"Stay an' set down with us? It's b'iled dish. I guess you can smell
it."
Hetty was drawing her shawl about her. She shook her head.
"No," said she. "'Bleeged to ye. I'll pick up suthin'."
But later, entering her own kitchen, she stopped and drew a sharp
breath, like an outcry against the desolation there. The room was in its
homely order, to be broken, she felt, no more. She was childless. All
the zest of work had gone. She threw off her shawl then, with a savage
impatience at her own grief, and began her tasks. In the midst of them
she paused, laid down her cooking-spoon, and sank into a chair.
"O Lord!" she moaned. "My Lord!" This was the worst of all the days since
he had died. She understood it now. The flowers were gone. They had
formed a link between the present and that day when they made the
sitting-room so sweet. Even the fragrance of that last sad hour had
fled. Suddenly she laughed, a bitter note. She spoke aloud:--
"If the Lord'll send me some flowers afore to-morrer night, I'll believe
in Him. If He'll send me one flower or a sprig o' green, I'll believe in
Him, an' hold up my head rejoicin', like Still Lucy."
She repeated the words, as if to One who heard. Thereafter a quickened
energy possessed her. She got her dinner alertly, and with some vestige
of the interest she had been used to feel when she cooked for two. All
the afternoon it was the same. Her mind dwelt passionately upon the
compact she had offered the Unseen. Over and over she repeated the terms
of it, sometimes with eager commentary.
"It can't hurt nobody," she reasoned, in piteous argument. Her gnarled
hands trembled as she worked, and now, with nobody to note her weakness,
tears fell unregarded down her face. "There's things I wouldn't ask for,
whether or no. Mebbe they'd have to be took away from somebody else; an'
I never was one to plead up poverty. But there's plenty o' flowers in
the world. 'Twouldn't upset nothin' for me to have jest one afore
to-morrer night. If I can have one flower afore to-morrer night, I shall
know there's a God in heaven."
The day began with a sense of newness and exaltation at which she
wondered. Until this hour, death had briefly ruled the house and chilled
the air in it. Her son's overthrow had struck at the heart of her
vitality and presaged her own swift doom. All lesser interests had
dwindled and grown poor; her life seemed flickering out like a taper in
the breeze. Now grief had something to leaven it. Something had set up
a screen between her and the wind of unmerciful events. There was a
possibility, not of reprieve, but of a message from the unseen good, and
for a moment the candle of her life burned steadily. Since the dead
could not return, stricken mortality had one shadowy hope: that it
should go, in its course, to them, and find them living. Again she vowed
her belief to the God who would send one sign of his well-wishing toward
her.
"I'll set till twelve o'clock this night," she said grimly, laying her
morning fire. "That's eighteen hours. If He can't do suthin' in eighteen
hours, He can't ever do it."
At ten o'clock her work was done, and she established herself by the
sitting-room window, her knitting in hand, to watch for him who was to
come. A warm excitement flooded through her veins.
"How my heart beats!" she said aloud. It had hurried through the peril
of Willard's illness and the disaster of his death. It was hurrying now,
as if it meant to gallop with her from the world.
At half-past ten there was the sound of wheels. She dropped her knitting
and put her hand up to her throat. A carriage turned the bend in the
road and passed the clump of willows. It was the minister's wife,
driving at a good pace and leaning out to bow. Hetty rose, trembling,
her hand on the window-sill. But the minister's wife gave another
smiling nod and flicked the horse. She was not the messenger.
Hetty sank back to her work, and knit with trembling fingers. The
forenoon wore on. It was Candlemas, and cloudy, and she remembered that
the badger would not go back into his hole. There would be an early
spring. Then grief caught her again by the throat, at the thought that
spring might come, and summer greaten, but she was a stricken woman
whose joy would not return. She rose from her chair and called out
passionately,--
"Only one flower, jest one sprig o' suthin', an' I'll be contented!"
That day she had no dinner. She made it ready, with a scrupulous
exactitude, but she could not eat. She went back to her post at the
window. Nobody went by. Of all the neighbors who might have driven to
market, not one appeared. Life itself seemed to be stricken from her
world. At four o'clock she caught her shawl from its nail, and ran
across the field to Lucy. Both sisters were at home, in the still
tranquillity of their pursuits, Lucy knitting and Caroline binding
shoes. Hetty came in upon them as if a wind had blown her.
"Law me!" said Caroline, looking up. "Anything happened?"
"No," said Hetty, "nothin' 's happened. I don't know as 't ever will."
She sat down and talked recklessly about nothing. A calla bud, yesterday
a roll of white, had opened, and the sun lay in its heart. Hetty set her
lips grimly, and refused to look at it. Yet, as her voice rang on, the
feverish will within her kept telling her what she might say. She might
ask for the well-being of the slip set out yesterday, or she might even
venture, "I should think you'd move your calla out o' the sun. Won't it
wilt the bloom?" Then Lucy might tell Caroline to snip off the bloom and
give it to her. But no one spoke of plants. Her breath quickened
chokingly, and her heart swelled and made her sick. Suddenly she rose
and threw her shawl about her in wild haste.
"I must go," she trembled; but at the door Lucy stayed her.
"Hetty," she called. Her voice faltered, and her eyes looked soft under
wistful brows. "Hetty!"
Hetty was waiting, in a tremor of suspense.
"Well," she answered, her voice beating upon the word. "What is it?"
Still Lucy spoke with diffidence, as she always did when she touched
upon her faith.
"I was only thinkin'--I dunno 's I can tell you, Hetty--but what you
said yesterday, you know, about not believin' there's any God--I was
goin' to ask you who you think made the trees an' flowers."
Hetty did not answer. She stood there, her hands trembling underneath
her shawl. She gripped them, one upon the other, to keep from stretching
them for alms.
"Well," she answered harshly. "Well!"
"Well," said Lucy gently, "that's all."
Hetty laughed out stridently.
"I'm goin' over to Mis' Flood's," said she, her hand upon the latch.
"They've driv' over to Fairfax to spend the day," volunteered Caroline.
"Better by half set here."
"Then I'm goin' over to Ballard's." She fled down the road so fast that
Caroline, watching her compassionately, remarked that she "looked, as if
she's sent for," and Lucy said, like a charm, a phrase of the Lord's
Prayer.
Hetty looked up at the Floods' and groaned, remembering there were
plants within. She spoke aloud, satirically:--
"Mebbe I could be the instrument o' the Lord. Mebbe if I climbed into
the winder, an' stole a bloom, I could say He give it to me."
But she went on, and hurried up the path to the little one-story house
where the Ballards lived. Grandsir was by the fire, pounding walnuts in
a little wooden mortar, to make a paste for his toothless jaws, and
little 'Melia, a bowl of nuts before her, sat in a high chair at the
table, lost in reckless greed. Her doll, forgotten, lay across a corner
of the table, in limp abandon, the buttonholed eyes staring nowhere.
Grandsir spoke wheezingly:--
"We're keepin' house, 'Melia an' me. We thought we'd crack us a few
nuts. Help yourself, Hetty."
'Melia lifted her bowl with two fat hands, and held it out, tiltingly.
Her round blue eyes shone in a painstaking hospitality. She was a good
little 'Melia.
"No, dear, you set it down. I don't want none," said Hetty tenderly. She
steadied the bowl on its way back, and 'Melia, relinquishing the claims
of entertainment, picked into her small mouth with a swift avidity.
"Clever little creatur'!" Hetty continued, in a frank aside.
But Grandsir had not heard.
"How old was Willard?" he inquired, pausing to test the mass his mortar
held.
The tears came into her eyes.
"Thirty-four," she answered.
"How old?"
After she had repeated it, 'Melia turned suddenly, and made a solemn
statement.
"I picked off my gloxinias and gave 'em all to Willard." She lisped on
the name, and made it a funny flower.
Hetty was trembling.
"Yes, dear, yes," she responded prayerfully. "They were real handsome
blooms. I was obleeged to ye." She wondered if the lisping mouth would
say, "There's another one open," and the fat hand pluck it for her. She
shut her lips and tried to seal her mind, lest the child should be
prompted and the test should fail.
"I dunno 's I remember what year Willard's father died?" Grandsir was
inquiring.
"O Lord!" breathed Hetty, "I can't bear no more."
She threw her shawl over her head, and hurried out.
"Come again," the childish voice called after her.
Grandsir had begun to eat his nuts. He scarcely knew she had been there.
Hetty went swiftly homeward through the dusk. The damp air was clogging
to the breath, and for a moment her warm kitchen seemed a refuge to her.
But only for a moment. It was very still.
"I'll give it up," she said. "There's flowers in the world, an' not one
for me. I might 'a' had 'em if He'd took the trouble to send. That
proves it. There ain't anybody to send,--nor care."
She walked about in a grim scorn of everything: the world, the way it
was made, and herself for trusting it. When she had made a cup of tea
and broken bread, the warmth came back to her chilled heart, and
suddenly her scorn turned against herself.
"I said I'd wait till twelve o'clock to-night," she owned. "I'm the one
that's petered out. This is the last word I speak till arter twelve."
She fortified herself with stronger tea, and sat grimly down to knit.
The minutes and the half-hours passed. She rose, from time to time, and
fed the fire, and once, at eleven, when a cold rain began, she put her
face to the pane.
"Dark as pitch!" she muttered. "If anybody's comin', they couldn't see
their way."
Then she lighted another lamp and set it in the window. It was a quarter
before twelve when her trembling hands failed her, and she laid down her
knitting and walked to the front door. The northeast wind whipped her in
the face, and she could hear the surf at Breakers' Edge. The pathway of
light from the window lay upon a figure by the gate. A voice came out of
the stillness. It was young and frank.
"I'm holdin' up your fence, to rest a spell. I've given my ankle a
twist somehow."
Hetty ran out into the storm, and the wind lashed strands of hair into
her eyes. She stretched a hand over the fence, and laid it on the man's
shoulder.
"Who be you?" she demanded.
He laughed.
"I'll tell you, if you won't bat me for it. I'm your own nephew, near as
I can make out."
"Susan's son?"
"Yes. Much as my life's worth, ain't it? Never saw anything like you an'
mother when you get fightin',--reg'lar old barnyard fowls."
She gripped his shoulder tightly. Her voice had a sob in it, and a
prayer.
"You got anything for me?"
He answered wonderingly.
"Why, no, I don't know 's I have. My ankle's busted, that's all. I guess
I can crawl along in a minute."
She remembered how fast the clock was getting on toward midnight, and
spoke in dull civility.
"You come in. I'll bandage ye up. Mebbe 'twill save ye a sprain."
Later, when he was by the fire and she had done skillful work with water
and cotton cloth, and the pain would let him, he looked at her again.
"You an' mother ain't no more alike than a black an' a maltee," he
said. "Hullo! what you cryin' for?"
The tears were splashing her swift hands.
"I dunno," she answered shortly. "Yes, I do, too. You speak some like
Willard."
The clock was striking two when she went to bed, and she slept at once.
It was necessary, she told herself. There was a man in the west room,
and his ankle was hurt, and she must get up early to call the doctor.
The next day and the next went like moments of a familiar dream. The
doctor came, and the boy--he was twenty-six, but he seemed only a
boy--joked while he winced, and owned he had nothing to do, and could
easily lie still a spell, if aunt Het would keep him. She was sorry over
the hurt, and, knowing no other compensation for a man's idleness, began
to cook delicate things for his eating. He laughed at everything, even
at her when she was too solicitous. But he was sorry for her, and when
she spoke of Willard his face softened. She thought sometimes of what
she had heard about him before he came; and one April day, when they
were out in the yard together, he leaning on his cane and she sweeping
the grass, she spoke involuntarily:--
"I can't hardly believe it."
"What?" he asked.
"Folks said"--she hesitated--"folks said you was a drinkin' man."
He laughed out.
"I did get overtaken," he owned. "I was awful discouraged, the night I
struck here. I didn't care whether school kept or not. But 'twas Lew
Parker's whiskey," he added, twinkling at her. "That whiskey'd poison a
rat."
She paused, with a handful of chips gathered from the clean grass.
"What was you discouraged about?" she asked kindly.
"Well,"--he hesitated,--"I may as well tell you. I've invented
somethin'. It goes onto a reaper. Mother never believed in it, an' she
turned me down. So I came East. I couldn't get anybody to look at it,
an' I was pretty blue. Then the same day I busted my ankle I heard from
another man, an' he'll buy it an' take all the risk, an'--George! I
guess mother'll sing small when Johnnie comes marchin' home!"
He looked so strong and full of hope that her own sorrow cried, and her
face worked piteously.
"You goin' back?" she faltered.
"Sometime, aunt Het. 'Long towards fall, maybe, to get things into
shape. Then I'm comin' back again, to put it through. Who's that?"
It was a neighbor, stopping his slumberous horse to leave a letter.
"That's Susan's hand," said Hetty, as she gave it to him.
He read it and laughed a little. His eyes were moist.
"See here, aunt Het," he said, "mother's had a change of heart because I
busted my ankle an' you took care of me an' all,--an' look here! she
says she wants you should use the long pastur'."
Hetty dropped her apron and the chips it held. She stood silent for a
moment, looking out over the meadow and wishing Willard knew. Then she
said practically,--
"Soon 's your ankle'll bear ye, we'll poke down there an' see how things
seem."
In a week's time they went slowly down to look over the fences,
preparatory to turning in the cow. Hetty glanced at the sky, with its
fleece of flying cloud, and then at the grass, so bright that the eyes
marveled at it. The old ache was keen within her. The earth bereft of
her son would never be the same earth again, but some homely comforting
had reached her with the springing of the leaf. She looked at the boy by
her side. He was a pretty boy, she thought, and she was glad Susan had
him. And suddenly it came to her that he had been lent her for a little
while, and she was glad of that, too. His hurt had kept her busy. His
ways about the house, even the careless ones, had strengthened the grief
in her, but in a human, poignant way that had no bitterness.
They went about, testing the fence-lengths, and then, before they left
the pasture, stood, by according impulse, and looked back into its
trembling green. The boy had let down the bars, but he was loath to go.
"Stop a minute," he said, pointing to an upland bank where the sun lay
warm. "I'm tired."
"Lazy, more like," said Hetty. But he knew she said it fondly.
He lay down at full length, and she sank stiffly on the bank and leaned
her elbow there. She looked at the sky and then at the bank. It was blue
with violets. There were so many of them that, as they traveled up the
sod, they made a purple stain.
"Well, aunt Het," said he, "you've got the pastur'."
She nodded.
"Don't make much difference how long you wait," he continued, "if it
comes at last." He was thinking of his patent, and Hetty knew it.
"Mebbe we can't have things when we expect to," she answered
comprehendingly. "Still Lucy's great on that. 'Don't do no good to set
up your Ebenezer,' says she. 'You got to wait for things to grow.'
Lucy's dretful pious." She passed her brown hands over the violet heads,
as gently as a breeze, caressing but not bending them. "I dunno 's ever
I see so many vi'lets afore."
"Like 'em, aunt Het?" he asked her kindly.
"I guess I do!" but as she spoke, her eyes widened in awe and wonder.
"My Lord!" she breathed. "They're flowers."
The boy laughed.
"What'd you think they were?" he asked, with the same indulgent
interest. "Herd's grass?"
He turned over and buried his sleepy visage in the new leaves. But Hetty
was communing with herself. Her old face had a look of hushed solemnity.
Her eyes were lighted from within.
"Sure enough," she murmured reverently. "They're flowers."