Hetty Niles, with a sudden distaste for her lonely kitchen, its bare
cleanliness the more revealed by the February sun, caught her shawl from
the nail and threw it over her head. She spoke aloud, in a way she had
taken up within the last week, while her solitude was still vocal with
notes out of the living past:--
"I'll go over an' see Still Lucy."
Her dry face, hardened to all weathers, wore a look of anguish, an
emotion that smoldered in the hollows about the eyes, and was tensely
drawn around the mouth. She was like one of the earth-forces, or an
earth-servitor, scarred by work and trouble, and yet so unused to
patience that when it was forced upon her she felt suffocated by it. She
hurried out into the fitful weather, and closed her door behind her.
With her shawl hugged closely, she took the path across the fields, a
line of dampness in the spongy turf, and, head down, made her way
steadily to the little white house where Still Lucy, paralyzed for over
thirty years, lay on the sofa, knitting lace. Hetty walked into this
kitchen with as little ceremony as she had used in leaving her own. She
withdrew the shawl from her head, saying, in the act,--
"How do, Lucy?"
The woman looked up from her work, and nodded brightly. To the casual
eye she was not of a defined age. Her face was unwrinkled and its
outline delicate, and her blue eyes were gay with even a childish
pleasure. She looked invitingly at the world, as if it could give her
nothing undesired. Yet the soft hair rising in a crown from her forehead
was white as silver, and her little hands were old. She was covered to
the waist with a cheerful quilt. Her fingers went in and out unceasingly
upon her work, while her bright glance traveled about the room. The
stove gave out the moist heat of a kitchen fire where the pot is
boiling, and the cat cocked a sleepy eye in the sun. Hetty seated
herself by the stove, and stretched her hand absently toward its warmth.
"Parson's be'n in," she said abruptly.
"Caroline said so," returned Lucy, in her sweet, husky old voice. "I
thought likely."
"He says I must be resigned," continued Hetty, with the same brusque
emphasis.
"Oh, yes!" said Lucy. She spoke as if it were a task to be accepted
gratefully.
"To the will o' God. 'Parson,' says I, 'I don't believe in God.'"
Lucy's fingers caught out a tangle in her thread, while her delicate
brow knotted itself briefly.
"Ain't that hard!" she breathed.
Hetty was brooding over the fire.
"That's what I told him," she went on. "An' I don't. I don't know 's
ever I did, to speak of. It never really come up till now. He repeated
texts o' Scriptur'. 'Parson,' says I, 'you ain't a woman that had one
son, as good a boy as ever stepped, an' then lost him. 'Tain't a week,'
says I, 'sence he was carried out o' this house. Don't you talk to me
about God.'"
Lucy was looking at her with eloquent responses in her face. Hetty
glanced up, and partly understood them.
"Nor you neither, Lucy," she made haste to say. "You're terrible pious,
an' you've had your troubles, an' they've be'n heavy; but you ain't had
an' lost. If I could take it on me to-day to lay there as you be,
knowin' I shouldn't get up no more, I'd jump at it if I could have
Willard back, whistlin' round an' cuttin' up didos. Yes, I would."
"I guess you would," murmured Lucy to herself. "It's too bad--too bad."
There was a step on the doorstone, and Caroline came in. She was Lucy's
sister, gaunt and dark-eyed, with high cheek-bones, and the red of
health upon them. She regarded Hetty piercingly.
"You got company over to your house?" she asked at once.
"No," Hetty answered. She added bitterly, "It's stiller'n the grave. I
don't expect company no more."
"Well," commented Caroline.
She had laid aside her shawl, and began fruitful sallies about the
kitchen, putting in a stick of wood, catching off the lid from the pot,
to regard the dinner with a frowning brow, and then sitting down to
extricate from her pocket a small something rolled in her handkerchief.
"I've be'n into Mis' Flood's," she said, "an' she gi'n me this." She
walked over to her sister, bearing the treasure with a joyous pride.
"It's as nice a slip o' rose geranium as ever I see."
Hetty's face contracted sharply.
"I've throwed away the flowers," she said.
Both sisters glanced at her in sympathetic knowledge. Caroline was
busily setting out the slip in a side of the calla pot, and she got a
tumbler to cover it.
"Them parson's wife sent over?" she asked.
Hetty nodded. "There was a dozen of 'em," she continued, with pride,
"white carnation pinks."
"She sent way to Fairfax for 'em," said Caroline. "Her girl told me.
Handsome, wa'n't they?"
"They wa'n't no handsomer'n what come from round here," said Hetty
jealously, "not a mite. There you sent over your calla, an' Mis' Flood
cut off that long piece o' German ivy, an' the little Ballard
gal,--nothin' would do but she must pick all them gloxinias an' have 'em
for Willard's funeral. I didn't hardly know there was so many flowers in
the world, in winter time." She mused a moment, her face fallen into
grief. Then she roused herself. "What'd you mean by askin' if I had
company?" she interrogated Caroline.
"Nothin', on'y they say Susan's boy's round here."
"Susan's boy? From out West?"
Caroline nodded.
"He was into Mis' Flood's yesterday," she said, "inquirin' all about
you. Said he hadn't seen you sence he was a little feller. Said he
shouldn't hardly dast to call, now you an' his mother wa'n't on terms.
Seems 's if he knew all about that trouble over the land."
Hetty's face lighted scornfully.
"Trouble over the land!" she echoed. "Who made the trouble? That's what
I want to know--who made it? Susan Hill May, that's who made it. You
needn't look at me, Lucy. I ain't pious, as you be, an' I don't care if
she is my step-sister. You know how 'twas, as well as I do. Mother left
me the house because I was a widder an' poor as poverty, an' she left
Susan the pastur'. 'Twas always understood I was to pastur' my cow in
that pastur', Susan livin' out West an' all, an' I always had, sence
Benjamin died; but the minute mother left me the house, Susan May set up
her Ebenezer I shouldn't have the use o' that pastur'. She's way out
West there, an' she don't want it; but she'd see it sunk ruther'n I
should have the good on 't."
"Well," said Lucy soothingly, "you ain't pastur'd there sence she forbid
it."
"No, I guess I ain't," returned Hetty, rising to go. "Nor I ain't set
foot in it. What's Mis' Flood say about Susan's boy?" she asked
abruptly, turning to Caroline.
"Well,"--Caroline hesitated,--"she said he was in liquor when he called,
an' she heard he'd be'n carryin' on some over to the Street."
Hetty nodded grimly. She spoke with an exalted sadness.
"I ain't surprised. Susan drove her husband to drink, an' she'd drive a
saint. Well, my Willard was as good a boy as ever stepped. That's all I
got to say."