MRS. POGRAM CONFIDES
HALF an hour afterward Mrs. Pogram, unconscious of Miss Foster’s
yearning to administer to her portly person a vigorous movement cure,
walked leisurely up the village street. From one hand depended a long
slender package which she held away from her black shawl by a string
loop around her forefinger.
A merry whistling attracted her, and she perceived coming along the
walk, at a swinging gait, a bareheaded young man in a sweater. In a few
days the streets of the village would be largely populated by girls and
men, all with an aversion to hats and sleeves. Mrs. Pogram was familiar
with the type, and noted that this care-free person was an advance
guard proving that the summer was here.
She eyed him, however, with lack-lustre eyes until he stopped suddenly
before her.
“You don’t know me,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets.
The corners of Mrs. Pogram’s lips drew down and her chin drew in.
“Why, Irvin’ Bruce, it’s you!” she declared. “We haven’t seen you in
these parts for so long I didn’t know but you’d given up Fairport.”
“Couldn’t do that, Mrs. Pogram. You know how a man always returns to
the scene of his crimes.”
Mrs. Pogram again drew down the corners of her mouth and gave her
gingerly-held package a shake.
“This pesky fish never will be done drippin’,” she remarked.
“Been fishing?” asked her companion.
“Yes. I go fishin’ on the wharf. It’s cheaper than to the market and
the walk does me good.”
“You look well.”
“I ain’t well. It’s kind o’ hard for me to get around, and I miss
Rosalie. She’s gone off.” Mrs. Pogram’s voice took a whining note, and
she indulged in a sniff of self-pity. “I donno as you ever saw Rosalie?”
“Oh yes, I’ve seen her.”
“The way I come to take her, I was gettin’ along in years and she was
left alone in the world. She wanted a home and I wanted young hands
and feet, so we’d ’a’ got along real comfortable if it hadn’t been for
Loomis; and I’ve been more like a mother than a sister to Loomis,
bein’ so much older, and I do think he might have let me have a little
comfort without naggin’ me all the time.”
“Has he left Portland and come here to live with you?”
“Oh no, he’s still in Chatham’s store, but he can run down over Sunday
any time, you know, and ever since Rosalie came he’s done so a great
deal.”
“What could you expect?” returned Irving. “I remember her.”
“Hey? Oh, yes, Loomis was awful pleased with her at first, but she
didn’t seem to take much of a fancy to him. Kinder laughed at him.
Loomis _is_ sort o’ fussy. Anyway, she made him mad one day, and from
that on he didn’t give me any peace.”
Mrs. Pogram sniffed again and gave her lachrymose package another shake
so that its tears bedewed the walk as if she were weeping vicariously.
“He made you send the girl away?” asked Irving quickly, a line coming
in his forehead at the remembrance of the mincing young clerk who had
been the natural victim of many a prank of his own boyhood.
“Not _made_ me, exactly,” returned Mrs. Pogram, “but Rosalie got so she
wouldn’t stand it any longer. You see,” her complaining tone altering
to one of some complacence, “though I ain’t any millionairess, my
estate ain’t exactly to be sneezed at. The old Pogram mahogany and the
silver that was my mother’s are worth considerable; and Loomis was
on pins for fear I’d give some of ’em to Rosalie. I give her a spoon
once—it was real thin, Irvin’, not worth much of anything in money,
but it was a time when Rosalie’d taken care of me through a fever and
I felt to give her somethin’; and law, from the way Loomis took on
you’d ’a’ thought I’d made him a poor man for the rest of his life.
Honestly I was ashamed of him; and I kep’ his actions away from Rosalie
as much as I could; but she’s smart, and she saw she’d gained Loomis’s
enmity by laughin’ at him, and saw that he was gettin’ kinder jealous
of her about the things; and if she would only have been quiet, and
spoken him fair, and we both kept our own counsel, I could have slipped
many a little thing to her and he’d never ’a’ known the difference.
Things weren’t ever the same after your mother gave her that winter at
Lambeth. She never laughed at Loomis till after that, and then came my
sickness and I gave her the spoon, and from that time there wa’n’t ever
any peace.”
The line in Irving’s forehead came again. “Then you don’t think Mrs.
Bruce’s gift to Rosalie was an advantage.”
“Well, I was willin’ to spare her for her own good, for I could see
what her longings were, and felt I hadn’t ought to stand in her way.
Loomis favored it because I think ’twas his idea then that he and
Rosalie would both come into the Brown-Pogram estate one o’ these days.”
Irving lifted a hand to conceal some ebullition which escaped him at
the thought of the ramshackle ancestral halls of the Pograms.
“As I say,” continued Mrs. Pogram, “if Rosalie could have worked with
me we’d ha’ kep’ Loomis smoothed down; but after the spoon trouble
that young one acted like all possessed. Every time Loomis came she’d
throw out remarks to scare him. ‘Oh, Auntie Pogram,’ she’d say, ‘just
look how exactly the right height this work-table is for me to set
by. It’s the real stuff this wood is;’ and then she’d gaze at it
kinder thoughtful. ‘If this was polished up, that grain would come
out beautiful.’ Then there is a silver slop-bowl and creamer that was
my mother’s. ‘Oh, Auntie Pogram,’ she’d say, and just clasp her hands
and gaze at ’em like they was magnets and she a needle. ‘How easy it
is, after all, to tell the real antiquities from the made-up ones,’
she’d say. ‘How I do love that colonial pattern!’ And all the time
Loomis would fidget and run his fingers through his hair and get red
in the face. After he’d go I’d talk to her, but she wouldn’t do a
thing but laugh till the tears come in her eyes.” Mrs. Pogram nodded
significantly. “But the day came when there was more tears and not so
much laugh. Loomis got so he come down every Saturday night. He made a
list of all the silver and he’d count ’em out, forks and spoons, every
time he came. One Sunday night he said something real downright mean
to Rosalie about beggars not bein’ choosers. I spoke up for the girl
then and there. I said Rosalie had earned everything she’d had from
me and earned it fully. I can see her now standin’ there, and the way
her nostrils opened when she breathed. I don’t think I ever saw her as
good-lookin’ as she was that minute. Her light hair was just fluffin’
out like a cloud, and her blue eyes turned nearly black, and her lips
was bit in between her teeth till she scared me the way she looked at
Loomis. Then she went out o’ the room without a word. The next mornin’
she didn’t get up at half-past four to get Loomis’s breakfast, the way
she had to when he stayed Sunday nights. I hadn’t thought she would,
and I got up in my double-gown and found him drinkin’ some cold milk,
and growlin’. Loomis likes his coffee. I told him ’twas his own fault,
and he told me to go to bed and stay there,—’twas all I was fit for.”
Mrs. Pogram sniffed again and shook the fish mechanically.
“I didn’t hear any sound in Rosalie’s room when Loomis slammed the
front door; so after a spell I went in to find her and try to make
peace, but—” the speaker shook her head—“there wa’n’t any Rosalie. Her
bed was made up neat and there was a note on her table. ‘I love you,
dear Auntie Pogram, but I can’t stand it any longer. Don’t worry about
me. If I’m in any trouble I promise to write to you.’”
Here, the fish not seeming equal to the occasion, Mrs. Pogram dabbed
some tears from her own eyes.
“How long ago was this?” asked Irving.
“Only a few weeks, and I haven’t heard another word.”
“Your brother is satisfied, I suppose?”
“Well, he ain’t real comfortable, ’cause he knows I don’t mean to live
and work all alone. I ain’t fit to; and he’s afraid now I’ll pay wages
that’ll be a tax on the estate.”
Irving muttered something under his breath.
“Hey?” inquired his companion plaintively.
“I’m sorry for all this, Mrs. Pogram. You must tell Betsy about it. Her
head is full of sensible ideas. Perhaps she can help you.”
“I’d like to see her,” returned the other mournfully. “How are you all?”
“All well.”
“You’ve been to Europe. Now I s’pose you’ll settle down a spell.”
“Alas, Mrs. Bruce decrees otherwise. We’re off for the Yellowstone as
soon as we can unpack and pack again.”
“I hear it’s real sightly out there,” returned Mrs. Pogram, without
enthusiasm. “I’ll have to tell Betsy to get some one else to look
after the cottage, though; I ain’t fit to hist mattresses.” Another
sniff. “Good-mornin’, Irvin’, I’m real glad I met you. Remember me to
the folks.”