Mrs. William Trimble and Miss Rebecca Wright were driving along Hampden
east road, one afternoon in early spring. Their progress was slow. Mrs.
Trimble’s sorrel horse was old and stiff, and the wheels were clogged by
clay mud. The frost was not yet out of the ground, although the snow was
nearly gone, except in a few places on the north side of the woods, or
where it had drifted all winter against a length of fence.
“There must be a good deal o’ snow to the nor’ard of us yet,” said
weather-wise Mrs. Trimble. “I feel it in the air; ’tis more than the
ground-damp. We ain’t goin’ to have real nice weather till the
up-country snow ’s all gone.”
“I heard say yesterday that there was good sleddin’ yet, all up through
Parsley,” responded Miss Wright. “I shouldn’t like to live in them
northern places. My cousin Ellen’s husband was a Parsley man, an’ he was
obliged, as you may have heard, to go up north to his father’s second
wife’s funeral; got back day before yesterday. ’Twas about twenty-one
miles, an’ they started on wheels; but when they’d gone nine or ten
miles, they found ’twas no sort o’ use, an’ left their wagon an’ took a
sleigh. The man that owned it charged ’em four an’ six, too. I shouldn’t
have thought he would; they told him they was goin’ to a funeral; an’
they had their own buffaloes an’ everything.”
“Well, I expect it’s a good deal harder scratchin’, up that way; they
have to git money where they can; the farms is very poor as you go
north,” suggested Mrs. Trimble kindly. “’Tain’t none too rich a country
where we be but I’ve always been grateful I wa’n’t born up to Parsley.”
The old horse plodded along, and the sun, coming out from the heavy
spring clouds, sent a sudden shine of light along the muddy road. Sister
Wright drew her large veil forward over the high brim of her bonnet. She
was not used to driving, or to being much in the open air; but Mrs.
Trimble was an active business woman, and looked after her own affairs
herself, in all weathers. The late Mr. Trimble had left her a good farm,
but not much ready money, and it was often said that she was better off
in the end than if he had lived. She regretted his loss deeply, however;
it was impossible for her to speak of him, even to intimate friends,
without emotion, and nobody had ever hinted that this emotion was
insincere. She was most warm-hearted and generous, and in her limited
way played the part of Lady Bountiful in the town of Hampden.
“Why, there’s where the Bray girls lives, ain’t it?” she exclaimed, as,
beyond a thicket of witch-hazel and scrub-oak, they came in sight of a
weather-beaten, solitary farmhouse. The barn was too far away for thrift
or comfort, and they could see long lines of light between the shrunken
boards as they came nearer. The fields looked both stony and sodden.
Somehow, even Parsley itself could be hardly more forlorn.
“Yes’m,” said Miss Wright, “that’s where they live now, poor things. I
know the place, though I ain’t been up here for years. You don’t
suppose, Mis’ Trimble—I ain’t seen the girls out to meetin’ all winter.
I’ve re’lly been covetin’”—
“Why, yes, Rebecca, of course we could stop,” answered Mrs. Trimble
heartily. “The exercises was over earlier ’n I expected, an’ you’re
goin’ to remain over night long o’ me, you know. There won’t be no tea
till we git there, so we can’t be late. I’m in the habit o’ sendin’ a
basket to the Bray girls when any o’ our folks is comin’ this way, but I
ain’t been to see ’em since they moved up here. Why, it must be a good
deal over a year ago. I know ’t was in the late winter they had to make
the move. ’Twas cruel hard, I must say, an’ if I hadn’t been down with
my pleurisy fever I’d have stirred round an’ done somethin’ about it.
There was a good deal o’ sickness at the time, an’—well, ’twas kind o’
rushed through, breakin’ of ’em up, an’ lots o’ folks blamed the
selec’_men_; but when ’twas done, ’twas done, an’ nobody took holt to
undo it. Ann an’ Mandy looked same ’s ever when they come to meetin’,
’long in the summer,—kind o’ wishful, perhaps. They’ve always sent me
word they was gittin’ on pretty comfortable.”
“That would be their way,” said Rebecca Wright. “They never was any hand
to complain, though Mandy’s less cheerful than Ann. If Mandy’d been
spared such poor eyesight, an’ Ann hadn’t got her lame wrist that wa’n’t
set right, they’d kep’ off the town fast enough. They both shed tears
when they talked to me about havin’ to break up, when I went to see ’em
before I went over to brother Asa’s. You see we was brought up
neighbors, an’ we went to school together, the Brays an’ me. ’Twas a
special Providence brought us home this road, I’ve been so covetin’ a
chance to git to see ’em. My lameness hampers me.”
“I’m glad we come this way, myself,” said Mrs. Trimble.
“I’d like to see just how they fare,” Miss Rebecca Wright continued.
“They give their consent to goin’ on the town because they knew they’d
got to be dependent, an’ so they felt ’twould come easier for all than
for a few to help ’em. They acted real dignified an’ right-minded,
contrary to what most do in such cases, but they was dreadful anxious to
see who would bid ’em off, town-meeting day; they did so hope ’twould be
somebody right in the village. I just sat down an’ cried good when I
found Abel Janes’s folks had got hold of ’em. They always had the name
of bein’ slack an’ poor-spirited, an’ they did it just for what they got
out o’ the town. The selectmen this last year ain’t what we have had. I
hope they’ve been considerate about the Bray girls.”
“I should have be’n more considerate about fetchin’ of you over,”
apologized Mrs. Trimble. “I’ve got my horse, an’ you’re lame-footed;
’tis too far for you to come. But time does slip away with busy folks,
an’ I forgit a good deal I ought to remember.”
“There’s nobody more considerate than you be,” protested Miss Rebecca
Wright.
Mrs. Trimble made no answer, but took out her whip and gently touched
the sorrel horse, who walked considerably faster, but did not think it
worth while to trot. It was a long, round-about way to the house,
farther down the road and up a lane.
“I never had any opinion of the Bray girls’ father, leavin’ ’em as he
did,” said Mrs. Trimble.
“He was much praised in his time, though there was always some said his
early life hadn’t been up to the mark,” explained her companion. “He was
a great favorite of our then preacher, the Reverend Daniel Longbrother.
They did a good deal for the parish, but they did it their own way.
Deacon Bray was one that did his part in the repairs without urging. You
know ’twas in his time the first repairs was made, when they got out the
old soundin’-board an’ them handsome square pews. It cost an awful sight
o’ money, too. They hadn’t done payin’ up that debt when they set to
alter it again an’ git the walls frescoed. My grandmother was one that
always spoke her mind right out, an’ she was dreadful opposed to
breakin’ up the square pews where she’d always set. They was countin’ up
what ’twould cost in parish meetin’, an’ she riz right up an’ said
’twouldn’t cost nothin’ to let ’em stay, an’ there wa’n’t a house
carpenter left in the parish that could do such nice work, an’ time
would come when the great-grandchildren would give their eye-teeth to
have the old meetin’-house look just as it did then. But haul the inside
to pieces they would and did.”
“There come to be a real fight over it, didn’t there?” agreed Mrs.
Trimble soothingly. “Well, ’twa’n’t good taste. I remember the old house
well. I come here as a child to visit a cousin o’ mother’s, an’ Mr.
Trimble’s folks was neighbors, an’ we was drawed to each other then,
young ’s we was. Mr. Trimble spoke of it many’s the time,—that first
time he ever see me, in a leghorn hat with a feather; ’twas one that
mother had, an’ pressed over.”
“When I think of them old sermons that used to be preached in that old
meetin’-house of all, I’m glad it’s altered over, so ’s not to remind
folks,” said Miss Rebecca Wright, after a suitable pause. “Them old
brimstone discourses, you know, Mis’ Trimble. Preachers is far more
reasonable, nowadays. Why, I set an’ thought, last Sabbath, as I
listened, that if old Mr. Longbrother an’ Deacon Bray could hear the
difference they’d crack the ground over ’em like pole beans, an’ come
right up ’long side their headstones.”
Mrs. Trimble laughed heartily, and shook the reins three or four times
by way of emphasis. “There ’s no gitting round you,” she said, much
pleased. “I should think Deacon Bray would want to rise, any way, if
’twas so he could, an’ knew how his poor girls was farin’. A man ought
to provide for his folks he’s got to leave behind him, specially if
they’re women. To be sure, they had their little home; but we’ve seen
how, with all their industrious ways, they hadn’t means to keep it. I
s’pose he thought he’d got time enough to lay by, when he give so
generous in collections; but he didn’t lay by, an’ there they be. He
might have took lessons from the squirrels: even them little wild
creatur’s makes them their winter hoards, an’ menfolks ought to know
enough if squirrels does. ‘Be just before you are generous:’ that’s what
was always set for the B’s in the copy-books, when I was to school, and
it often runs through my mind.”
“‘As for man, his days are as grass,’—that was for A; the two go well
together,” added Miss Rebecca Wright soberly. “My good gracious, ain’t
this a starved-lookin’ place? It makes me ache to think them nice Bray
girls has to brook it here.”
The sorrel horse, though somewhat puzzled by an unexpected deviation
from his homeward way, willingly came to a stand by the gnawed corner of
the dooryard fence, which evidently served as hitching-place. Two or
three ragged old hens were picking about the yard, and at last a face
appeared at the kitchen window, tied up in a handkerchief, as if it were
a case of toothache. By the time our friends reached the side door next
this window, Mrs. Janes came disconsolately to open it for them,
shutting it again as soon as possible, though the air felt more chilly
inside the house.
“Take seats,” said Mrs. Janes briefly. “You’ll have to see me just as I
be. I have been suffering these four days with the ague, and everything
to do. Mr. Janes is to court, on the jury. ’Twas inconvenient to spare
him. I should be pleased to have you lay off your things.”
Comfortable Mrs. Trimble looked about the cheerless kitchen, and could
not think of anything to say; so she smiled blandly and shook her head
in answer to the invitation. “We’ll just set a few minutes with you, to
pass the time o’ day, an’ then we must go in an’ have a word with the
Miss Brays, bein’ old acquaintance. It ain’t been so we could git to
call on ’em before. I don’t know ’s you’re acquainted with Miss R’becca
Wright. She’s been out of town a good deal.”
“I heard she was stopping over to Plainfields with her brother’s folks,”
replied Mrs. Janes, rocking herself with irregular motion, as she sat
close to the stove. “Got back some time in the fall, I believe?”
“Yes’m,” said Miss Rebecca, with an undue sense of guilt and conviction.
“We’ve been to the installation over to the East Parish, an’ thought
we’d stop in; we took this road home to see if ’twas any better. How is
the Miss Brays gettin’ on?”
“They’re well ’s common,” answered Mrs. Janes grudgingly. “I was put out
with Mr. Janes for fetchin’ of ’em here, with all I’ve got to do, an’ I
own I was kind o’ surly to ’em ’long to the first of it. He gits the
money from the town, an’ it helps him out; but he bid ’em off for five
dollars a month, an’ we can’t do much for ’em at no such price as that.
I went an’ dealt with the selec’men, an’ made ’em promise to find their
firewood an’ some other things extra. They was glad to get rid o’ the
matter the fourth time I went, an’ would ha’ promised ’most anything.
But Mr. Janes don’t keep me half the time in oven-wood, he’s off so
much, an’ we was cramped o’ room, any way. I have to store things up
garrit a good deal, an’ that keeps me trampin’ right through their room.
I do the best for ’em I can, Mis’ Trimble, but ’t ain’t so easy for me
as ’tis for you, with all your means to do with.”
The poor woman looked pinched and miserable herself, though it was
evident that she had no gift at house or home keeping. Mrs. Trimble’s
heart was wrung with pain, as she thought of the unwelcome inmates of
such a place; but she held her peace bravely, while Miss Rebecca again
gave some brief information in regard to the installation.
“You go right up them back stairs,” the hostess directed at last. “I’m
glad some o’ you church folks has seen fit to come an’ visit ’em. There
ain’t been nobody here this long spell, an’ they’ve aged a sight since
they come. They always send down a taste out of your baskets, Mis’
Trimble, an’ I relish it, I tell you. I’ll shut the door after you, if
you don’t object. I feel every draught o’ cold air.”
“I’ve always heard she was a great hand to make a poor mouth. Wa’n’t she
from somewheres up Parsley way?” whispered Miss Rebecca, as they
stumbled in the half-light.
“Poor meechin’ body, wherever she come from,” replied Mrs. Trimble, as
she knocked at the door.
There was silence for a moment after this unusual sound; then one of the
Bray sisters opened the door. The eager guests stared into a small, low
room, brown with age, and gray, too, as if former dust and cobwebs could
not be made wholly to disappear. The two elderly women who stood there
looked like captives. Their withered faces wore a look of apprehension,
and the room itself was more bare and plain than was fitting to their
evident refinement of character and self-respect. There was an uncovered
small table in the middle of the floor, with some crackers on a plate;
and, for some reason or other, this added a great deal to the general
desolation.
But Miss Ann Bray, the elder sister, who carried her right arm in a
sling, with piteously drooping fingers, gazed at the visitors with
radiant joy. She had not seen them arrive.
The one window gave only the view at the back of the house, across the
fields, and their coming was indeed a surprise. The next minute she was
laughing and crying together. “Oh, sister!” she said, “if here ain’t our
dear Mis’ Trimble!—an’ my heart o’ goodness, ’tis ’Becca Wright, too!
What dear good creatur’s you be! I’ve felt all day as if something good
was goin’ to happen, an’ was just sayin’ to myself ’twas most sundown
now, but I wouldn’t let on to Mandany I’d give up hope quite yet. You
see, the scissors stuck in the floor this very mornin’ an’ it’s always a
reliable sign. There, I’ve got to kiss ye both again!”
“I don’t know where we can all set,” lamented sister Mandana. “There
ain’t but the one chair an’ the bed; t’ other chair’s too rickety; an’
we’ve been promised another these ten days; but first they’ve forgot it,
an’ next Mis’ Janes can’t spare it,—one excuse an’ another. I am goin’
to git a stump o’ wood an’ nail a board on to it, when I can git outdoor
again,” said Mandana, in a plaintive voice. “There, I ain’t goin’ to
complain o’ nothin’, now you’ve come,” she added; and the guests sat
down, Mrs. Trimble, as was proper, in the one chair.
“We’ve sat on the bed many’s the time with you, ’Becca, an’ talked over
our girl nonsense, ain’t we? You know where ’twas—in the little back
bedroom we had when we was girls, an’ used to peek out at our beaux
through the strings o’ mornin’-glories,” laughed Ann Bray delightedly,
her thin face shining more and more with joy. “I brought some o’ them
mornin’-glory seeds along when we come away, we’d raised ’em so many
years; an’ we got ’em started all right, but the hens found ’em out. I
declare I chased them poor hens, foolish as ’twas; but the
mornin’-glories I’d counted on a sight to remind me o’ home. You see,
our debts was so large, after my long sickness an’ all, that we didn’t
feel ’twas right to keep back anything we could help from the auction.”
It was impossible for any one to speak for a moment or two; the sisters
felt their own uprooted condition afresh, and their guests for the first
time really comprehended the piteous contrast between that neat little
village house, which now seemed a palace of comfort, and this cold,
unpainted upper room in the remote Janes farmhouse. It was an unwelcome
thought to Mrs. Trimble that the well-to-do town of Hampden could
provide no better for its poor than this, and her round face flushed
with resentment and the shame of personal responsibility. “The girls
shall be well settled in the village before another winter, if I pay
their board myself,” she made an inward resolution, and took another
almost tearful look at the broken stove, the miserable bed, and the
sisters’ one hair-covered trunk, on which Mandana was sitting. But the
poor place was filled with a golden spirit of hospitality.
Rebecca was again discoursing eloquently of the installation; it was so
much easier to speak of general subjects, and the sisters had evidently
been longing to hear some news. Since the late summer they had not been
to church, and presently Mrs. Trimble asked the reason.
“Now, don’t you go to pouring out our woes, Mandy!” begged little old
Ann, looking shy and almost girlish, and as if she insisted upon playing
that life was still all before them and all pleasure. “Don’t you go to
spoilin’ their visit with our complaints! They know well ’s we do that
changes must come, an’ we’d been so wonted to our home things that this
come hard at first; but then they felt for us, I know just as well’s can
be. ’Twill soon be summer again, an’ ’tis real pleasant right out in the
fields here, when there ain’t too hot a spell. I’ve got to know a sight
o’ singin’ birds since we come.”
“Give me the folks I’ve always known,” sighed the younger sister, who
looked older than Miss Ann, and less even-tempered. “You may have your
birds, if you want ’em. I do re’lly long to go to meetin’ an’ see folks
go by up the aisle. Now, I will speak of it, Ann, whatever you say. We
need, each of us, a pair o’ good stout shoes an’ rubbers,—ours are all
wore out; an’ we’ve asked an’ asked, an’ they never think to bring ’em,
an’”—
Poor old Mandana, on the trunk, covered her face with her arms and
sobbed aloud. The elder sister stood over her, and patted her on the
thin shoulder like a child, and tried to comfort her. It crossed Mrs.
Trimble’s mind that it was not the first time one had wept and the other
had comforted. The sad scene must have been repeated many times in that
long, drear winter. She would see them forever after in her mind as
fixed as a picture, and her own tears fell fast.
“You didn’t see Mis’ Janes’s cunning little boy, the next one to the
baby, did you?” asked Ann Bray, turning round quickly at last, and going
cheerfully on with the conversation. “Now, hush, Mandy, dear; they’ll
think you’re childish! He’s a dear, friendly little creatur’, an’ likes
to stay with us a good deal, though we feel ’s if it ’twas too cold for
him, now we are waitin’ to get us more wood.”
“When I think of the acres o’ woodland in this town!” groaned Rebecca
Wright. “I believe I’m goin’ to preach next Sunday, ’stead o’ the
minister, an’ I’ll make the sparks fly. I’ve always heard the saying,
‘What’s everybody’s business is nobody’s business,’ an’ I’ve come to
believe it.”
“Now, don’t you, ’Becca. You’ve happened on a kind of a poor time with
us, but we’ve got more belongings than you see here, an’ a good large
cluset, where we can store those things there ain’t room to have about.
You an’ Miss Trimble have happened on a kind of poor day, you know.
Soon’s I git me some stout shoes an’ rubbers, as Mandy says, I can fetch
home plenty o’ little dry boughs o’ pine; you remember I was always a
great hand to roam in the woods? If we could only have a front room, so
’t we could look out on the road an’ see passin’, an’ was shod for
meetin’, I don’ know ’s we should complain. Now we’re just goin’ to give
you what we’ve got, an’ make out with a good welcome. We make more tea
’n we want in the mornin’, an’ then let the fire go down, since ’t has
been so mild. We’ve got a _good_ cluset” (disappearing as she spoke),
“an’ I know this to be good tea, ’cause it’s some o’ yourn, Mis’
Trimble. An’ here’s our sprigged chiny cups that R’becca knows by sight,
if Mis’ Trimble don’t. We kep’ out four of ’em, an’ put the even half
dozen with the rest of the auction stuff. I’ve often wondered who’d got
’em, but I never asked, for fear ’twould be somebody that would distress
us. They was mother’s, you know.”
The four cups were poured, and the little table pushed to the bed, where
Rebecca Wright still sat, and Mandana, wiping her eyes, came and joined
her. Mrs. Trimble sat in her chair at the end, and Ann trotted about the
room in pleased content for a while, and in and out of the closet, as if
she still had much to do; then she came and stood opposite Mrs. Trimble.
She was very short and small, and there was no painful sense of her
being obliged to stand. The four cups were not quite full of cold tea,
but there was a clean old tablecloth folded double, and a plate with
three pairs of crackers neatly piled, and a small—it must be owned, a
very small—piece of hard white cheese. Then, for a treat, in a glass
dish, there was a little preserved peach, the last—Miss Rebecca knew it
instinctively—of the household stores brought from their old home. It
was very sugary, this bit of peach; and as she helped her guests and
sister Mandy, Miss Ann Bray said, half unconsciously, as she often had
said with less reason in the old days, “Our preserves ain’t so good as
usual this year; this is beginning to candy.” Both the guests protested,
while Rebecca added that the taste of it carried her back, and made her
feel young again. The Brays had always managed to keep one or two
peach-trees alive in their corner of a garden. “I’ve been keeping this
preserve for a treat,” said her friend. “I’m glad to have you eat some,
’Becca. Last summer I often wished you was home an’ could come an’ see
us, ’stead o’ being away off to Plainfields.”
The crackers did not taste too dry. Miss Ann took the last of the peach
on her own cracker; there could not have been quite a small spoonful,
after the others were helped, but she asked them first if they would not
have some more. Then there was a silence, and in the silence a wave of
tender feeling rose high in the hearts of the four elderly women. At
this moment the setting sun flooded the poor plain room with light; the
unpainted wood was all of a golden-brown, and Ann Bray, with her gray
hair and aged face, stood at the head of the table in a kind of aureole.
Mrs. Trimble’s face was all aquiver as she looked at her; she thought of
the text about two or three being gathered together, and was half
afraid.
“I believe we ought to ’ve asked Mis’ Janes if she wouldn’t come up,”
said Ann. “She’s real good feelin’, but she’s had it very hard, an gits
discouraged. I can’t find that she’s ever had anything real pleasant to
look back to, as we have. There, next time we’ll make a good heartenin’
time for her too.”
The sorrel horse had taken a long nap by the gnawed fence-rail, and the
cool air after sundown made him impatient to be gone. The two friends
jolted homeward in the gathering darkness, through the stiffening mud,
and neither Mrs. Trimble nor Rebecca Wright said a word until they were
out of sight as well as out of sound of the Janes house. Time must
elapse before they could reach a more familiar part of the road and
resume conversation on its natural level.
“I consider myself to blame,” insisted Mrs. Trimble at last. “I haven’t
no words of accusation for nobody else, an’ I ain’t one to take comfort
in calling names to the board o’ selec’_men_. I make no reproaches, an’
I take it all on my own shoulders; but I’m goin’ to stir about me, I
tell you! I shall begin early to-morrow. They’re goin’ back to their own
house,— it’s been standin’ empty all winter,—an’ the town’s goin’ to
give ’em the rent an’ what firewood they need; it won’t come to more
than the board’s payin’ out now. An’ you an’ me’ll take this same horse
an’ wagon, an’ ride an go afoot by turns, an’ git means enough together
to buy back their furniture an’ whatever was sold at that plaguey
auction; an’ then we’ll put it all back, an’ tell ’em they’ve got to
move to a new place, an’ just carry ’em right back again where they come
from. An’ don’t you never tell, R’becca, but here I be a widow woman,
layin’ up what I make from my farm for nobody knows who, an’ I’m goin’
to do for them Bray girls all I’m a mind to. I should be sca’t to wake
up in heaven, an’ hear anybody there ask how the Bray girls was. Don’t
talk to me about the town o’ Hampden, an’ don’t ever let me hear the
name o’ town poor! I’m ashamed to go home an’ see what’s set out for
supper. I wish I’d brought ’em right along.”
“I was goin’ to ask if we couldn’t git the new doctor to go up an’ do
somethin’ for poor Ann’s arm,” said Miss Rebecca. “They say he’s very
smart. If she could get so ’s to braid straw or hook rugs again, she’d
soon be earnin’ a little somethin’. An’ may be he could do somethin’ for
Mandy’s eyes. They did use to live so neat an’ ladylike. Somehow I
couldn’t speak to tell ’em there that ’twas I bought them six best cups
an’ saucers, time of the auction; they went very low, as everything else
did, an’ I thought I could save it some other way. They shall have ’em
back an’ welcome. You’re real whole-hearted, Mis’ Trimble. I expect
Ann’ll be sayin’ that her father’s child’n wa’n’t goin’ to be left
desolate, an’ that all the bread he cast on the water’s comin’ back
through you.”
“I don’t care what she says, dear creatur’!” exclaimed Mrs. Trimble.
“I’m full o’ regrets I took time for that installation, an’ set there
seepin’ in a lot o’ talk this whole day long, except for its kind of
bringin’ us to the Bray girls. I wish to my heart ’twas to-morrow
mornin’ a’ready, an’ I a-startin’ for the selec’_men_.”