close
beside it on either hand, and no others till you came quite into the
street itself. She opened every window to its utmost. Then she took a
tin pan, and a pair of tongs, and leaned out of the front parlour
window, and screamed three times, at the top of her lungs, beating
meanwhile with all her might upon the pan. Then she went to the next
window, and screamed and banged again, and so on all over the house.
There were twenty windows in her house, and by the time she had gone
the round, she was crimson and breathless. Nevertheless, she managed
to put her last breath into a shriek of such astounding volume that
the windows fairly rang. One last defiant clang of the tongs on the
tin pan and then she sat down quietly by the back parlour window, and
settled herself well behind the curtain, and prepared to enjoy herself
thoroughly. "They shall have their fill this time!" she murmured to
herself; "and I shall get all the good of it."
For some minutes there was dead silence: the event had been too awful
to be treated lightly. At length a rustling was heard, and very
cautiously a sharp nose, generously touched with colour, was protruded
from the window of the left-hand house.
"Mis' Bean," said the owner of the nose. "Be you there?"
"Well, I should say I was!" was the reply; and Mrs. Bean's fat curls
shook nervously out of her window.
"Maria Peake, what do you s'pose this means? Ain't it awful? Why, I've
got palpitations to that degree,--don't s'pose there's a robber in
the house, do ye? with all them weddin' presents about, 'twould be a
dreadful thing! 'Tain't likely he would spare her life, and she tryin'
to give the alarm like that! Most likely she's layin' dead this
minute, and welterin' in her--"
"Sssssssh!" hissed Mrs. Peake, in a deadly whisper. "Melissa Bean, you
won't let a person hear herself think. 'Tain't no robber, I tell ye!
She's gone out of her mind, Phrony Mellen has, as sure as you're a
breathin' woman!"
"You don't tell me she has!" Mrs. Bean leaned further out, her eyes
distended with awful curiosity, her fat lips dropping apart. She was
not a pleasant object, the hidden observer thought; but she was no
worse than the skinny cabbage-stalk which now stretched itself far out
from the opposite window.
"I tell ye," Mrs. Peake hissed, still in that serpent-whisper, the
most penetrating sound that ever broke stillness, "She's as crazy as a
clo'esline in a gale o' wind. Some say she's wore an onsettled eye for
six weeks past, and she glared at me yesterday, when I run in to borry
an egg, same as if I was one wild animal and she was another. Ssssh!
'Tis Bowler, I tell ye! They go that way, jest as often as they git a
chance! I call it an awful jedgment on Elder Lindsay, bein' married
into that family. Some say his mother besought him on her bended
knees, but he was clean infatooated. I declare to you, Mis' Bean, I'm
terrified most to death, to think of you and me alone here, so near to
a ravin' lunatic. I don't think nothin' of robbers, alongside o'
madness. She might creep in while you're standin' there,--your house
is more handy by than mine, 'count of there bein' no fence, and--"
"Yah! bah! ha! ha! ha! hurrah!" sounded in sharp, clear tones from
Mrs. Mellen's window. Two ghastly faces, white with actual terror,
gazed at each other for an instant, then disappeared; and immediately
after was heard a sound of bolts being driven home, and of heavy
furniture being dragged about.
But Mrs. Mellen sat and fanned herself, being somewhat heated, and
gazed calmly at the beauty of the prospect.
"I've enjoyed myself real well!" she said. "I couldn't free my mind,
not while Rosy and Mr. Lindsay was round; I've had a real good time."
She fanned herself placidly, and then added, addressing the universe
in general, with an air of ineffable good will:
"I shouldn't wonder if my hearin' improved, too, kind o' suddin, same
as it came on. That's Bowler, too! It's real convenient, bein' a
Bowler!"
* * * * *
NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS
NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS.
"Hi-Hi!" said Miss Peace, looking out of the window. "It is really
raining. Isn't that providential, now?"
"Anne Peace, you are enough to provoke a saint!" replied a peevish
voice from the furthest corner of the room. "You and your providences
are more than I can stand. What do you mean this time, I _should_ like
to know? the picnic set for to-day, and every soul in the village
lottin' on goin', 'xcept those who _would_ like best to go and can't.
I've been longin' for these two years to go to a picnic and it's never
ben so's I could. And now, jest when I _could_ ha' gone, this
affliction must needs come to me. And then to have you rejoicin'
'cause it rains!"
The speaker paused for breath, and Miss Peace answered mildly: "I'm
real sorry for you, Delia, you know I am; and if the' was any way of
getting you to the grove,--but what I was thinking of, you know I
couldn't finish Jenny Miller's dress last night, do what I could; and
seeing it raining now, thinks I, they'll have to put off the picnic
till to-morrow or next day, and then Jennie can go as nice as the
rest. She does need a new dress, more than most of the girls who has
them. And she's so sweet and pretty, it's a privilege to do for her.
That's all I was thinking, Delia."
Mrs. Delia Means sniffed audibly, then she groaned.
"Your leg hurting you?" cried Miss Peace, with ready sympathy.
"Well, I guess you'd think so," was the reply. "If _you_ had red-hot
needles run into your leg. Not that it's any matter to anybody."
"Hi-hi," said Miss Peace, cheerily. "It's time the bandages was
changed, Delia. You rest easy just a minute, and I'll run and fetch
the liniment and give you a rub before I put on the new ones."
Mrs. Means remaining alone, it is proper to introduce her to the
reader. She and Miss Peace were the rival seamstresses of Cyrus
Village; that is, they would have been rivals, if Mrs. Means had had
her way; but rivalry was impossible where Anne Peace was one of the
parties. She had always maintained stoutly that Delia Means needed
work a sight more than she did, having a family, and her husband so
weakly and likely to go off with consumption 'most any time. Many and
many a customer had Anne turned from her door, with her pleasant
smile, and "I don't hardly know as I could, though I should be pleased
to accommodate you; but I presume likely Mis' Means could do it for
you. She doos real nice work, and I don't know as she's so much drove
just now as I am."
Delia Case had been a schoolmate of Anne Peace's. She was a pretty
girl, with a lively sense of her own importance and a chronic taste
for a grievance. She had married well, as every one thought, but in
these days her husband had lost his health and Delia was obliged to
put her shoulder to the wheel. She sewed well, but there was a sigh
every time her needle went into the cloth, and a groan when it came
out.
"A husband and four children, and have to sew for a living!"--this was
the burden of her song; and it had become familiar to her neighbours
since David Means had begun to "fail up," as they say in Cyrus.
Anne Peace had always been the faithful friend of "Delia Dumps." (It
was Uncle Asy Green who had given her the name which stuck to her
through thick and thin--Uncle Asy believed in giving people their due,
and thought "Anne made a dreffle fool of herself, foolin' round with
that woman at all.") Anne had been her faithful friend, and never
allowed people to make fun of her if she were present.
A week before my story opens, when Mrs. Means fell down and broke her
leg, just as she was passing Miss Peace's house, the latter lady
declared it to be a special privilege.
"I can take care of her," she explained to the doctor, when he
expressed regret at being obliged to forbid the sufferer's being moved
for some weeks, "just as well as not and better. David isn't fit to
have the care of her, and--well, doctor, I can say to you, who know it
as well as I do, that Delia mightn't be the best person for David to
have round him just now, when he needs cheering up. Then, too, I can
do her sewing along with my own, as easy as think; work's slack now,
and there's nothing I'm specially drove with. I've been wishing right
along that I could do something to help, now that David is so poorly.
I'm kin to David, you know, so take it by and large, doctor, it doos
seem like a privilege, doesn't it?"
The doctor growled. He was not fond of Mrs. Means.
"If you can get her moved out of Grumble Street and into Thanksgiving
Alley," he said, "it'll be a privilege for this village; but you can't
do it, Anne. However, there's no use talking to you, you incorrigible
optimist. You're the worst case I ever saw, Anne Peace, and I haven't
the smallest hope of curing you. Put the liniment on her leg as I
told you, and I'll call in the morning. Good day!"
"My goodness me, what was he saying to you?" Mrs. Means asked as Anne
went back into the bedroom. "You've got something that you'll never
get well of? Well, Anne Peace, that does seem the cap sheaf on the
hull. Heart complaint, I s'pose it is; and what would become of me, if
you was to be struck down, as you might be any minute of time, and me
helpless here, and a husband and four children at home and he failin'
up. You did look dretful gashly round the mouth yisterday, I noticed
it at the time, but of course I didn't speak of it. Why, here I should
lay, and might starve to death, and you cold on the floor, for all the
help I should get." Mrs. Means shed tears, and Anne Peace answered
with as near an approach to asperity as her soft voice could command.
"Don't talk foolishness, Delia. I'm not cold yet, nor likely to be.
Here, let me 'tend to your leg; it's time I was getting dinner on this
minute."
It continued to rain on the picnic day; no uncertain showers, to keep
up a chill and fever of fear and hope among the young people, but a
good, honest downpour, which everybody past twenty must recognize as
being just the thing the country needed. Jenny Miller came in, smiling
all over, though she professed herself "real sorry for them as was
disappointed." "Tudie Peaslee sat down and cried, when she saw 'twas
rainin'," she said, as she prepared to give her dress the final
trying-on. "There, Miss Peace. I did try to feel for her, but I just
couldn't, seems though. Oh, ain't that handsome? that little puff is
too cute for anything! I do think you've been smart, Miss Peace. Not
that you ever was anything else."
"You've a real easy figure to fit, Jenny," Miss Peace replied,
modestly. "I guess that's half the smartness of it. It doos set good,
though, I'm free to think. The styles is real pretty this summer,
anyhow. Don't that set good, Delia?"
She turned to Mrs. Means, who was lying on the sofa (they call it a
l'unge in Cyrus), watching the trying-on with keenly critical eyes.
"Ye-es," she said. "The back sets good enough, but 'pears to me
there's a wrinkle about the neck that I shouldn't like to see in any
work of mine. I've always ben too particklar, though; it's time thrown
away, but I can't bear to send a thing out 'cept jest as it should
be."
"It _don't_ wrinkle, Mis' Means!" cried Jenny, indignantly. "Not a
mite. I was turning round to look at the back of the skirt, and that
pulled it; there ain't a sign of a wrinkle, Miss Peace, so don't you
think there is."
Mrs. Means sniffed, and said something about the change in young
folks' manners since she was a girl. "If I'd ha' spoke so to my
elders--I won't say betters, for folks ain't thought much of when they
have to sew for a livin', with a husband and four children to keer
for--I guess I should ha' found it out in pretty quick time."
"Hi-hi!" said Miss Peace, soothingly. "There, Delia, Jenny didn't mean
anything. Jenny, I guess I'll have to take you into the bedroom, so's
I can pull this skirt out a little further. This room doos get so
cluttered with all my things round." She hustled Jenny, swelling like
an angry partridge, into the next room, and closed the door carefully.
"You don't want to anger Mis' Means, dear," she said gently, taking
the pins out of her mouth for freer speech. "She may be jest a scrap
pudgicky now and again, but she's seen trouble, you know, and she doos
feel it hard to be laid up, and so many looking to her at home. Turn
round, dear, jest a dite--there!"
"I can't help it, Miss Peace," said Jenny. "There's no reason why Mis'
Means should speak up and say the neck wrinkled, when anybody can see
it sets like a duck's foot in the mud. I don't mind what she says to
me, but I ain't goin' to see you put upon, nor yet other folks ain't.
I should like to know! and that wrapper she cut for Tudie Peaslee set
so bad, you'd think she'd fitted it on the pump in the back yard,
Mis' Peaslee said so herself."
"Hi-hi!" cried Anne Peace, softly, with an apprehensive glance toward
the door; "don't speak so loud, Jennie. Tudie ain't so easy a form to
fit as you, not near. And you say she was real put about, do ye, at
the picnic being put off?"
"She was so!" Jenny assented, seeing that the subject was to be
changed. "She'd got her basket all packed last night, she made so sure
'twas goin' to be fine to-day. Chicken sandwiches, she had, and baked
a whole pan of sponge-drops, jest because some one--you know who--is
fond of 'em." Miss Peace nodded sagely, with her mouth full of pins,
and would have smiled if she could; "and now they've put it off till
Saturday, 'cause the minister can't go before then, and every livin'
thing will be spoiled."
"Dear, dear!" cried Miss Anne, her kind face clouding over; "that does
seem too bad, don't it? all those nice things! and Tudie makes the
best sponge-cakes I ever eat, pretty nigh."
Jenny smiled, and stretched her hand toward a basket she had brought.
"They won't really be wasted, Miss Peace," she said. "Tudie thought
you liked 'em, and I've got some of 'em here for you, this very
minute. You was to eat 'em for your own supper, Tudie told me to tell
you so."
"Well, I do declare, if that isn't thoughtful!" exclaimed Miss Peace,
looking much gratified. "Tudie is a sweet girl, I must say. Delia is
real fond of cake, and she's been longing for some, but it doos seem
as if I couldn't find time to make it, these days."
"I should think not!" cried Jenny (who was something of a pepper-pot,
it must be confessed), "I should think not, when you have her to take
care of, and her work and yours to do, and all. And, Miss
Peace,--Tudie meant the sponge-drops for _you_, every one. She told me
so."
"Yes, dear, to be sure she did, and that's why I feel so pleased, just
as much as if I had eaten them. But bread _is_ better for me,
and--why! if she hasn't sent a whole dozen. One, two, three--yes, a
dozen, and one over, sure as I stand here. Now, that I call generous.
And, I'll tell you what, dearie! Don't say a word, for I wouldn't for
worlds have Tudie feel to think I was slighting her, or didn't
appreciate her kindness; but--well, I _have_ wanted to send some
little thing round to that little girl of Josiah Pincher's, that has
the measles, and I do suppose she'd be pleased to death with some of
these sponge-drops. Hush! don't say a word, Jenny! it would be a real
privilege to me, now it would. And you know it isn't that I don't
think the world of Tudie, and you, too; now, don't you?"