the house, turning over his affairs in her mind, thus soliloquises:
"Poor creature, as Doctor Foster says, he'll not trouble any one long.
He loves my precious child. Why should I part the two?--both, alas!
going the same sad road. The summer-house could easily be made
habitable. He could live there, quite by himself--at least till cold
weather sets in. The cost of his maintenance I can well spare from my
abundance. The neighbours, to be sure, will object; and there's Harmy
to be reconciled; but what is to become of the forlorn, shelterless
creature, if I turn my back on him? What indeed (with a resolute nod,
and thinking aloud)! My mind is made up. He shall stay. Right is
right. One is sure of that; and Providence takes care of the rest."
In accordance with this resolve, Peter Floome, that very day, goes to
housekeeping. A Lilliputian laundry-stove, with an improvised flue, is
set up in the summer-house by the tinman. An old cupboard, _vis-a-vis_
with the stove, is scoured, and well stocked with provisions and
cooking utensils, and a sufficiency of homely table and other
furniture is placed at his disposal; and Peter literally groans under
"an embarrassment of riches." A box of coal is also appropriated to
his use, and, when he receives permission to chop for himself
unlimited kindlings from Miss Paulina's teeming woodpile, tears of
grateful joy trickle down the worn old cheeks of Peter Floome. From
the luxurious depths of his Boston rocker, he watches dazedly these
munificent preparations for his housekeeping, declaring over and over
to May-blossom (who is in an equal state of delight), that "this does
beat the Dutch, an' he never, an' it's jest like bein' took up by one
o' them fairy godmothers in the story-book!" But when actually
_measured_ by the Saganock tailor, he is subsequently arrayed in a
pair of trousers, cut with especial reference to his own clumsy legs,
and a coat which, though coarse and homely, has not been fashioned
without some slight reference to the dimensions of its wearer; a
bran-new necktie, and a decent straw hat, not to mention a clean print
shirt (of the latter, there is a magnificent reserve of five others,
equally new and clean), his admiration and wonderment, and
May-blossom's pride in him, are absolutely indescribable. Even Harmy
herself, softened by this metamorphosis of the fairy godmother,
becomes distantly amicable, scarcely recognising in this decent old
body the objectionable being of her sometime suspicion and aversion.
After the lapse of an entire week, she grimly remarks to Reuben that
"she hain't missed nothin' yit, tho', to be sure, its awful resky
havin' sich creeturs 'round."
Peter Floome, though he takes a whole bottle of Doctor Foster's drops,
never quite rallies from that first grave attack of his fatal disease.
May-blossom, too, is more ailing. Peter's advent at the homestead,
with its attendant excitement, has been too much for the delicate
little frame. Already those deceitful tokens of convalescence, so
cheering to Miss Paulina's heart, have disappeared. Before the summer
roses go, it is plain to all, that, ere long, death will claim for his
own this bud that "never will become a rose."
Miss Paulina hears the graveyard pines wailing in weary monotone,
while, gliding serenely beneath the sapphire heaven of June, the river
repeats the mournful undersong. Alas, and alas, that ever life, and
death, and true love should dwell side by side in this goodly world!
Faithful old Peter, never wearying in his love-labour, bears hither
and thither, in careful arms, the wasted young form, now too feeble to
bear its own light weight. On pleasant days he conveys it tenderly
from couch to garden. For it is still May-blossom's delight to swing
dreamily in a low hammock, hung from the stout boughs of two gigantic
elms, sometimes thinking to herself, oftener confiding her innocent
dreams to Peter, or Miss Paulina. Often her thought goes back to the
gray old prison. Loving memories of her child-life, and tender
reminiscences of shabby old friends in that dreary abode, are still
with her. To this young, gladsome creature, not yet replete with its
sweet new wine, existence is still infinitely dear; and, though Death
is coming, she does not hasten to meet him, but, turning her face
lifeward, lives (as in God's mercy it befalls many a dying one to
live) in the sweet, brief to-day. And well it is, for the coffin and
the tomb, even to the "life undone," are not things to brood upon.
While Peter Floome, armed and equipped with a splint fly-brush of his
own clumsy manufacture, presides, dragon-like, over the out-door
siestas of his enchanted princess, the summer grows old, and it
behooves us to look after the ex-convict's housekeeping. Harmy
Patterson, has, to be sure, anticipated us, and, as a result of her
observations, has long since averred that "it's awful to see that man
mess 'round, an' spill grease on the summer-house floor!" And, indeed,
even to the unprejudiced eye, it is painfully apparent that Nature, in
fashioning Peter Floome, had not in her "mind's eye" a cook, or a
housewife, or even a scullion. Although no one could be more willingly
helpful, he is so clumsy of touch at all indoor employment, save the
gentle tendance of May-blossom, that one half inclines to the
fantastic supposition that this exceptional aptness may be the result
of some preexistent experience of Peter as child's-nurse.
Peter's gentle inoffensiveness, his ever-respectful deference to
Harmy's wishes, and Harmy's judgment, and, above all, his idolatrous
devotion to "that blessed lamb, May-blossom," bid fair, at last, to
overcome even Harmy's social prejudices. One morning, when the poor
man is ailing, and for a day or two has been "sloppy, poky, and
messy," beyond his wont, the good woman is encountered by Miss Parker
on her way to the summer-house, bearing a breakfast-tray, fit to serve
a king. Colouring, as if detected in some covert derogatory act, Harmy
apologetically observes that, "when folks is sick, you can't stan' by
an' see 'em suffer, an what_ever_ they air, dropped eggs, an' muffins,
an' broma'll do 'em no harm. As for men-folks," asserts she, "they
never _be_ fit to cook an' do for theirselves, an' p'r'aps, arter all,
'twould be a savin' to the family ef she was to see to his vittels
right along."
In these frugal and humane sentiments her mistress hastily concurs;
and, henceforth, Harmy _does_ "see to his vittels;" thereby vastly
bettering the sanitary condition of poor Peter, whose "messes,"
whatever other excellence they may boast, are _not_ anti-dyspeptic.
Peter, like most of his sex, especially open to the seductions of the
cuisine, is deeply impressed with the domestic worth of his caterer,
and, in confidential discourse with Reuben, admiringly observes that
"Miss Patterson's cookin' does beat the Dutch; an' for scourin' a
floor he never see her ekal; an' ef she'd 'a' got hitched in her
younger days, what a wife she'd 'a' made!"
Having thus put Peter's kitchen to rights, Harmy suggests to herself
the practicability of correcting a certain irregularity in his
conduct, "which has (as she expresses it) ben a weighin' on her mind
quite a spell."
As this is a reform not to be undertaken lightly or single-handed, she
determines to make an alliance with Reuben; and to this effect, one
moonlight evening when the two are quite alone, she takes the hired
man into her confidence. "For," says the good woman, "I put it to you,
now, an' bein' old enough to be your mother, sich things is no harm
between us, Reuben. I put it to you, ef it don't seem scand'lus for a
man to ondress, an' git into bed with his door wide open, an' a decent
woman overlookin' on him from her bedroom winder? To be sure, I never
once turn my eyes his way, but I can't help sensin' on it, an' 's
true's you're alive, Reuben, ef he don't sleep there night arter
night, with his door stretched, right afore my face!"
"P'r'aps he wants air," pleads Reuben, in excuse.
"Then why on airth," returns Harmy, "don't he open his winder! Now,
Reuben, to please me, do go this very night an' shet that door. Ef
folks don't know what manners is, it's best to give 'em a hint, _I_
say, an', ten to one, he won't be the wiser fur it till mornin', fur,
to my knowledge, he's been abed a hull hour by the kitchen clock."
Thus urgently besought, and willing to oblige, Reuben steps gingerly
down the garden path, and, reassured by the heavy snores within,
softly closes the summer-house door. He is about to retrace his steps
when, bounce upon the floor, comes Peter Floome! Open goes the door
with a bang, and a voice, so energetically fierce that Reuben turns
upon his heel to assure himself that the speaker is really Peter,
angrily exclaims, "No, you _don't_, now! Hain't I ben shet up like a
dog in a kennel night arter night fur twenty-two year, say? An' what
the d--l's the use o' pardonin' a man out, ef you can't give him the
swing o' his own bedroom door?"
Reuben, who relishes a bit of humour, details to his mistress, on the
morrow, this unsuccessful attempt of Harmy to compel Peter's respect
to the proprieties. Miss Paulina, kindly wise, decides in favour of
the open door, and thereafter, Peter, like "him that hath the key of
David, openeth, and no man shutteth." The intense satisfaction of this
cell-worn creature in his open door is, indeed, a thing to
contemplate, and, touched, no doubt, by the homely pathos of the
bowed, motionless figure sitting (often far into the night) in his low
doorway, bathed in the tender beauty of the summer moonlight, or
sharply projected on the darkness in momentary silhouette, by lurid
flashes of summer lightning, Harmy herself is at length modified, and
tacitly condones Peter's bold breach of decorum.
Through long disuse of the power of speech, Peter Floome has become
habitually taciturn. His protracted fits of almost dogged silence are,
however, relieved by equally abnormal attacks of garrulousness. In
these moods he holds long and confidential discourse with Reuben. On a
summer evening, seated in his humble doorway, he will recount for his
entertainment such bits of prison gossip, or such incidents of prison
life, as have retained their hold on his failing memory. Often on
these occasions a dash of the old cynicism gives pungency to his
speech, but, ordinarily, he is amiably at one with destiny, and at
peace with himself and his neighbour. Behold him to-night, already in
his talking-cap. Harmy and Mandy Ann are seated upon the summer-house
steps; Reuben, wearied by a long day's haying, is reclining lazily
upon the grass; Peter, meantime, is graciously intent in serving up
for the three his most relishing prison tidbits. Harmy, being
rheumatic, does not often grace these out-door assemblages with her
august presence; "but to-night," as she herself explains, "havin' a
longin' for a breath of fresh air, she jest strolled into the garden,
an' thought she might as well set down with 'em and rest a spell."
Peter's audience secured, he opens his budget of prison reminiscence
and rehearses a long, heart-breaking drama, at which Harmy pulls out
her handkerchief, and complains of a cold in her head, while Mandy Ann
sobs outright, and Reuben himself is detected in an audible sniff.
"'Tain't a lively yarn, I'll 'low," apologizes the narrator, "an',
p'r'aps, I hadn't oughter told it to you wimmin folks. Well, we've all
got to go when our time comes; an' death ain't the wust thing in the
world, no, not by a jug full! An', whenever the Almighty summons us, I
hope we'll all face the music, an' go off with flyin' colours."
Harmy, who considers Peter's similes objectionably secular, here
suggests, as an appropriate lesson, the parable of the ten virgins,
and advises Reuben and Mandy Ann to "jine the church, an' have their
lamps trimmed an' burnin' when the bridegroom cometh."
Peter, ignoring the parable, irreverently observes that "all the
Ballous had ben handsomely buried;" an', when his turn comes, all he
asks is to hev a marble gravestone, with verses cut on to it, same as
the rest o' his folks. As to what's comin' after death (he
philosophically avers), "'tain't no use to worry 'bout that; fur it
stan's to reason that the Lord ain't goin' to hang on to His creeturs,
through thick an' thin, in _this_ world, an' then go back on 'em in
_t'other_."
Reuben, who is not reflective, here yawns audibly, and, expressing his
intention to "turn in," bids them a drowsy good-night. The "wimmin
folks" follow his lead, and Peter is left alone in his moonlit
doorway.
"There never was," as Harmy repeatedly asserts to Mandy Ann, who is
about retiring, "such a night; light enough to pick up a pin by the
moon, an' too pleasant fur any mortal to think o' sleepin'!"
Leisurely setting her sponge for the morrow's baking, gathering up her
silver, bolting the doors, and looking after the window-fastenings,
the good woman reluctantly retires to her chamber.
Having no disposition for sleep, Harmy, half undressed, sits looking
out upon the moonlit garden. Her mind is ill at ease. "We live in a
dyin' world," she drearily soliloquises. "Here's our May-blossom, now,
poor blessed lamb! a growin' that weaker every day that it stan's to
reason she can't last but a spell longer; an' Miss Paulina that bound
up in the child, that how _she's_ goin' to stan' the partin' the Lord
only knows! An' there's Peter, goin' round with that pesky onsartin'
heart, liable to stop beatin', without a minnit's notice, eny day.
"To be sure, now," she retrospectively muses, "it _was_ a cross las'
spring to hev a convict brung right into the family; an' to see that
child a hangin' on to him, an' a huggin' an' kissen on him, same's ef
he was her own flesh and blood; but there (judicially and
emphatically), I _will_ say _that_ fur him, though he's no end mussy
an' sloppy about housework, and does hev scand'lous notions about his
bedroom door, there ain't a grain o' real harm in Peter Floome; an'
it's lots o' company to see him a settin' there nights in that
summer-house doorway. Well, _he's_ gone an' turned in, I see; an' it's
'bout time I follered suit, I guess."
The night wind is rising. It soughs rhythmically through the great
pine, beside the west door, and sends a miniature snow-storm of
syringa petals upon the garden walks.
It winnows spice-like odors from ancient clumps of clove-pink. Tall
summer lilies, nodding drowsily upon their stems, breathe,
incense-like, upon the dewy air. Brooding birds twitter sleepily among
the green Linden boughs; and, over it all, lies, like God's
benediction, the wonderful glamour of the still white moonlight.
"Well," declares Harmy, giving voice to her thought, as she ties her
nightcap strings, and takes one more good look at the garden; "I mus'
say that the Lord's put His creeturs into a han'some world; an' no
mistake! I s'pose now," she adds, compunctiously, "that I'm turrible
wicked to _say_ it, but, somehow, I can't jest see my way to believin'
that things is fixed the way they'd orter be. To _my_ mind, it would
'er ben more to the pint to 'a' made all on us Methusalehs. It's
dretful upsettin' to hev to live in a _dyin' world_, no matter _how_
pooty it is."
Still heavy with anxious foreboding, Harmy puts out her candle, and,
presently, "dropping off," forgets in sleep the unsatisfactory
arrangement of mundane affairs.
At early dawn she is aroused by the ringing of Miss Paulina's chamber
bell; and, before she has got well into her gown, Mandy Ann comes to
summons her to the bedside of May-blossom. The child is fast sinking.
Doctor Foster is already here; but human help is of no avail. A hard
coughing spell has been followed by a cruel hemorrhage, which has
already drained her thin blue veins. Exhausted and unconscious she
waits upon the border-line, betwixt life and death; and there,
wringing Miss Parker's trembling hand, and pressing a last kiss upon
the brow of the dying child, the good doctor leaves her to Him in
whose hand are the issues of life and death.
All day long, with wide unseeing eyes "looking," as Harmy quaintly
expresses it, "right straight up into heaven," May-blossom lies
senseless upon her couch of white.
No priceless "last word" breaks the silence of her sweet folded lips.
There is nothing more for hope to hang upon, not even the sad
anticipation of a dying smile; and so the slow day wears on to night.
Miss Paulina--heart-broken--hangs over the dear unconscious form; and,
in yonder corner ("how in the world Miss Paulina come to give her
consent to his stayin' here sence mornin', without a mou'ful o'
victuals an' drink, an' not so much as a word of notice for his best
friends," Harmy Patterson cannot opine; "but there! folks _will_ do
curos things sometimes; an' to see a man settin' that way, hour after
hour, all doubled up, an' the tears a tricklin' down his shirt-front,
_is_ turrible tryin'!") sits Peter Floome. At midnight, Harmy
persuades Miss Parker to "lop down a minnit; you'll be all beat out
afore the fun'al," she urges. "Do now hear to _me_! I'm the oldest,
Miss Pauly, an' hev seen lots o' sickness an' death in my day." Thus
persuaded, the poor worn lady seeks her chamber, and is soon in a
troubled, but heavy sleep. Harmy in a flowered "loose gown," wonderful
in color and design, watches the death-bed of May-blossom. Peter
Floome, silent, motionless, with bowed gray head, still holds his
place--rejecting every advance of his comforter, who says irritably to
herself, "Land sakes, I'd 'bout as soon be stark alone!"
How still the night is! A mother robin, brooding her fledglings in the
tall linden, beside the open window, twitters drowsily, from time to
time. A persistent June bug, bouncing clumsily against wall and
ceiling, wantons jarringly with the solemn silence. On the bureau
stands May-blossom's own pet vase--a Parian hand. It still holds a
faded cluster of lady's delights, placed there, but yesterday, by her
own sweet hand. The long July night wears on. Harmy, at regular
intervals, steps softly to the bedside, and, bending tenderly over her
charge, listens a while to the laboured breathing of the child, and
then, with a stealthy side glance at the silent watcher,--whose
presence, to _her_ mind, but ill accords with the occasion,--returns
to rock softly, and moan, under her breath, "Dear, dear, dear o' me! I
s'pose it's the Lord's will; but, when I look at that precious child,
I can't, nohow, help prayin' straight agin it! P'r'aps I may as well
read a few chapters (taking a heavy Bible from a stand beside the
fireplace); the Scripters is wonderful comfortin' in times of
affliction."
And now, Harmy Patterson,--good old-fashioned Christian, never once
doubting that God Himself literally penned every word between the
covers of her "King James edition,"--gets mightily edified and
reassured by a pious perusal of the Book of Lamentations! Harmy likes
long chapters, and many of them; and, having exhausted Lamentations,
she reads on and on, until (if you should put her to the rack, you
couldn't make her _confess_ it) she falls fast asleep.
Hark! Is it the robin twittering in the linden? Ah, no! a sadder and
more hopeless sound disturbs her repose. It is the death-rattle! A
moment more, and she is hastening to the child. Peter Floome has
already anticipated her; and, kneeling by the bedside, is clasping, in
his rough brown palm, the slender white hand of his precious nursling.
A cruel spasm convulses the tender frame. The little arms are up-flung
in agony! A moment; and it has passed--thank God! the last mortal
pang! And now the sweet Carrara marble face is lighted by a dawn that
is not of earth. A smile of ecstasy sweetens the dying lips; and, as
the conscious gray eyes look fondly upon the familiar bowed head
beside her, she whispers in rapturous surprise: "Why, Peter! Peter! It
is morning!" A faint gasp--a single flutter of the failing breath, and
all is over. Harmy Patterson, bending her stiff old knees, grasps the
hand of Peter Floome, and the two weep silently together. Peter's
adoring gaze is still fastened upon the dear dead face, and, with his
right hand still clasping that of May-blossom, he presses in his left
that of Harmy, and broken-heartedly wails: "Oh, Miss Patterson, Miss
Patterson! the' ain't _nothin'_ left!"
"It's the will of the Lord, Peter," piously exhorts Harmy; "an' we
must all bow down to it, an' bear up under it. But, O land, (rising
abruptly to her feet)! how in the world I'm to break it to Miss
Paulina (an' she not here at the last minnit) is more'n _I_ know; but
I must _do_ it, an' right off, _too_." And, leaving her fellow-mourner
still upon his knees, she hurries from the room on her distasteful
errand. Harmy, in spite of her best intentions, delays awhile. "It's a
pity"--she says to herself--"to wake her up to her trouble, and she so
sound, an' quiet. I've a mind to let her lay a minnit longer." And she
_does_, but, ere long, the two women are beside the dear dead form.
Miss Paulina--true to her own sweet self--holds in abeyance the sorrow
of her aching heart, while she kindly seeks to comfort the poor bowed
creature still clinging to his beloved nursling. Tenderly clasping his
disengaged hand, she strives with gentle force to draw him from the
room. The hand is nerveless, and chill. The entire form seems
strangely limp and listless! The truth at last dawns upon her
her--"Peter Floome is dead!" Yes, his fond, faithful spirit, following
hard upon the flight of that--
"Little fair soul that knew not sin,"
had gone softly and painlessly out of mortal life; and who shall say
that, in the "house of many mansions," the convict, "delivered from
the body of his sin," may not dwell, side by side, with the innocent
prison child?
Rough-handed men come, with heavy tread, to bear the dead man from the
room, but it is Miss Paulina, herself, who tenderly disengages the
interclasped hands, and, then stooping reverently to the bowed gray
head, she lays her own in silent benediction upon it, and voicelessly
transposes the gracious words that, centuries ago, fell from the
blessed lips of the divine man: "His sins, though many, are forgiven,
for he _loved much_."
And now, already the red rose of dawn blooms in the summer sky, and,
like belated ghosts, that may not bide for the coming sun, we steal
noiselessly from the chamber of death.
* * * * *
Year after year the blue-eyed periwinkle blooms upon a low, short
grave in that "City of the Silent," the Saganock burying-ground. Its
headstone is a shaft of Carrara marble. A carven lily, broken on its
stem, in emblem of the unfilled promise of a life, droops over this
simple inscription:
"Her name was Mabel."
In the old burying-ground beneath the pines is another grave, and,
before the sod had greened upon it, it was Miss Paulina's pious care
to order for it a modest headstone, and, mindful of Peter's heart's
earnest wish, she had "_verses cut on to it_."
Resolutely turning her face from her own sad world of graves, Miss
Paulina lives unselfishly on, in other lives. Gentle deeds of
beneficence and love blossom thickly along her gracious life-road, as
roses flower upon their stems, and never dream that through them the
world is made more sweet.
Harmy, at seventy, still considers herself quite equal to any domestic
exigency. Reuben, "taking heed to his ways," has minded her sage
admonitions. He has "jined the church." Mandy Ann and he have become
one. This marriage scarce makes a ripple in their tranquil lives,
which are still consecrated to the service of the House of Parker.
Timothy Tucker no longer keeps the iron doors of the prison
guard-room. Soon after the sudden departure of Warden Flint, and the
consequent subtraction of May-blossom from his uncongenial existence,
he migrated to California. He has become, in sunny San Francisco, the
pleased proprietor of a flourishing bird store. As duly set forth on
his sign of blue and gold, "birds, cages, and seed, with bouquets and
cut flowers of every description," may be obtained at this mercantile
establishment. The ex-turnkey's favourite customer is a little maid,
of ten sweet Californian summers. Her eyes are like the sapphire of a
noon-day heaven. Her hair is the braided sunshine of her own golden
clime.