Ellen Withington and her mother lived in a garden. There was a house
behind it, with great white pillars like a temple, but it played a
secondary part to that sweet inclosure--all bees and blossoms. Ellen and
her mother duly slept in the house, and through the barren months it did
very well for shelter while they talked of slips and bulbs and thirsted
over the seed-catalogue come by mail. But from the true birth of the
year to the next frost they were steadily out-of-doors, weeding,
tending, transplanting, with an untiring passion. All the blossoms New
England counts her dearest grew from that ancient mould, enriched with
every spring. Ladies'-delights forgathered underneath the hedge, and
lilies-of-the-valley were rank with chill sweetness in their time. The
flowering currant breathed like fruitage from the East, and there were
never such peonies, such poppies, and such dahlias in all the town.
Ellen herself had an apple-bloom face, and violet eyes down-dropped;
some one said their lashes were long enough to braid. Fine gold hair
flew about her temples, and her innocent chin sank chastely like a
nun's. She and her mother never had a minute for thinking about clothes,
and so they wore soft sad-colored stuffs rather like the earth; but
these quite satisfied Ellen, because they were warm or cool to suit the
weather, and beauty, she thought, grew only from the ground.
One spring twilight Mrs. Withington was putting out her geraniums, while
Ellen leaned over the gate and talked with Susan Long. The frogs were
peeping down by the mill, and a breath of dampness came from the
upturned soil. Susan Long was the only one of the old schoolgirls with
whom Ellen had kept any semblance of intimacy; the rest of them thought
her oddly unsuited to their grown-up pastimes. She was like a bud, all
close and green, while they flared their petals to the sun and begged
for cherishing.
"Just think," said Ellen in her reedy voice, never loud enough to be
heard at "teacher's desk" in school, "while we've been standing here
three couples have gone by. I never saw so much pairing off."
Susan laughed exuberantly. She was a big girl, with a mariner's walk and
hard red cheeks.
"Anybody but you'd seen 'em a good many times," she remarked. "If you
ain't the queerest! Why, they're fellers and girls!"
"Yes, I know it," said Ellen innocently. "One was John Davis and Maria
Orne, one was--"
"Oh, I don't mean that! I mean they're goin' together. Ain't you heard
what old uncle Zephaniah said down to the Ridge? He told father this
year'd be known as the time o' the flood, all creation walkin' two and
two. Why, everybody in Countisbury's gettin' married. Courtin' begun in
the fall, with singin'-school, and this is the upshot. What do you
s'pose I'm waitin' here for, 'sides talkin' with you? Just hold on a
minute and you'll see Milt Richardson pokin' along this way. Then
there'll be four couples instead o' three."
"O Sue!" said Ellen, in a little bruised tone. She felt disturbed, as if
the spring twilight had in some manner turned to a much-revealing day.
Sue leaned over the gate and whispered rapidly:
"I'll tell you somethin' else, only don't you let it go no further.
Mother says might as well not count your chickens till they're hatched,
and aunt Templeton was left at the meetin'-house door. He asked me seven
weeks ago come Wednesday, and I've got lots of my sewin' done. Some of
my trimmin' 's real pretty. You come over'n' see it. Good-by. Don't you
tell."
She walked carelessly away down the road, not casting a glance behind.
But Milton was coming, a tall fellow, like his sweetheart heavy and
honest of face. They might have been brother and sister for the likeness
between them.
Ellen withdrew from the gate and hurried back to her mother. "Come," she
urged hastily, "let's go in."
Mrs. Withington was bent almost double, pressing the earth about the
cramped geranium roots. She felt the delight of their freedom, with all
the world to spread in.
"I ain't got quite through," she said, without looking up. "You cold?
Run right along. I'll come."
But Ellen only flitted round the house into a deeper shade and waited.
She hardly knew why, except that she was disinclined to see any more
people walking two and two, with that significant and terrifying future
before them.
The next morning, drawn by some subtle power, she went over to Susan's,
and after sitting awhile on the doorstep, they slipped upstairs into the
front chamber, and opened drawer after drawer of fine white clothing,
wonderfully trimmed.
"Long-cloth!" said Susan, in a whisper. "Here's some unbleached. We had
it on the grass last year; seemed as if it never'd whiten out. That's
for every day."
Ellen looked, in the short-breathed wonder which sometimes beset her
over a new blossom. She touched the fabric delicately and lifted an edge
of crocheted lace.
"Let's go over to Maria's," said Susan. "I'll make her show you hers."
They took the short round of the village homes where there were
daughters young and still unwed. Everywhere white cloth, serpentine
braid, and crocheted lace! Truly it was a marrying year. Ellen said very
little, and the girls, talking among themselves, forgot to notice her
any more than a flower in a vase.
But that late afternoon was very warm, and when she and her mother sat
together on the steps considering rose-bugs, she suddenly broke off to
say,--
"Mother, should you just as soon I'd have some new things, trimmed like
the girls'?"
Mrs. Withington regarded her in wonder. Ellen did not lift her eyes, but
a blush rose delicately in her cheeks.
"Well, I don't know but what 'twould be a good plan," said her mother,
after a pause. "You ain't got an individual thing that's trimmed."
So next day they walked the two miles to town, and for weeks thereafter
stayed indoors, setting stitches in snowy cloth, with piles of it
drifted near. For a time that spring, the garden almost ran to weeds.
Then, because a long dormant consciousness stirred in Mrs. Withington,
she went into the attic and brought down woven treasures; and one
Sunday, Ellen, her cheeks scarlet with the excitement of it, walked to
church in a shot silk, all blue and pink, and a hat with a long white
feather over her golden hair. There were pink roses under the brim, and
they paled beside her face.
"God sakes!" whispered Milton Richardson, in the singing-seats, "Ellen
Withington's a beauty!"
The girls rustled their starched petticoats and nudged one another.
"Ain't she come out!" said one; and another answered,--
"My stars! she's the cutest thing I ever see in all _my_ life!"
Even the minister, who was then accounted an old man, being between
forty-five and fifty, stopped on his way down the aisle where Ellen
waited for her mother, busy in matronly conclave, and shook hands with
her.
"I am very glad to see you out, my dear Ellen," said he. "You have been
absent quite a while."
She looked up at him, her blue eyes full of wonder; everybody knew she
had been regularly to church ever since she was a little girl. But the
minister smiled warmly at her and went on.
The next Sunday she came to church in a foam of white like a pear tree.
That day Henry Fox, who lingered still unmated, strode up to her and
remarked, while a cordial circle stood about to hear, "Pretty warm
to-day." This was equivalent to "See you home?" at evening meeting.
"Yes," said she, desperately, "real warm." Then she caught her mother's
hand and clung to it; and though Henry kept a dogged step beside them to
their gate, it was only Mrs. Withington who spoke.
When the two women were inside the great cool sitting-room, Ellen was
holding still by that hard, faithful hand. "Mother," she entreated
breathlessly, "I needn't ever be with anybody but you, need I?"
Jealous arms were about her even before the words had time to come.
"No! no! you're mother's own girl."
The very next Wednesday Ellen went alone to match some trimming; her
maiden outfit neared completion, and she was in haste to finish it. The
garden needed her. When she had struck into the pine woods on her way
home a wagon rattled up behind, and Milton Richardson called out,
"Ride?"
She was too timid to say, "No," and so she took his hand and climbed up
to the seat beside him. The horse fell into a walk, and Ellen blushed
more and more because she could not think of anything to say. Midway of
the pines the horse stood still.
"Le's wait a minute in the shade," said Milton; and Ellen, glancing
swiftly at him, wondered why he seemed so strange. He sought her eyes
again, but she was gazing at the pines. Her cheek was rosy red.
"You been shoppin'?" he asked desperately.
"Yes," said Ellen, grateful to him for speech, wherein she was so poor.
"I went to get some braid."
"You makin' up pretty things, same 's all the girls?"
"I've made some."
Milton caught his breath.
"O Ellen!" he burst forth, "I wish you'd let me kiss you!"
Suddenly she was gone out of the wagon, like a bird let loose from an
imprisoning hand. He saw her running like a swift sweet sprite along the
darkening road.
"Ellen, you hold on!" he cried, whipping up to follow. "I didn't mean
nothin'! Oh, you let me jest speak one word."
But at the noise of his pursuit she fled over the low stone wall, and
without a look behind, dipped into the hollow on her homeward way.
Milton swore miserably and drove on. He saw Mrs. Withington gathering
cowslip greens in a marsh sufficiently removed from home, and that
heartened him to draw rein before the still white house. Ellen would be
alone. When he strode into the sitting-room she sprang up from the
lounge where she had cast herself. The tears still hung in her long
lashes, and her cheeks were white.
"My Lord! Ellen Withington!" he cried, in a shamed and rough remorse.
"Couldn't you give me a chance to speak? I don't know what under the
light o' the sun made me say that. Only you looked so terrible pretty.
But you needn't ha' took it so."
She stood staring at him, fascinated, one brown hand trembling on her
heart. Her eyes shot a glance at the door behind him, and he was enraged
anew with pity of her.
"You don't know what it is to see a girl as pretty as you be," he went
on, as if he scolded her, "and all dressed up to the nines."
She was still looking at him dumbly. She saw beyond him the vista of
Sue's broken life.
"Well, then, won't you be friends?" he urged. "Great king! you couldn't
be any more offish if I'd done it. You needn't think anything's altered.
You're the prettiest creatur' that ever stepped, but I wouldn't give up
Sue for the Queen of England. Now will you say it's square?"
So nothing was changed. She could not understand it, but she nodded at
him and smiled a little. Her trembling did not cease until he was far
upon the road.
When Mrs. Withington came home with her basket of greens, Ellen had
supper all ready, and she ran forward and held a corner of her mother's
apron while they walked together toward the house.
"You look kind o' peaked," said Mrs. Withington tenderly. "What you got
on that old brown thing for?"
"I'm going to weed after supper," Ellen answered. "The garden looks real
bad."
Mrs. Withington gazed at her keenly.
"Henry Fox asked if we were goin' to be home this evenin'," she said,
with much indifference. "I told him I guessed so."
Ellen held the apron hard.
"O mother!" she whispered; "you see him. I haven't got to, have I?"
"Law! no, child," said the other woman. "I guess you ain't. You're
mother's own girl."
So when the dusk came Mrs. Withington sat in the parlor and talked of
crops with Henry, wan beside her, while Ellen, safe at the back of the
house, weeded a bed of pansies purpling there. A soft after-glow lighted
all the windows to flame, and fell full upon the face of one dark
flower, quite human in its sombre wistfulness. Ellen knelt and kissed
it tremulously.
"You darling one!" she murmured under her breath; and somehow she knew
that this was the only sort of kiss she should ever want to give.