Just where the village abruptly ended, and the green mowing fields
began, stood Mrs. Bickford’s house, looking down the road with all its
windows, and topped by two prim chimneys that stood up like ears. It was
placed with an end to the road, and fronted southward; you could follow
a straight path from the gate past the front door and find Mrs. Bickford
sitting by the last window of all in the kitchen, unless she were
solemnly stepping about, prolonging the stern duties of her solitary
housekeeping.
One day in early summer, when almost every one else in Fairfield had put
her house plants out of doors, there were still three flower pots on a
kitchen window-sill. Mrs. Bickford spent but little time over her rose
and geranium and Jerusalem cherry-tree, although they had gained a kind
of personality born of long association. They rarely undertook to bloom,
but had most courageously maintained life in spite of their owner’s
unsympathetic but conscientious care. Later in the season she would
carry them out of doors, and leave them, until the time of frosts, under
the shade of a great apple-tree, where they might make the best of what
the summer had to give.
The afternoon sun was pouring in, the Jerusalem cherry-tree drooped its
leaves in the heat and looked pale, when a neighbor, Miss Pendexter,
came in from the next house but one to make a friendly call. As she
passed the parlor with its shut blinds, and the sitting-room, also
shaded carefully from the light, she wished, as she had done many times
before, that somebody beside the owner might have the pleasure of living
in and using so good and pleasant a house. Mrs. Bickford always
complained of having so much care, even while she valued herself
intelligently upon having the right to do as she pleased with one of the
best houses in Fairfield. Miss Pendexter was a cheerful, even gay little
person, who always brought a pleasant flurry of excitement, and usually
had a genuine though small piece of news to tell, or some new aspect of
already received information.
Mrs. Bickford smiled as she looked up to see this sprightly neighbor
coming. She had no gift at entertaining herself, and was always glad, as
one might say, to be taken off her own hands.
Miss Pendexter smiled back, as if she felt herself to be equal to the
occasion.
“How be you to-day?” the guest asked kindly, as she entered the kitchen.
“Why, what a sight o’ flowers, Mis’ Bickford! What be you goin’ to do
with ’em all?”
Mrs. Bickford wore a grave expression as she glanced over her
spectacles. “My sister’s boy fetched ’em over,” she answered. “You know
my sister Parsons’s a great hand to raise flowers, an’ this boy takes
after her. He said his mother thought the gardin never looked handsomer,
and she picked me these to send over. They was sendin’ a team to
Westbury for some fertilizer to put on the land, an’ he come with the
men, an’ stopped to eat his dinner ’long o’ me. He’s been growin’ fast,
and looks peakëd. I expect sister ’Liza thought the ride, this pleasant
day, would do him good. ’Liza sent word for me to come over and pass
some days next week, but it ain’t so that I can.”
“Why, it ’s a pretty time of year to go off and make a little visit,”
suggested the neighbor encouragingly.
“I ain’t got my sitting-room chamber carpet taken up yet,” sighed Mrs.
Bickford. “I do feel condemned. I might have done it to-day, but ’twas
all at end when I saw Tommy coming. There, he’s a likely boy, an’ so
relished his dinner; I happened to be well prepared. I don’t know but
he’s my favorite o’ that family. Only I’ve been sittin’ here thinkin’,
since he went, an’ I can’t remember that I ever was so belated with my
spring cleaning.”
“’Twas owin’ to the weather,” explained Miss Pendexter. “None of us
could be so smart as common this year, not even the lazy ones that
always get one room done the first o’ March, and brag of it to others’
shame, and then never let on when they do the rest.”
The two women laughed together cheerfully. Mrs. Bickford had put up the
wide leaf of her large table between the windows and spread out the
flowers. She was sorting them slowly into three heaps.
“Why, I do declare if you haven’t got a rose in bloom yourself!”
exclaimed Miss Pendexter abruptly, as if the bud had not been announced
weeks before, and its progress regularly commented upon. “Ain’t it a
lovely rose? Why, Mis’ Bickford!”
“Yes’m, it’s out to-day,” said Mrs. Bickford, with a somewhat plaintive
air. “I’m glad you come in so as to see it.”
The bright flower was like a face. Somehow, the beauty and life of it
were surprising in the plain room, like a gay little child who might
suddenly appear in a doorway. Miss Pendexter forgot herself and her
hostess and the tangled mass of garden flowers in looking at the red
rose. She even forgot that it was incumbent upon her to carry forward
the conversation. Mrs. Bickford was subject to fits of untimely silence
which made her friends anxiously sweep the corners of their minds in
search of something to say, but any one who looked at her now could
easily see that it was not poverty of thought that made her speechless,
but an overburdening sense of the inexpressible.
“Goin’ to make up all your flowers into bo’quets? I think the
short-stemmed kinds is often pretty in a dish,” suggested Miss Pendexter
compassionately.
“I thought I should make them into three bo’quets. I wish there wa’n’t
quite so many. Sister Eliza’s very lavish with her flowers; she’s always
been a kind sister, too,” said Mrs. Bickford vaguely. She was not apt to
speak with so much sentiment, and as her neighbor looked at her narrowly
she detected unusual signs of emotion. It suddenly became evident that
the three nosegays were connected in her mind with her bereavement of
three husbands, and Miss Pendexter’s easily roused curiosity was quieted
by the discovery that her friend was bent upon a visit to the
burying-ground. It was the time of year when she was pretty sure to
spend an afternoon there, and sometimes they had taken the walk in
company. Miss Pendexter expected to receive the usual invitation, but
there was nothing further said at the moment, and she looked again at
the pretty rose.
Mrs. Bickford aimlessly handled the syringas and flowering almond
sprays, choosing them out of the fragrant heap only to lay them down
again. She glanced out of the window; then gave Miss Pendexter a long
expressive look.
“I expect you’re going to carry ’em over to the burying-ground?”
inquired the guest, in a sympathetic tone.
“Yes’m,” said the hostess, now well started in conversation and in quite
her every-day manner. “You see I was goin’ over to my brother’s folks
to-morrow in South Fairfield, to pass the day; they said they were goin’
to send over to-morrow to leave a wagon at the blacksmith’s, and they’d
hitch that to their best chaise, so I could ride back very comfortable.
You know I have to avoid bein’ out in the mornin’ sun?”
Miss Pendexter smiled to herself at this moment; she was obliged to move
from her chair at the window, the May sun was so hot on her back, for
Mrs. Bickford always kept the curtains rolled high up, out of the way,
for fear of fading and dust. The kitchen was a blaze of light. As for
the Sunday chaise being sent, it was well known that Mrs. Bickford’s
married brothers and sisters comprehended the truth that she was a woman
of property, and had neither chick nor child.
“So I thought ’twas a good opportunity to just stop an’ see if the lot
was in good order,—last spring Mr. Wallis’s stone hove with the frost;
an’ so I could take these flowers.” She gave a sigh. “I ain’t one that
can bear flowers in a close room,—they bring on a headache; but I enjoy
’em as much as anybody to look at, only you never know what to put ’em
in. If I could be out in the mornin’ sun, as some do, and keep flowers
in the house, I should have me a gardin, certain,” and she sighed again.
“A garden’s a sight o’ care, but I don’t begrudge none o’ the care I
give to mine. I have to scant on flowers so ’s to make room for pole
beans,” said Miss Pendexter gayly. She had only a tiny strip of land
behind her house, but she always had something to give away, and made
riches out of her narrow poverty. “A few flowers gives me just as much
pleasure as more would,” she added. “You get acquainted with things when
you’ve only got one or two roots. My sweet-williams is just like folks.”
“Mr. Bickford was partial to sweet-williams,” said Mrs. Bickford. “I
never knew him to take notice of no other sort of flowers. When we’d be
over to Eliza’s, he’d walk down her gardin, an’ he’d never make no
comments until he come to them, and then he’d say, ‘Those is
sweet-williams.’ How many times I’ve heard him!”
“You ought to have a sprig of ’em for his bo’quet,” suggested Miss
Pendexter.
“Yes, I’ve put a sprig in,” said her companion.
At this moment Miss Pendexter took a good look at the bouquets, and
found that they were as nearly alike as careful hands could make them.
Mrs. Bickford was evidently trying to reach absolute impartiality.
“I don’t know but you think it’s foolish to tie ’em up this afternoon,”
she said presently, as she wound the first with a stout string. “I
thought I could put ’em in a bucket o’ water out in the shed, where
there’s a draught o’ air, and then I should have all my time in the
morning. I shall have a good deal to do before I go. I always sweep the
setting-room and front entry Wednesdays. I want to leave everything
nice, goin’ away for all day so. So I meant to get the flowers out o’
the way this afternoon. Why, it’s most half past four, ain’t it? But I
sha’n’t pick the rose till mornin’; ’twill be blowed out better then.”
“The rose?” questioned Miss Pendexter. “Why, are you goin’ to pick that,
too?”
“Yes, I be. I never like to let ’em fade on the bush. There, that’s just
what’s a-troublin’ me,” and she turned to give a long, imploring look at
the friend who sat beside her. Miss Pendexter had moved her chair before
the table in order to be out of the way of the sun. “I don’t seem to
know which of ’em ought to have it,” said Mrs. Bickford despondently. “I
do so hate to make a choice between ’em; they all had their good points,
especially Mr. Bickford, and I respected ’em all. I don’t know but what
I think of one on ’em ’most as much as I do of the other.”
“Why, ’tis difficult for you, ain’t it?” responded Miss Pendexter. “I
don’t know ’s I can offer advice.”
“No, I s’pose not,” answered her friend slowly, with a shadow of
disappointment coming over her calm face. “I feel sure you would if you
could, Abby.”
Both of the women felt as if they were powerless before a great
emergency.
“There’s one thing,—they’re all in a better world now,” said Miss
Pendexter, in a self-conscious and constrained voice; “they can’t feel
such little things or take note o’ slights same ’s we can.”
“No; I suppose ’tis myself that wants to be just,” answered Mrs.
Bickford. “I feel under obligations to my last husband when I look about
and see how comfortable he left me. Poor Mr. Wallis had his great
projects, an’ perhaps if he’d lived longer he’d have made a record; but
when he died he’d failed all up, owing to that patent cornsheller he’d
put everything into, and, as you know, I had to get along ’most any way
I could for the next few years. Life was very disappointing with Mr.
Wallis, but he meant well, an’ used to be an amiable person to dwell
with, until his temper got spoilt makin’ so many hopes an’ havin’ ’em
turn out failures. He had consider’ble of an air, an’ dressed very
handsome when I was first acquainted with him, Mr. Wallis did. I don’t
know ’s you ever knew Mr. Wallis in his prime?”
“He died the year I moved over here from North Denfield,” said Miss
Pendexter, in a tone of sympathy. “I just knew him by sight. I was to
his funeral. You know you lived in what we call the Wells house then,
and I felt it wouldn’t be an intrusion, we was such near neighbors. The
first time I ever was in your house was just before that, when he was
sick, an’ Mary ’Becca Wade an’ I called to see if there was anything we
could do.”
“They used to say about town that Mr. Wallis went to an’ fro like a
mail-coach an’ brought nothin’ to pass,” announced Mrs. Bickford without
bitterness. “He ought to have had a better chance than he did in this
little neighborhood. You see, he had excellent ideas, but he never’d
learned the machinist’s trade, and there was somethin’ the matter with
every model he contrived. I used to be real narrow-minded when he talked
about moving ’way up to Lowell, or some o’ them places; I hated to think
of leaving my folks; and now I see that I never done right by him. His
ideas was good. I know once he was on a jury, and there was a man
stopping to the tavern where he was, near the court house, a man that
traveled for a firm to Lowell; and they engaged in talk, an’ Mr. Wallis
let out some o’ his notions an’ contrivances, an’ he said that man
wouldn’t hardly stop to eat, he was so interested, an’ said he’d look
for a chance for him up to Lowell. It all sounded so well that I kind of
begun to think about goin’ myself. Mr. Wallis said we’d close the house
here, and go an’ board through the winter. But he never heard a word
from him, and the disappointment was one he never got over. I think of
it now different from what I did then. I often used to be kind of
disapproving to Mr. Wallis; but there, he used to be always tellin’ over
his great projects. Somebody told me once that a man by the same name of
the one he met while he was to court had got some patents for the very
things Mr. Wallis used to be workin’ over; but ’twas after he died, an’
I don’t know ’s ’twas in him to ever really set things up so other folks
could ha’ seen their value. His machines always used to work kind of
rickety, but folks used to come from all round to see ’em; they was
curiosities if they wa’n’t nothin’ else, an’ gave him a name.”
Mrs. Bickford paused a moment, with some geranium leaves in her hand,
and seemed to suppress with difficulty a desire to speak even more
freely.
“He was a dreadful notional man,” she said at last, regretfully, and as
if this fact were a poor substitute for what had just been in her mind.
“I recollect one time he worked all through the early winter over my
churn, an’ got it so it would go three quarters of an hour all of itself
if you wound it up; an’ if you’ll believe it, he went an’ spent all that
time for nothin’ when the cow was dry, an’ we was with difficulty
borrowin’ a pint o’ milk a day somewheres in the neighborhood just to
get along with.” Mrs. Bickford flushed with displeasure, and turned to
look at her visitor. “Now what do you think of such a man as that, Miss
Pendexter?” she asked.
“Why, I don’t know but ’twas just as good for an invention,” answered
Miss Pendexter timidly; but her friend looked doubtful, and did not
appear to understand.
“Then I asked him where it was, one day that spring when I’d got tired
to death churnin’, an’ the butter wouldn’t come in a churn I’d had to
borrow, and he’d gone an’ took ours all to pieces to get the works to
make some other useless contrivance with. He had no sort of a business
turn, but he was well meanin’, Mr. Wallis was, an’ full o’ divertin’
talk; they used to call him very good company. I see now that he never
had no proper chance. I’ve always regretted Mr. Wallis,” said she who
was now the widow Bickford.
“I’m sure you always speak well of him,” said Miss Pendexter. “’Twas a
pity he hadn’t got among good business men, who could push his
inventions an’ do all the business part.”
“I was left very poor an’ needy for them next few years,” said Mrs.
Bickford mournfully; “but he never’d give up but what he should die
worth his fifty thousand dollars. I don’t see now how I ever did get
along them next few years without him; but there, I always managed to
keep a pig, an’ sister Eliza gave me my potatoes, and I made out
somehow. I could dig me a few greens, you know, in spring, and then
’twould come strawberry-time, and other berries a-follow-in’ on. I was
always decent to go to meetin’ till within the last six months, an’ then
I went in bad weather, when folks wouldn’t notice; but ’twas a rainy
summer, an’ I managed to get considerable preachin’ after all. My
clothes looked proper enough when ’twas a wet Sabbath. I often think o’
them pinched days now, when I’m left so comfortable by Mr. Bickford.”
“Yes’m, you’ve everything to be thankful for,” said Miss Pendexter, who
was as poor herself at that moment as her friend had ever been, and who
could never dream of venturing upon the support and companionship of a
pig. “Mr. Bickford was a very personable man,” she hastened to say, the
confidences were so intimate and interesting.
“Oh, very,” replied Mrs. Bickford; “there was something about him that
was very marked. Strangers would always ask who he was as he come into
meetin’. His words counted; he never spoke except he had to. ’Twas a
relief at first after Mr. Wallis’s being so fluent; but Mr. Wallis was
splendid company for winter evenings,—’twould be eight o’clock before
you knew it. I didn’t use to listen to it all, but he had a great deal
of information. Mr. Bickford was dreadful dignified; I used to be sort
of meechin’ with him along at the first, for fear he’d disapprove of me;
but I found out ’twa’n’t no need; he was always just that way, an’ done
everything by rule an’ measure. He hadn’t the mind of my other husbands,
but he was a very dignified appearing man; he used ’most always to sleep
in the evenin’s, Mr. Bickford did.”
“Them is lovely bo’quets, certain!” exclaimed Miss Pendexter. “Why, I
couldn’t tell ’em apart; the flowers are comin’ out just right, aren’t
they?”
Mrs. Bickford nodded assent, and then, startled by sudden recollection,
she cast a quick glance at the rose in the window.
“I always seem to forget about your first husband, Mr. Fraley,” Miss
Pendexter suggested bravely. “I’ve often heard you speak of him, too,
but he’d passed away long before I ever knew you.”
“He was but a boy,” said Mrs. Bickford. “I thought the world was done
for me when he died, but I’ve often thought since ’twas a mercy for him.
He come of a very melancholy family, and all his brothers an’ sisters
enjoyed poor health; it might have been his lot. Folks said we was as
pretty a couple as ever come into church; we was both dark, with black
eyes an’ a good deal o’ color,—you wouldn’t expect it to see me now.
Albert was one that held up his head, and looked as if he meant to own
the town, an’ he had a good word for everybody. I don’t know what the
years might have brought.”
There was a long pause. Mrs. Bickford leaned over to pick up a
heavy-headed Guelder-rose that had dropped on the floor.
“I expect ’twas what they call fallin’ in love,” she added, in a
different tone; “he wa’n’t nothin’ but a boy, an’ I wa’n’t nothin’ but a
girl, but we was dreadful happy. He didn’t favor his folks,—they all had
hay-colored hair and was faded-looking, except his mother; they was
alike, and looked alike, an’ set everything by each other. He was just
the kind of strong, hearty young man that goes right off if they get a
fever. We was just settled on a little farm, an’ he’d have done well if
he’d had time; as it was, he left debts. He had a hasty temper, that was
his great fault, but Albert had a lovely voice to sing; they said there
wa’n’t no such tenor voice in this part o’ the State. I could hear him
singin’ to himself right out in the field a-ploughin’ or hoein’, an’ he
didn’t know it half o’ the time, no more ’n a common bird would. I don’t
know ’s I valued his gift as I ought to, but there was nothin’ ever
sounded so sweet to me. I ain’t one that ever had much fancy, but I
knowed Albert had a pretty voice.”
Mrs. Bickford’s own voice trembled a little, but she held up the last
bouquet and examined it critically. “I must hurry now an’ put these in
water,” she said, in a matter of fact tone. Little Miss Pendexter was so
quiet and sympathetic that her hostess felt no more embarrassed than if
she had been talking only to herself.
“Yes, they do seem to droop some; ’tis a little warm for them here in
the sun,” said Miss Pendexter; “but you’ll find they’ll all come up if
you give them their fill o’ water. They’ll look very handsome to-morrow;
folks’ll notice them from the road. You’ve arranged them very tasty,
Mis’ Bickford.”
“They do look pretty, don’t they?” Mrs. Bickford regarded the three in
turn. “I want to have them all pretty. You may deem it strange, Abby.”
“Why, no, Mis’ Bickford,” said the guest sincerely, although a little
perplexed by the solemnity of the occasion. “I know how ’tis with
friends,—that having one don’t keep you from wantin’ another; ’tis just
like havin’ somethin’ to eat, and then wantin’ somethin’ to drink just
the same. I expect all friends find their places.”
But Mrs. Bickford was not interested in this figure, and still looked
vague and anxious as she began to brush the broken stems and wilted
leaves into her wide calico apron. “I done the best I could while they
was alive,” she said, “and mourned ’em when I lost ’em, an’ I feel
grateful to be left so comfortable now when all is over. It seems
foolish, but I’m still at a loss about that rose.”
“Perhaps you’ll feel sure when you first wake up in the morning,”
answered Miss Pendexter solicitously. “It’s a case where I don’t deem
myself qualified to offer you any advice. But I’ll say one thing, seeing
’s you’ve been so friendly spoken and confiding with me. I never was
married myself, Mis’ Bickford, because it wa’n’t so that I could have
the one I liked.”
“I suppose he ain’t livin’, then? Why, I wan’t never aware you had met
with a disappointment, Abby,” said Mrs. Bickford instantly. None of her
neighbors had ever suspected little Miss Pendexter of a romance.
“Yes’m, he’s livin’,” replied Miss Pendexter humbly. “No’m, I never have
heard that he died.”
“I want to know!” exclaimed the woman of experience. “Well, I’ll tell
you this, Abby: you may have regretted your lot, and felt lonesome and
hardshipped, but they all have their faults, and a single woman’s got
her liberty, if she ain’t got other blessin’s.”
“’Twouldn’t have been my choice to live alone,” said Abby, meeker than
before. “I feel very thankful for my blessin’s, all the same. You’ve
always been a kind neighbor, Mis’ Bickford.”
“Why can’t you stop to tea?” asked the elder woman, with unusual
cordiality; but Miss Pendexter remembered that her hostess often
expressed a dislike for unexpected company, and promptly took her
departure after she had risen to go, glancing up at the bright flower as
she passed outside the window. It seemed to belong most to Albert, but
she had not liked to say so. The sun was low; the green fields stretched
away southward into the misty distance.