The train stopped at a way station with apparent unwillingness, and
there was barely time for one elderly passenger to be hurried on board
before a sudden jerk threw her almost off her unsteady old feet and we
moved on. At my first glance I saw only a perturbed old countrywoman,
laden with a large basket and a heavy bundle tied up in an old-fashioned
bundle-handkerchief; then I discovered that she was a friend of mine,
Mrs. Peet, who lived on a small farm, several miles from the village.
She used to be renowned for good butter and fresh eggs and the earliest
cowslip greens; in fact, she always made the most of her farm’s slender
resources; but it was some time since I had seen her drive by from
market in her ancient thorough-braced wagon.
The brakeman followed her into the crowded car, also carrying a number
of packages. I leaned forward and asked Mrs. Peet to sit by me; it was a
great pleasure to see her again. The brakeman seemed relieved, and
smiled as he tried to put part of his burden into the rack overhead; but
even the flowered carpet-bag was much too large, and he explained that
he would take care of everything at the end of the car. Mrs. Peet was
not large herself, but with the big basket, and the bundle-handkerchief,
and some possessions of my own we had very little spare room.
“So this ‘ere is what you call ridin’ in the cars! Well, I do declare!”
said my friend, as soon as she had recovered herself a little. She
looked pale and as if she had been in tears, but there was the familiar
gleam of good humor in her tired old eyes.
“Where in the world are you going, Mrs. Peet?” I asked.
“Can’t be you ain’t heared about me, dear?” said she. “Well, the world’s
bigger than I used to think ’t was. I’ve broke up,—’twas the only thing
_to_ do,—and I’m a-movin’ to Shrewsbury.”
“To Shrewsbury? Have you sold the farm?” I exclaimed, with sorrow and
surprise. Mrs. Peet was too old and too characteristic to be suddenly
transplanted from her native soil.
“’Twa’n’t mine, the place wa’n’t.” Her pleasant face hardened slightly.
“He was coaxed an’ over-persuaded into signin’ off before he was taken
away. Is’iah, son of his sister that married old Josh Peet, come it over
him about his bein’ past work and how he’d do for him like an own son,
an’ we owed him a little somethin’. I’d paid off everythin’ but that,
an’ was fool enough to leave it till the last, on account o’ Is’iah’s
bein’ a relation and not needin’ his pay much as some others did. It’s
hurt me to have the place fall into other hands. Some wanted me to go
right to law; but ’twouldn’t be no use. Is’iah’s smarter ’n I be about
them matters. You see he’s got my name on the paper, too; he said ’twas
somethin’ ’bout bein’ responsible for the taxes. We was scant o’ money,
an’ I was wore out with watchin’ an’ being broke o’ my rest. After my
tryin’ hard for risin’ forty-five year to provide for bein’ past work,
here I be, dear, here I be! I used to drive things smart, you remember.
But we was fools enough in ’72 to put about everythin’ we had safe in
the bank into that spool factory that come to nothin’. But I tell ye I
could ha’ kept myself long’s I lived, if I could ha’ held the place. I’d
parted with most o’ the woodland, if Is’iah’d coveted it. He was welcome
to that, ’cept what might keep me in oven-wood. I’ve always desired to
travel an’ see somethin’ o’ the world, but I’ve got the chance now when
I don’t value it no great.”
“Shrewsbury is a busy, pleasant place,” I ventured to say by way of
comfort, though my heart was filled with rage at the trickery of Isaiah
Peet, who had always looked like a fox and behaved like one.
“Shrewsbury’s be’n held up consid’able for me to smile at,” said the
poor old soul, “but I tell ye, dear, it’s hard to go an’ live twenty-two
miles from where you’ve always had your home and friends. It may divert
me, but it won’t be home. You might as well set out one o’ my old
apple-trees on the beach, so ’t could see the waves come in,—there
wouldn’t be no please to it.”
“Where are you going to live in Shrewsbury?” I asked presently.
“I don’t expect to stop long, dear creatur’. I’m ’most seventy-six year
old,” and Mrs. Peet turned to look at me with pathetic amusement in her
honest wrinkled face. “I said right out to Is’iah, before a roomful o’
the neighbors, that I expected it of him to git me home an’ bury me when
my time come, and do it respectable; but I wanted to airn my livin’, if
’twas so I could, till then. He’d made sly talk, you see, about my
electin’ to leave the farm and go ’long some o’ my own folks; but”—and
she whispered this carefully—“he didn’t give me no chance to stay there
without hurtin’ my pride and dependin’ on him. I ain’t said that to many
folks, but all must have suspected. A good sight on ’em’s had money of
Is’iah, though, and they don’t like to do nothin’ but take his part an’
be pretty soft spoken, fear it’ll git to his ears. Well, well, dear,
we’ll let it be bygones, and not think of it no more;” but I saw the
great tears roll slowly down her cheeks, and she pulled her bonnet
forward impatiently, and looked the other way.
“There looks to be plenty o’ good farmin’ land in this part o’ the
country,” she said, a minute later. “Where be we now? See them handsome
farm buildin’s; he must be a well-off man.” But I had to tell my
companion that we were still within the borders of the old town where we
had both been born. Mrs. Peet gave a pleased little laugh, like a girl.
“I’m expectin’ Shrewsbury to pop up any minute. I’m feared to be kerried
right by. I wa’n’t never aboard of the cars before, but I’ve so often
thought about em’ I don’t know but it seems natural. Ain’t it jest like
flyin’ through the air? I can’t catch holt to see nothin’. Land! and
here’s my old cat goin’ too, and never mistrustin’. I ain’t told you
that I’d fetched her.”
“Is she in that basket?” I inquired with interest.
“Yis, dear. Truth was, I calc’lated to have her put out o’ the misery o’
movin’, an spoke to one o’ the Barnes boys, an’ he promised me all fair;
but he wa’n’t there in season, an’ I kind o’ made excuse to myself to
fetch her along. She’s an’ old creatur’, like me, an’ I can make shift
to keep her some way or ’nuther; there’s probably mice where we’re
goin’, an’ she’s a proper mouser that can about keep herself if there’s
any sort o’ chance. ’Twill be somethin’ o’ home to see her goin’ an’
comin’, but I expect we’re both on us goin’ to miss our old haunts. I’d
love to know what kind o’ mousin’ there’s goin’ to be for me.”
“You mustn’t worry,” I answered, with all the bravery and assurance that
I could muster. “Your niece will be thankful to have you with her. Is
she one of Mrs. Winn’s daughters?”
“Oh, no, they ain’t able; it’s Sister Wayland’s darter Isabella, that
married the overseer of the gre’t carriage-shop. I ain’t seen her since
just after she was married; but I turned to her first because I knew she
was best able to have me, and then I can see just how the other girls is
situated and make me some kind of a plot. I wrote to Isabella, though
she _is_ ambitious, and said ’twas so I’d got to ask to come an’ make
her a visit, an’ she wrote back she would be glad to have me; but she
didn’t write right off, and her letter was scented up dreadful strong
with some sort o’ essence, and I don’t feel heartened about no great of
a welcome. But there, I’ve got eyes, an’ I can see _how_ ’tis when I git
_where_ ’tis. Sister Winn’s gals ain’t married, an’ they’ve always
boarded, an’ worked in the shop on trimmin’s. Isabella’s well off; she
had some means from her father’s sister. I thought it all over by night
an’ day, an’ I recalled that our folks kept Sister Wayland’s folks all
one winter, when he’d failed up and got into trouble. I’m reckonin’ on
sendin’ over to-night an’ gittin’ the Winn gals to come and see me and
advise. Perhaps some on ’em may know of somebody that’ll take me for
what help I can give about house, or some clever folks that have been
lookin’ for a smart cat, any ways; no, I don’t know’s I could let her go
to strangers.
“There was two or three o’ the folks round home that acted real
warm-hearted towards me, an’ urged me to come an’ winter with ’em,”
continued the exile; “an’ this mornin’ I wished I’d agreed to, ’twas so
hard to break away. But now it’s done I feel more ’n ever it’s best. I
couldn’t bear to live right in sight o’ the old place, and come spring I
shouldn’t ‘prove of nothing Is’iah ondertakes to do with the land. Oh,
dear sakes! now it comes hard with me not to have had no child’n. When I
was young an’ workin’ hard and into everything, I felt kind of free an’
superior to them that was so blessed, an’ their houses cluttered up from
mornin’ till night, but I tell ye it comes home to me now. I’d be most
willin’ to own to even Is’iah, mean ’s he is; but I tell ye I’d took it
out of him ‘fore he was a grown man, if there’d be’n any virtue in
cow-hidin’ of him. Folks don’t look like wild creatur’s for nothin’.
Is’iah’s got fox blood in him, an’ p’r’haps ’tis his misfortune. His own
mother always favored the looks of an old fox, true ’s the world; she
was a poor tool,—a poor tool! I d’know ’s we ought to blame him same ’s
we do.
“I’ve always been a master proud woman, if I was riz among the
pastures,” Mrs. Peet added, half to herself. There was no use in saying
much to her; she was conscious of little beside her own thoughts and the
smouldering excitement caused by this great crisis in her simple
existence. Yet the atmosphere of her loneliness, uncertainty, and sorrow
was so touching that after scolding again at her nephew’s treachery, and
finding the tears come fast to my eyes as she talked, I looked intently
out of the car window, and tried to think what could be done for the
poor soul. She was one of the old-time people, and I hated to have her
go away; but even if she could keep her home she would soon be too
feeble to live there alone, and some definite plan must be made for her
comfort. Farms in that neighborhood were not valuable. Perhaps through
the agency of the law and quite in secret, Isaiah Peet could be forced
to give up his unrighteous claim. Perhaps, too, the Winn girls, who were
really no longer young, might have saved something, and would come home
again. But it was easy to make such pictures in one’s mind, and I must
do what I could through other people, for I was just leaving home for a
long time. I wondered sadly about Mrs. Peet’s future, and the ambitious
Isabella, and the favorite Sister Winn’s daughters, to whom, with all
their kindliness of heart, the care of so old and perhaps so dependent
an aunt might seem impossible. The truth about life in Shrewsbury would
soon be known; more than half the short journey was already past.
To my great pleasure, my fellow-traveler now began to forget her own
troubles in looking about her. She was an alert, quickly interested old
soul, and this was a bit of neutral ground between the farm and
Shrewsbury, where she was unattached and irresponsible. She had lived
through the last tragic moments of her old life, and felt a certain
relief, and Shrewsbury might be as far away as the other side of the
Rocky Mountains for all the consciousness she had of its real existence.
She was simply a traveler for the time being, and began to comment, with
delicious phrases and shrewd understanding of human nature, on two or
three persons near us who attracted her attention.
“Where do you s’pose they be all goin’?” she asked contemptuously.
“There ain’t none on ’em but what looks kind o’ respectable. I’ll
warrant they’ve left work to home they’d ought to be doin’. I knowed, if
ever I stopped to think, that cars was hived full o’ folks, an’ wa’n’t
run to an’ fro for nothin’; but these can’t be quite up to the average,
be they? Some on ’em’s real thrif’less? guess they’ve be’n shoved out o’
the last place, an’ goin’ to try the next one,—_like me_, I suppose
you’ll want to say! Jest see that flauntin’ old creatur’ that looks like
a stopped clock. There! everybody can’t be o’ one goodness, even
preachers.”
I was glad to have Mrs. Peet amused, and we were as cheerful as we could
be for a few minutes. She said earnestly that she hoped to be forgiven
for such talk, but there were some kinds of folks in the cars that she
never had seen before. But when the conductor came to take her ticket
she relapsed into her first state of mind, and was at a loss.
“You’ll have to look after me, dear, when we get to Shrewsbury,” she
said, after we had spent some distracted moments in hunting for the
ticket, and the cat had almost escaped from the basket, and the
bundle-handkerchief had become untied and all its miscellaneous contents
scattered about our laps and the floor. It was a touching collection of
the last odds and ends of Mrs. Peet’s housekeeping: some battered books,
and singed holders for flatirons, and the faded little shoulder shawl
that I had seen her wear many a day about her bent shoulders. There were
her old tin match-box spilling all its matches, and a goose-wing for
brushing up ashes, and her much-thumbed Leavitt’s Almanac. It was most
pathetic to see these poor trifles out of their places. At last the
ticket was found in her left-hand woolen glove, where her stiff,
work-worn hand had grown used to the feeling of it.
“I shouldn’t wonder, now, if I come to like living over to Shrewsbury
first-rate,” she insisted, turning to me with a hopeful, eager look to
see if I differed. “You see ’twon’t be so tough for me as if I hadn’t
always felt it lurking within me to go off some day or ’nother an’ see
how other folks did things. I do’ know but what the Winn gals have laid
up somethin’ sufficient for us to take a house, with the little mite
I’ve got by me. I might keep house for us all, ’stead o’ boardin’ round
in other folks’ houses. That I ain’t never been demeaned to, but I dare
say I should find it pleasant in some ways. Town folks has got the upper
hand o’ country folks, but with all their work an’ pride they can’t make
a dandelion. I do’ know the times when I’ve set out to wash Monday
mornin’s, an’ tied out the line betwixt the old pucker-pear tree and the
corner o’ the barn, an’ thought, ‘Here I be with the same kind o’ week’s
work right over again.’ I’d wonder kind o’ f’erce if I couldn’t git out
of it noways; an’ now here I be out of it, and an uprooteder creatur’
never stood on the airth. Just as I got to feel I had somethin’ ahead
come that spool-factory business. There! you know he never was a
forehanded man; his health was slim, and he got discouraged pretty nigh
before ever he begun. I hope he don’t know I’m turned out o’ the old
place. ‘Is’iah’s well off; he’ll do the right thing by ye,’ says he. But
my! I turned hot all over when I found out what I’d put my name to,—me
that had always be’n counted a smart woman! I did undertake to read it
over, but I couldn’t sense it. I’ve told all the folks so when they laid
it off on to me some: but hand-writin’ is awful tedious readin’ and my
head felt that day as if the works was gone.
“I ain’t goin’ to sag on to nobody,” she assured me eagerly, as the
train rushed along. “I’ve got more work in me now than folks expects at
my age. I may be consid’able use to Isabella. She’s got a family, an’
I’ll take right holt in the kitchen or with the little gals. She had
four on ’em, last I heared. Isabella was never one that liked housework.
Little gals! I do’ know now but what they must be about grown, time doos
slip away so. I expect I shall look outlandish to ’em. But there!
everybody knows me to home, an’ nobody knows me to Shrewsbury; ’twon’t
make a mite o’ difference, if I take holt willin’.”
I hoped, as I looked at Mrs. Peet, that she would never be persuaded to
cast off the gathered brown silk bonnet and the plain shawl that she had
worn so many years; but Isabella might think it best to insist upon more
modern fashions. Mrs. Peet suggested, as if it were a matter of little
consequence, that she had kept it in mind to buy some mourning; but
there were other things to be thought of first, and so she had let it go
until winter, any way, or until she should be fairly settled in
Shrewsbury.
“Are your nieces expecting you by this train?” I was moved to ask,
though with all the good soul’s ready talk and appealing manner I could
hardly believe that she was going to Shrewsbury for more than a visit;
it seemed as if she must return to the worn old farmhouse over by the
sheep-lands. She answered that one of the Barnes boys had written a
letter for her the day before, and there was evidently little uneasiness
about her first reception.
We drew near the junction where I must leave her within a mile of the
town. The cat was clawing indignantly at the basket, and her mistress
grew as impatient of the car. She began to look very old and pale, my
poor fellow-traveler, and said that she felt dizzy, going so fast.
Presently the friendly red-cheeked young brakeman came along, bringing
the carpet-bag and other possessions, and insisted upon taking the
alarmed cat beside, in spite of an aggressive paw that had worked its
way through the wicker prison. Mrs. Peet watched her goods disappear
with suspicions eyes, and clutched her bundle-handkerchief as if it
might be all that she could save. Then she anxiously got to her feet,
much too soon, and when I said good-by to her at the car door she was
ready to cry. I pointed to the car which she was to take next on the
branch line of railway, and I assured her that it was only a few
minutes’ ride to Shrewsbury, and that I felt certain she would find
somebody waiting. The sight of that worn, thin figure adventuring alone
across the platform gave my heart a sharp pang as the train carried me
away.
Some of the passengers who sat near asked me about my old friend with
great sympathy, after she had gone. There was a look of tragedy about
her, and indeed it had been impossible not to get a good deal of her
history, as she talked straight on in the same tone, when we stopped at
a station, as if the train were going at full speed, and some of her
remarks caused pity and amusements by turns. At the last minute she
said, with deep self-reproach, “Why, I haven’t asked a word about your
folks; but you’d ought to excuse such an old stray hen as I be.”
In the spring I was driving by on what the old people of my native town
call the sheep-lands road, and the sight of Mrs. Peet’s former home
brought our former journey freshly to my mind. I had last heard from her
just after she got to Shrewsbury, when she had sent me a message.
“Have you ever heard how she got on?” I eagerly asked my companion.
“Didn’t I tell you that I met her in Shrewsbury High Street one day?” I
was answered. “She seemed perfectly delighted with everything. Her
nieces have laid up a good bit of money, and are soon to leave the mill,
and most thankful to have old Mrs. Peet with them. Somebody told me that
they wished to buy the farm here, and come back to live, but she
wouldn’t hear of it, and thought they would miss too many privileges.
She has been going to concerts and lectures this winter, and insists
that Isaiah did her a good turn.”
We both laughed. My own heart was filled with joy, for the uncertain,
lonely face of this homeless old woman had often haunted me. The
rain-blackened little house did certainly look dreary, and a whole
lifetime of patient toil had left few traces. The pucker-pear tree was
in full bloom, However, and gave a welcome gayety to the deserted
dooryard.
A little way beyond we met Isaiah Peet, the prosperous money-lender, who
had cheated the old woman of her own. I fancied that he looked somewhat
ashamed, as he recognized us. To my surprise, he stopped his horse in
most social fashion.
“Old Aunt Peet’s passed away,” he informed me briskly. “She had a shock,
and went right off sudden yisterday forenoon. I’m about now tendin’ to
the funeral ‘rangements. She’s be’n extry smart, they say, all
winter,—out to meetin’ last Sabbath; never enjoyed herself so complete
as she has this past month. She’d be’n a very hard-workin’ woman. Her
folks was glad to have her there, and give her every attention. The
place here never was good for nothin’. The old gen’leman,—uncle, you
know,—he wore hisself out tryin’ to make a livin’ off from it.”
There was an ostentatious sympathy and half-suppressed excitement from
bad news which were quite lost upon us, and we did not linger to hear
much more. It seemed to me as if I had known Mrs. Peet better than any
one else had known her. I had counted upon seeing her again, and hearing
her own account of Shrewsbury life, its pleasures and its limitations. I
wondered what had become of the cat and the contents of the faded
bundle-handkerchief.