Old Aunt Cynthia Dallett sat in her high-backed rocking-chair by the
little north window, which was her favorite dwelling-place.
“New Year’s Day again,” she said, aloud,—“New Year’s Day again!” And she
folded her old bent hands, and looked out at the great woodland view and
the hills without really seeing them, she was lost in so deep a reverie.
“I’m gittin’ to be very old,” she added, after a little while.
It was perfectly still in the small gray house. Outside in the
apple-trees there were some blue-jays flitting about and calling
noisily, like schoolboys fighting at their games. The kitchen was full
of pale winter sunshine. It was more like late October than the first of
January, and the plain little room seemed to smile back into the sun’s
face. The outer door was standing open into the green dooryard, and a
fat small dog lay asleep on the step. A capacious cupboard stood behind
Mrs. Dallett’s chair and kept the wind away from her corner. Its doors
and drawers were painted a clean lead-color, and there were places round
the knobs and buttons where the touch of hands had worn deep into the
wood. Every braided rug was straight on the floor. The square clock on
its shelf between the front windows looked as if it had just had its
face washed and been wound up for a whole year to come. If Mrs. Dallett
turned her head she could look into the bedroom, where her plump feather
bed was covered with its dark blue homespun winter quilt. It was all
very peaceful and comfortable, but it was very lonely. By her side, on a
light-stand, lay the religious newspaper of her denomination, and a pair
of spectacles whose jointed silver bows looked like a funny two-legged
beetle cast helplessly upon its back.
“New Year’s Day again,” said old Cynthia Dallett. Time had left nobody
in her house to wish her a Happy New Year,—she was the last one left in
the old nest. “I’m gittin’ to be very old,” she said for the second
time; it seemed to be all there was to say.
She was keeping a careful eye on her friendly clock, but it was hardly
past the middle of the morning, and there was no excuse for moving; it
was the long hour between the end of her slow morning work and the
appointed time for beginning to get dinner. She was so stiff and lame
that this hour’s rest was usually most welcome, but to-day she sat as if
it were Sunday, and did not take up her old shallow splint basket of
braiding-rags from the side of her footstool.
“I do hope Abby Pendexter ’ll make out to git up to see me this
afternoon as usual,” she continued. “I know ’tain’t so easy for her to
get up the hill as it used to be, but I do seem to want to see some o’
my own folks. I wish ’t I’d thought to send her word I expected her when
Jabez Hooper went back after he came up here with the flour. I’d like to
have had her come prepared to stop two or three days.”
A little chickadee perched on the window-sill outside and bobbed his
head sideways to look in, and then pecked impatiently at the glass. The
old woman laughed at him with childish pleasure and felt companioned; it
was pleasant at that moment to see the life in even a bird’s bright eye.
“Sign of a stranger,” she said, as he whisked his wings and flew away in
a hurry. “I must throw out some crumbs for ’em; it’s getting to be hard
pickin’ for the stayin’-birds.” She looked past the trees of her little
orchard now with seeing eyes, and followed the long forest slopes that
led downward to the lowland country. She could see the two white
steeples of Fairfield Village, and the map of fields and pastures along
the valley beyond, and the great hills across the valley to the
westward. The scattered houses looked like toys that had been scattered
by children. She knew their lights by night, and watched the smoke of
their chimneys by day. Far to the northward were higher mountains, and
these were already white with snow. Winter was already in sight, but
to-day the wind was in the south, and the snow seemed only part of a
great picture.
“I do hope the cold ’ll keep off a while longer,” thought Mrs. Dallett.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get along after the deep snow comes.”
The little dog suddenly waked, as if he had had a bad dream, and after
giving a few anxious whines he began to bark outrageously. His mistress
tried, as usual, to appeal to his better feelings.
“’Tain’t nobody, Tiger,” she said. “Can’t you have some patience? Maybe
it’s some foolish boys that’s rangin’ about with their guns.” But Tiger
kept on, and even took the trouble to waddle in on his short legs,
barking all the way. He looked warningly at her, and then turned and ran
out again. Then she saw him go hurrying down to the bars, as if it were
an occasion of unusual interest.
“I guess somebody is comin’; he don’t act as if ’twere a vagrant kind o’
noise; must really be somebody in our lane.” And Mrs. Dallett smoothed
her apron and gave an anxious housekeeper’s glance round the kitchen.
None of her state visitors, the minister or the deacons, ever came in
the morning. Country people are usually too busy to go visiting in the
forenoons.
Presently two figures appeared where the road came out of the woods,—the
two women already known to the story, but very surprising to Mrs.
Dallett; the short, thin one was easily recognized as Abby Pendexter,
and the taller, stout one was soon discovered to be Mrs. Hand. Their old
friend’s heart was in a glow. As the guests approached they could see
her pale face with its thin white hair framed under the close black silk
handkerchief.
“There she is at her window smilin’ away!” exclaimed Mrs. Hand; but by
the time they reached the doorstep she stood waiting to meet them.
“Why, you two dear creatur’s!” she said, with a beaming smile. “I don’t
know when I’ve ever been so glad to see folks comin’. I had a kind of
left-all-alone feelin’ this mornin’, an’ I didn’t even make bold to be
certain o’ you, Abby, though it looked so pleasant. Come right in an’
set down. You’re all out o’ breath, ain’t you, Mis’ Hand?”
Mrs. Dallett led the way with eager hospitality. She was the tiniest
little bent old creature, her handkerchiefed head was quick and alert,
and her eyes were bright with excitement and feeling, but the rest of
her was much the worse for age; she could hardly move, poor soul, as if
she had only a make-believe framework of a body under a shoulder-shawl
and thick petticoats. She got back to her chair again, and the guests
took off their bonnets in the bedroom, and returned discreet and sedate
in their black woolen dresses. The lonely kitchen was blest with society
at last, to its mistress’s heart’s content. They talked as fast as
possible about the weather, and how warm it had been walking up the
mountain, and how cold it had been a year ago, that day when Abby
Pendexter had been kept at home by a snowstorm and missed her visit.
“And I ain’t seen you now, aunt, since the twenty-eighth of September,
but I’ve thought of you a great deal, and looked forward to comin’ more
’n usual,” she ended, with an affectionate glance at the pleased old
face by the window.
“I’ve been wantin’ to see you, dear, and wonderin’ how you was gettin’
on,” said Aunt Cynthy kindly. “And I take it as a great attention to
have you come to-day, Mis’ Hand,” she added, turning again towards the
more distinguished guest. “We have to put one thing against another. I
should hate dreadfully to live anywhere except on a high hill farm,
‘cordin’ as I was born an’ raised. But there ain’t the chance to
neighbor that townfolks has, an’ I do seem to have more lonely hours
than I used to when I was younger. I don’t know but I shall soon be
gittin’ too old to live alone.” And she turned to her niece with an
expectant, lovely look, and Abby smiled back.
“I often wish I could run in an’ see you every day, aunt,” she answered.
“I have been sayin’ so to Mrs. Hand.”
“There, how anybody does relish company when they don’t have but a
little of it!” exclaimed Aunt Cynthia. “I am all alone to-day; there is
going to be a shootin’-match somewhere the other side o’ the mountain,
an’ Johnny Foss, that does my chores, begged off to go when he brought
the milk unusual early this mornin’. Gener’lly he’s about here all the
fore part of the day; but he don’t go off with the boys very often, and
I like to have him have a little sport; ’twas New Year’s Day, anyway;
he’s a good, stiddy boy for my wants.”
“Why, I wish you Happy New Year, aunt!” said Abby, springing up with
unusual spirit. “Why, that’s just what we come to say, and we like to
have forgot all about it!” She kissed her aunt, and stood a minute
holding her hand with a soft, affectionate touch. Mrs. Hand rose and
kissed Mrs. Dallett too, and it was a moment of ceremony and deep
feeling.
“I always like to keep the day,” said the old hostess, as they seated
themselves and drew their splint-bottomed chairs a little nearer
together than before. “You see, I was brought up to it, and father made
a good deal of it; he said he liked to make it pleasant and give the
year a fair start. I can see him now, how he used to be standing there
by the fireplace when we came out o’ the two bedrooms early in the
morning, an’ he always made out, poor ’s he was, to give us some little
present, and he’d heap ’em up on the corner o’ the mantelpiece, an’ we’d
stand front of him in a row, and mother be bustling about gettin’
breakfast. One year he give me a beautiful copy o’ the ‘Life o’ General
Lafayette,’ in a green cover,—I’ve got it now, but we child’n ’bout read
it to pieces,—an’ one year a nice piece o’ blue ribbon, an’ Abby—that
was your mother, Abby—had a pink one. Father was real kind to his
child’n. I thought o’ them early days when I first waked up this
mornin’, and I couldn’t help lookin’ up then to the corner o’ the shelf
just as I used to look.”
“There’s nothin’ so beautiful as to have a bright childhood to look back
to,” said Mrs. Hand. “Sometimes I think child’n has too hard a time
now,—all the responsibility is put on to ’em, since they take the lead
o’ what to do an’ what they want, and get to be so toppin’ an’ knowin’.
’Twas happier in the old days, when the fathers an’ mothers done the
rulin’.”
“They say things have changed,” said Aunt Cynthy; “but staying right
here, I don’t know much of any world but my own world.”
Abby Pendexter did not join in this conversation, but sat in her
straight-backed chair with folded hands and the air of a good child. The
little old dog had followed her in, and now lay sound asleep again at
her feet. The front breadth of her black dress looked rusty and old in
the sunshine that slanted across it, and the aunt’s sharp eyes saw this
and saw the careful darns. Abby was as neat as wax, but she looked as if
the frost had struck her. “I declare, she’s gittin’ along in years,”
thought Aunt Cynthia compassionately. “She begins to look sort o’ set
and dried up, Abby does. She oughtn’t to live all alone; she’s one that
needs company.”
At this moment Abby looked up with new interest. “Now, aunt,” she said,
in her pleasant voice, “I don’t want you to forget to tell me if there
ain’t some sewin’ or mendin’ I can do whilst I’m here. I know your hands
trouble you some, an’ I may ’s well tell you we’re bent on stayin’ all
day an’ makin’ a good visit, Mis’ Hand an’ me.”
“Thank ye kindly,” said the old woman; “I do want a little sewin’ done
before long, but ’tain’t no use to spile a good holiday.” Her face took
a resolved expression. “I’m goin’ to make other arrangements,” she said.
“No, you needn’t come up here to pass New Year’s Day an’ be put right
down to sewin’. I make out to do what mendin’ I need, an’ to sew on my
hooks an’ eyes. I get Johnny Ross to thread me up a good lot o’ needles
every little while, an’ that helps me a good deal. Abby, why can’t you
step into the best room an’ bring out the rockin’-chair? I seem to want
Mis’ Hand to have it.”
“I opened the window to let the sun in awhile,” said the niece, as she
returned. “It felt cool in there an’ shut up.”
“I thought of doin’ it not long before you come,” said Mrs. Dallett,
looking gratified. Once the taking of such a liberty would have been
very provoking to her. “Why, it does seem good to have somebody think o’
things an’ take right hold like that!”
“I’m sure you would, if you were down at my house,” said Abby, blushing.
“Aunt Cynthy, I don’t suppose you could feel as if ’twould be best to
come down an’ pass the winter with me,—just durin’ the cold weather, I
mean. You’d see more folks to amuse you, an’—I do think of you so
anxious these long winter nights.”
There was a terrible silence in the room, and Miss Pendexter felt her
heart begin to beat very fast. She did not dare to look at her aunt at
first.
Presently the silence was broken. Aunt Cynthia had been gazing out of
the window, and she turned towards them a little paler and older than
before, and smiling sadly.
“Well, dear, I’ll do just as you say,” she answered. “I’m beat by age at
last, but I’ve had my own way for eighty-five years, come the month o’
March, an’ last winter I did use to lay awake an’ worry in the long
storms. I’m kind o’ humble now about livin’ alone to what I was once.”
At this moment a new light shone in her face. “I don’t expect you’d be
willin’ to come up here an’ stay till spring,—not if I had Foss’s folks
stop for you to ride to meetin’ every pleasant Sunday, an’ take you down
to the Corners plenty o’ other times besides?” she said beseechingly.
“No, Abby, I’m too old to move now; I should be homesick down to the
village. If you’ll come an’ stay with me, all I have shall be yours.
Mis’ Hand hears me say it.”
“Oh, don’t you think o’ that; you’re all I’ve got near to me in the
world, an’ I’ll come an’ welcome,” said Abby, though the thought of her
own little home gave a hard tug at her heart. “Yes, Aunt Cynthy, I’ll
come, an’ we’ll be real comfortable together. I’ve been lonesome
sometimes”—
“’Twill be best for both,” said Mrs. Hand judicially. And so the great
question was settled, and suddenly, without too much excitement, it
became a thing of the past.
“We must be thinkin’ o’ dinner,” said Aunt Cynthia gayly. “I wish I was
better prepared; but there’s nice eggs an’ pork an’ potatoes, an’ you
girls can take hold an’ help.” At this moment the roast chicken and the
best mince pies were offered and kindly accepted, and before another
hour had gone they were sitting at their New Year feast, which Mrs.
Dallett decided to be quite proper for the Queen.
Before the guests departed, when the sun was getting low, Aunt Cynthia
called her niece to her side and took hold of her hand.
“Don’t you make it too long now, Abby,” said she. “I shall be wantin’ ye
every day till you come; but you mustn’t forgit what a set old thing I
be.”
Abby had the kindest of hearts, and was always longing for somebody to
love and care for; her aunt’s very age and helplessness seemed to beg
for pity.
“This is Saturday; you may expect me the early part of the week; and
thank you, too, aunt,” said Abby.
Mrs. Hand stood by with deep sympathy. “It’s the proper thing,” she
announced calmly. “You’d both of you be a sight happier; and truth is,
Abby’s wild an’ reckless, an’ needs somebody to stand right over her,
Mis’ Dallett. I guess she’ll try an’ behave, but there—there’s no
knowin’!” And they all laughed. Then the New Year guests said farewell
and started off down the mountain road. They looked back more than once
to see Aunt Cynthia’s face at the window as she watched them out of
sight. Miss Abby Pendexter was full of excitement; she looked as happy
as a child.
“I feel as if we’d gained the battle of Waterloo,” said Mrs. Hand. “I’ve
really had a most beautiful time. You an’ your aunt mustn’t forgit to
invite me up some time again to spend another day.”
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