MR. BUTTERS DISCOURSES
After leaving Mrs. Tree's house, Mr. Ithuriel Butters drove slowly along
the village street toward the post-office. He jerked the reins loosely
once or twice, but for the most part let the horses take their own way;
he seemed absorbed in thought, and now and then he shook his head and
muttered to himself, his bright blue eyes twinkling, the humorous lines
of his strong old face deepening into smiling furrows. Passing the
Temple of Vesta, he looked up sharply at the windows, seemed half
inclined to check his horses; but no one was to be seen, and he let them
take their sleepy way onward.
"I d'no as 'twould be best," he said to himself. "Diplomy's a fine
woman, I wouldn't ask to see a finer; but there, I d'no how 'tis. When
you've had pie you don't hanker after puddin', even when it's good
puddin'; and Loviny was pie; yes, sir! she was, no mistake; mince, and
no temperance mince neither. Guess I'll get along someways the rest of
the time. Seems as if some of Alviry's talk must have got lodged in the
cracks or somewhere; there's ben enough of it these three months. Mebbe
that'll last me through. Git ap, you!"
Arrived at the post-office, Mr. Butters quitted his perch once more, and
with a word to the old horses (which they did not hear, being already
asleep) made his way into the outer room. Seth Weaver, who was leaning
on the ledge of the delivery window, turned and greeted the old man
cordially.
"Well, Uncle Ithe, how goes it?"
"H'are ye, Seth?" replied Mr. Butters, "How's the folks? Mornin',
Homer! anything for out our way? How's Mother gettin' on, Seth?"
"She's slim," replied his nephew, "real slim, Mother is. She's ben
doctorin' right along, too, but it don't seem to help her any. I'm goin'
to get her some new stuff this mornin' that she heard of somewhere."
"Help her? No, nor it ain't goin' to help her," said Mr. Butters, with
some heat; "it's goin' to hender her. Parcel o' fools! She's taken
enough physic now to pison a four-year-old gander. Don't you get her no
more!"
"Wal," said Weaver, easily, "I dono as it really henders her any, Uncle
Ithe; and it takes up her mind, gives her something to think about. She
doctored Father so long, you know, and she's used to messin' with roots
and herbs; and now her sight's failin', I tell ye, come medicine time,
she brightens up and goes for it same as if it was new cider. I don't
know as I feel like denyin' her a portion o' physic, seein' she appears
to crave it. She thought this sounded like good searchin' medicine, too.
Them as told her about it said you feel it all through you."
"I should think you would!" retorted Mr. Butters. "So you would a quart
of turpentine if you took and swallered it."
"Wal, I don't know what else _to_ do, that's the fact!" Weaver admitted.
"Mother's slim, I tell ye. I do gredge seein' her grouchin' round, smart
a woman as she's ben."
"You make me think of Sile Stover, out our way," said Mr. Butters. "He
sets up to be a hoss doctor, ye know; hosses and stock gen'lly. Last
week he called me in to see a hog that was failin' up. Said he'd done
all he could do, and the critter didn't seem to be gettin' no better,
and what did I advise?
"'What have ye done?' says I.
"'Wal,' says he, 'I've cut his tail, and drawed two of his teeth, and I
dono what else _to_ do,' he says. Hoss doctor! A clo'es-hoss is the only
kind he knows much about, I calc'late."
"Wasn't he the man that tried to cure Peckham's cow of the horn ail,
bored a hole in her horn and put in salt and pepper,--or was it oil and
vinegar?"
Mr. Butters nodded. "Same man! Now that kind of a man will always find
folks enough to listen to him and take up his dum notions. I tell ye
what it is! You can have drought, and you can have caterpillars, and you
can have frost. You can lose your hay crop, and your apple crop, and
your potato crop; but there's one crop there can't nothin' touch, and
that's the fool crop. You can count on that, sartin as sin. I tell ye,
Seth, don't you fill your mother up with none of that pison stuff. She's
a good woman, if she did marry a Weaver."
Seth's eyes twinkled. "Well, Uncle Ithe, seein' you take it so hard,"
he said, "I don't mind tellin' you that I'd kind o' thought the matter
out for myself; and it 'peared to me that a half a pint o' molasses
stirred up with a gre't spoonful o' mustard and a small one of red
pepper would look about the same, and taste jest as bad, and wouldn't do
her a mite of harm. I ain't all Weaver now, be I?"
Uncle and nephew exchanged a sympathetic chuckle. At this moment Mr.
Homer's meek head appeared at the window.
"There are no letters for you to-day, Mr. Butters," he said,
deprecatingly; "but here is one for Miss Leora Pitcher; she is in your
neighborhood, I believe?"
"Wal, depends upon what you call neighborhood," Mr. Butters replied.
"It's two miles by the medders, and four by the ro'd."
"Oh!" said Mr. Homer, still more deprecatingly; "I was not aware that
the distance was so considerable, Mr. Butters. I conceived that Miss
Pitcher's estate and yours were--adjacent;--a--contiguous;--a--in point
of fact, near together."
"Wal, they ain't," said Mr. Butters; "but if it's anyways important,
mebbe I could fetch a compass round that way."
"I should be truly grateful if you could do so, Mr. Butters!" said Mr.
Homer, eagerly. "I--I feel as if this letter might be of importance, I
confess. Miss Pitcher has sent in several times by various neighbors,
and I have felt an underlying anxiety in her inquiries. I was rejoiced
this morning when the expected letter came. It is--a--in a masculine
hand, you will perceive, Mr. Butters, and the postmark is that of the
town to which Miss Pitcher's own letters were sent. I do not wish to
seem indelicately intrusive, but I confess it has occurred to me that
this might be a case of possible misunderstanding; of--a--alienation;
of--a--wounding of the tendrils of the heart, gentlemen. To see a young
person, especially a young lady, suffer the pangs of hope deferred--"
Ithuriel Butters looked at him.
"Have you ever seen Leory Pitcher, Homer?" he asked, abruptly.
"No, sir, I have not had that pleasure. But from the character of her
handwriting (she has the praiseworthy habit of putting her own name on
the envelope), I have inferred her youth, and a certain timidity of--"
"Wal, she's sixty-five, if she's a day, and she's got a hare-lip and a
cock-eye. She's uglier than sin, and snugger than eel-skin; one o' them
kind that when you prick 'em they bleed sour milk; and what she wants is
for her brother-in-law to send her his wife's clo'es, 'cause he's goin'
to marry again. All Shellback's ben talkin' about it these three
months."
Mr. Homer colored painfully.
"Is it so?" he said, dejectedly. "I regret that--that my misconception
was so complete. I ask your pardon, Mr. Butters."
"Nothin' at all, nothin' at all," said Mr. Butters, briskly, seeing that
he had given pain. "You mustn't think I want to say anything against a
neighbor, Homer, but there's no paintin' Leory Pitcher pooty, 'cause she
ain't.
"I ben visitin' with Mis' Tree this mornin'," he added, benevolently;
"she's aunt to you, I believe, ain't she?"
"Cousin, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer, still depressed. "Mrs. Tree and
my father were first cousins. A most interesting character, my cousin
Marcia, Mr. Butters."
"Wal, she is so," responded Mr. Butters, heartily. "She certinly is; ben
so all her life. Why, sir, I knew Mis' Tree when she was a gal."
"Sho!" said Seth Weaver, incredulously.
"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Homer, with interest.
"Yes, sir, I knew her well. She was older than me, some. When I was a
boy, say twelve year old, Miss Marshy Darracott was a young lady. The
pick of the country she was, now I tell ye! Some thought Miss Timothy
was handsomer,--she was tall, and a fine figger; her and Mis' Blyth
favored each other,--but little Miss Marshy was the one for my money.
She used to make me think of a hummin'-bird; quick as a flash, here, and
there, gone in a minute, and back again before you could wink. She had a
little black mare she used to ride, Firefly, she called her. Eigh, sirs,
to see them two kitin' round the country was a sight, now I tell ye. I
recall one day I was out in the medder behind Darracott House--you know
that gully that runs the len'th of the ten-acre lot? Well, there used to
be a bridge over that gully, just a footbridge it was, little light
thing, push it over with your hand, seemed as if you could. Wal, sir, I
was pokin' about the way boys do, huntin' for box-plums, or woodchucks,
or nothin' at all, when all of a suddin I heard hoofs and voices, and I
slunk in behind a tree, bein' diffident, and scairt of bein' so near the
big house.
"Next minute they come out into the ro'd, two on 'em, Miss Marshy
Darracott and George Tennaker, Squire Tennaker's son, over to Bascom. He
was a big, red-faced feller, none too well thought of, for all his folks
had ben in the country as long as the Darracotts, or the Butterses
either, for that matter, and he'd ben hangin' round Miss Marshy quite a
spell, though she wouldn't have nothin' to say to him. I was in her
Sabbath-school class, and thought the hull world of her, this one and a
piece of the next; and I gredged George Tennaker so much as lookin' at
her. Wal, they come along, and he was sayin' something, and she
answered him short and sharp; I can see her now, her eyes like black
di'monds, and the red comin' and goin' in her cheeks: she was a pictur
if ever I seed one. Pooty soon he reached out and co't holt of her
bridle. Gre't Isrel, sir! she brought down her whip like a stroke of
lightning on his fingers, and he dropped the rein as if it burnt him.
Then she whisked round, and across that bridge quicker'n any swaller
ever you see. It shook like a poplar-tree, but it hadn't no time to fall
if it wanted to; she was acrost, and away out of sight before you could
say 'Simon Peter;' and he set there in the ro'd cussin', and swearin',
and suckin' his fingers. I tell ye, I didn't need no dinner that day; I
was full up, and good victuals, too."
"This is extremely interesting, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer.
"You--a--you present my venerable relative in a wholly new light. She
is so--a--so extremely venerable, if I may so express myself, that I
confess I have never before had an accurate conception of her youth."
"You thought old folks was born old," said Mr. Butters, with a chuckle.
"Wal, they warn't. They was jest as young as young folks, and oftentimes
younger. Miss Marshy warn't no more than a slip of a girl when she
merried. Come along young Cap'n Tree, jest got his first ship, and the
world in his pants pocket, and said 'Snip!' and she warn't backward with
her 'Snap!' I tell ye. Gorry! they were a handsome pair. See 'em come
along the street, you knowed how 'twas meant man and woman should look.
For all she was small, Mis' Tree would ha' spread out over a dozen other
women, the sperit she had in her; and he was tall enough for both, the
cap'n would say. And proud of each other! He'd have laid down gold
bricks for her to walk on if he'd had his way. Yes, sir, 'twas a sight
to see 'em.
"There ain't no such young folks nowadays; not but what that young
Strong fellow was well enough; he got a nice gal, too. Wal, sir, this
won't thresh the oats. I must be gettin' along. Think mebbe there ain't
no sech hurry about that letter for Leory Pitcher, do ye, Homer? I'll
kerry it if you say so."
"I thank you, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer, sadly, "it is immaterial, I
am obliged to you."