The next morning Paulina Maria and Belinda Lamb returned to finish
preparations, and Jerome was sent over to the West Corners to notify
some relatives there of the funeral service. Just as he was starting,
it was decided that he had better ride some six miles farther to
Granby, and see some others who might think they had a claim to an
invitation.
"Imogen Lawson an' Sarah were always dreadful touchy," said Mrs.
Edwards. "They'll never get over it if they ain't asked. I guess
you'd better go there, Jerome."
"Yes, he had," said Paulina Maria.
"It's a real pleasant day, an' I guess they'll enjoy comin'," said
Belinda. Paulina Maria gave her a poke with a hard elbow, that hurt
her soft side, and she looked at her wonderingly.
"Enjoy!" repeated Ann Edwards, bitterly.
"I dun'no' what you mean," half whimpered Belinda.
"No, I don't s'pose you do," returned Ann. "There's one thing about
it--folks can always tell what _you_ mean. You don't mean nothin',
an' never did. You couldn't be put in a dictionary. Noah Webster
couldn't find any meanin' fer you if he was to set up all night." A
nervous sob shook Mrs. Edwards's little frame. She was almost
hysterical that morning. Her black eyes were brightly dilated, her
mouth tremulous, and her throat swollen.
Paulina Maria grasped Belinda by the shoulder. "You'd better get the
broom an' sweep out the wood-shed," said she, and Belinda went out
with a limp flutter of her cotton skirts and her curls.
Jerome rode the old white horse, that could only travel at a heavy
jog, and he did not get home until noon--not much in advance of the
funeral guests he had bidden. They had directly left all else, got
out what mourning-weeds they could muster, and made ready.
When Jerome reached home, he was immediately seized by Paulina Maria.
"Go right out and wash your face and hands real clean," said she,
"and then go up-stairs and change your clothes. I've laid them out on
the bed. When you get to the neckerchief, you come down here, and
I'll tie it for you; it's your father's. You've got to wear somethin'
black, to be decent."
Jerome obeyed. All the incipient masculine authority in him was
overwhelmed by this excess of feminine strength. He washed his face
and hands faithfully, and donned his little clean, coarse shirt and
his poor best garments. Then he came down with the black silk
neckerchief, and Paulina Maria tied it around his boyish neck.
"His father thought so much of that neckerchief," said Mrs. Edwards,
catching her breath. "It was 'most the only thing he bought for
himself for ten year that he didn't actually need."
"Jerome is the one to have it," said Paulina Maria, and she made the
black silk knot tight and firm.
An hour before the time set for the funeral Ann Edwards was all
dressed and ready. They had drawn her chair into the front parlor,
and there she sat in state. She wore the borrowed black bonnet and
veil. The decent black shawl and gown were her own. The doctor's wife
had sent over some black silk gloves, and she wore them. They were
much too large. Ann crossed her tiny hands, wrinkled over with the
black silk, with long, empty black silk fingers dangling in her lap,
over a fine white linen handkerchief. She had laid her gloved hands
over the handkerchief with a gesture full of resolution. "I sha'n't
give way," she said to Paulina Maria. That meant that, although she
took the handkerchief in obedience to custom, it would not be used to
dry the tears of affliction.
Ann's face, through the black gloom of her crape veil, revealed only
the hard lines of resolution about her mouth and the red stain of
tears about her eyes. She held now her emotions in check like a vise.
Jerome and poor little Elmira, whom Paulina Maria had dressed in a
little black Canton-crape shawl of her own, sat on either side.
Elmira wept now and then, trying to stifle her sobs, but Jerome sat
as immovable as his mother.
The funeral guests arrived, and seated themselves solemnly in the
rows of chairs which had been borrowed from the neighbors. Adoniram
Judd and Ozias Lamb had carried chairs for a good part of the
forenoon. Nearly all the village people came; the strange
circumstances of this funeral, wherein there was no dead man to carry
solemnly in the midst of a long black procession to his grave, had
attracted many. Then, too, Abel Edwards had been known to them all
since his childhood, and well liked in the main, although the hard
grind of his daily life had of late years isolated him from his old
mates.
Men sat there with stiff bowed heads, and glances of solemn
furtiveness at new-comers, who had played with Abel in his boyhood,
and to whom those old memories were more real than those of the last
ten years. Abel Edwards, in the absence both of his living soul and
his dead body, was present in the minds of many as a sturdy,
light-hearted boy.
The people of Upham Corners assembled there together, dressed in
their best, displaying their most staid and decorous demeanor, showed
their fortunes in life plainly enough. Generally speaking, they were
a poor and hard-working folk--poorer and harder working than the
average people in villages. Upham Corners, from its hilly site,
freely intersected with rock ledges, was not well calculated for
profitable farming. The farms therein were mortgaged, and scarcely
fed their tillers. The water privileges were good and mills might
have flourished, but the greater markets were too far away, and few
workmen could be employed.
Most of the women at poor Abel Edwards's funeral were worn and old
before their prime, their mouths sunken, wearing old women's caps
over their locks at thirty. Their decent best gowns showed that
piteous conservation of poverty more painful almost than squalor.
The men were bent and gray with the unseen, but no less tangible,
burdens of life. Scarcely one there but bore, as poor Abel Edwards
had borne, a mortgage among them. It was a strange thing that
although all of the customary mournful accessories of a funeral were
wanting, although no black coffin with its silent occupant stood in
their midst, and no hearse waited at the door, yet that mortgage of
Abel Edwards's--that burden, like poor Christian's, although not of
sin, but misfortune, which had doubled him to the dust--seemed still
to be present.
The people had the thought of it ever in their minds. They looked at
Ann Edwards and her children, and seemed to see in truth the mortgage
bearing down upon them, like a very shadow of death.
They looked across at Doctor Seth Prescott furtively, as if he might
perchance read their thoughts, and wondered if he would foreclose.
Doctor Prescott, in his broadcloth surtout, with his black satin
stock muffling richly his stately neck, sat in the room with the
mourners, directly opposite the Edwards family. His wife was beside
him. She was a handsome woman, taller and larger than her husband,
with a face of gentlest serenity set in shining bands of auburn hair.
Mrs. Doctor Prescott looked like an empress among the other women,
with her purple velvet pelisse sweeping around her in massive folds,
and her purple velvet bonnet with a long ostrich plume curling over
the side--the purple being considered a sort of complimentary
half-mourning. Squire Eben Merritt's wife, Abigail, could not
approach her, although she was finely dressed in black satin, and a
grand cashmere shawl from overseas. Mrs. Eben Merritt was a small and
plain-visaged little woman; people had always wondered why Squire
Eben Merritt had married her. Eben Merritt had not come to the
funeral. It was afterwards reported that he had gone fishing instead,
and people were scandalized, and indignantly triumphant, because it
was what they had expected of him. Little Lucina had come with her
mother, and sat in the high chair where they had placed her, with her
little morocco-shod feet dangling, her little hands crossed in her
lap, and her blue eyes looking out soberly and anxiously from her
best silk hood. Once in a while she glanced timidly at Jerome, and
reflected how he had given her sassafras, and how he hadn't any
father.
When the singing began, the tears came into her eyes and her lip
quivered; but she tried not to cry, although there were smothered
sobs all around her. There was that about the sweet, melancholy drone
of the funeral hymn which stirred something more than sympathy in the
hearts of the listeners. Imagination of like bereavements for
themselves awoke within them, and they wept for their own sorrows in
advance.
The minister offered a prayer, in which he made mention of all the
members of poor Abel's family, and even distant relatives. In fact,
Paulina Maria had furnished him with a list, which he had studied
furtively during the singing. "Don't forget any of 'em, or they won't
like it," she had charged. So the minister, Solomon Wells, bespoke
the comfort and support of the Lord in this affliction for all the
second and third cousins upon his list, who bowed their heads with a
sort of mournful importance as they listened.
Solomon Wells was an elderly man, tall, and bending limberly under
his age like an old willow, his spare long body in nicely kept
broadcloth sitting and rising with wide flaps of black coat-tails,
his eyes peering forth mildly through spectacles. He was a widower of
long standing. His daughter Eliza, who kept his house, sat beside
him. She resembled her father closely, and herself looked like an old
person anywhere but beside him. There the juvenility of comparison
was hers.
Solomon Wells, during the singing, before he offered prayer, had cast
sundry perplexed glances at a group of strangers on his right, and
then at his list. He was quite sure that they were not mentioned
thereon. Once he looked perplexedly at Paulina Maria, but she was
singing hard, in a true strong voice, and did not heed him. The
strangers sat behind her. There was a large man, lumbering and
uncomfortable in his best clothes, a small woman, and three little
girls, all dressed in blue delaine gowns and black silk mantillas and
blue bonnets.
The minister had a strong conviction that these people should be
mentioned in his prayer. He gave his daughter Eliza a little nudge,
and looked inquiringly at them and at her, but she shook her head
slightly--she did not know who they were. Her father had to content
himself with vaguely alluding in his petition to all other relatives
of this afflicted family.
During the eulogy upon the departed, which followed, he made also
casual mention of the respect in which he was held by strangers as
well as by his own towns-people. The minister gave poor Abel a very
good character. He spoke at length of his honesty, industry, and
sobriety. He touched lightly upon the unusual sadness of the
circumstances of his death. He expressed no doubt; he gave no hints
of any dark tragedy. "Don't speak as if you thought he killed
himself; if you do, it'll make her about crazy," Paulina Maria had
charged him. Ann, listening jealously to every word, could take no
exception to one. Solomon Wells was very mindful of the feelings of
others. He seemed at times to move with a sidewise motion of his very
spirit to avoid hurting theirs.
After dwelling upon Abel Edwards's simple virtues, fairly dinning
them like sweet notes into the memories of his neighbors, Solomon
Wells, with a sweep of his black coat-skirts around him, sat down.
Then there was a solemn and somewhat awkward pause. The people looked
at each other; they did not know what to do next. All the customary
routine of a funeral was disturbed. The next step in the regular
order of funeral exercises was to pass decorously around a coffin,
pause a minute, bend over it with a long last look at the white face
therein; the next, to move out of the room and take places in the
funeral procession. Now that was out of the question; they were
puzzled as to further proceedings.
Doctor Seth Prescott made the first move. He arose, and his wife
after him, with a soft rustle of her silken skirts. They both went up
to Ann Edwards, shook hands, and went out of the room. After them
Mrs. Squire Merritt, with Lucina in hand, did likewise; then
everybody else, except the relatives and the minister and his
daughter.
After the decorous exit of the others, the relatives sat stiffly
around the room and waited. They knew there was to be a funeral
supper, for the fragrance of sweet cake and tea was strong over all
the house. There had been some little doubt concerning it among the
out-of-town relatives: some had opined that there would be none, on
account of the other irregularities of the exercises; some had opined
that the usual supper would be provided. The latter now sniffed and
nodded triumphantly at the others--particularly Amelia Stokes's
childish old mother. She, half hidden in the frills of a great
mourning-bonnet and the folds of a great black shawl, kept repeating,
in a sharp little gabble, like a child's: "I smell the tea, 'Melia--I
do, I smell it. Yes, I do--I told ye so. I tell ye, I smell the tea."
Poor Amelia Stokes, who was a pretty, gentle-faced spinster, could
not hush her mother, whisper as pleadingly as she might into the
sharp old ear in the bonnet-frills. The old woman was full of the
desire for tea, and could scarcely be restrained from following up
its fragrant scent at once.
The two Lawson sisters sat side by side, their sharp faces under
their black bonnets full of veiled alertness. Nothing escaped them;
they even suspected the truth about Ann's bonnet and gloves. Ann
still sat with her gloved hands crossed in her lap and her black veil
over her strained little face. She did not move a muscle; but in the
midst of all her restrained grief the sight of the large man, the
woman, and the three girls in the blue thibets, the black silk
mantillas, and the blue bonnets filled her with a practical dismay.
They were the relatives from Westbrook, who had not been bidden to
the funeral. They must have gotten word in some irregular manner, and
the woman held her blue-bonneted head with a cant of war, which Ann
knew well of old.
For a little while there was silence, except for Paulina Maria's
heavy tramp and the soft shuffle of Belinda Lamb's cloth shoes out in
the kitchen. They were hurrying to get the supper in readiness.
Another appetizing odor was now stealing over the house, the odor of
baking cream-of-tartar biscuits.
Suddenly, with one accord, as if actuated by one mental impulse, the
little woman, the large man, and the three girls arose and advanced
upon Ann Edwards. She grasped the arm of her chair hard, as if
bracing herself to meet a shock.
The little woman spoke. Her eyes seemed full of black sparks, her
voice shook, red spots flamed out in her cheeks. "We'll bid you
good-bye now, Cousin Ann," said she.
"Ain't you going to stay and have some supper?" asked Ann. Her manner
was at once defiant and conciliatory.
Then the little woman made her speech. All the way from her distant
village, in the rear gloom of the covered wagon, she had been
composing it. She delivered it with an assumption of calm dignity, in
spite of her angry red cheeks and her shaking voice. "Cousin Ann,"
said the little woman, "me and mine go nowhere where we are not
invited. We came to the funeral--though you didn't see fit to even
tell us when it was, and we only heard of it by accident from the
butcher--out of respect to poor Abel. He was my own second-cousin,
and our folks used to visit back and forth a good deal before he was
married. I felt as if I must come to his funeral, whether I was
wanted or not, because I know if he'd been alive he'd said to come;
but staying to supper is another thing. I am sorry for you, Cousin
Ann; we are all sorry for you in your affliction. We all hope it may
be sanctified to you; but I don't feel, and 'Lisha and the girls
don't feel, as if we could stay and eat victuals in a house where
we've been shown very plainly we ain't wanted."
Then Ann spoke, and her voice was unexpectedly loud. "You haven't any
call to think you wasn't all welcome," said she. "You live ten miles
off, and I hadn't a soul to send but Jerome, with a horse that can't
get out of a walk. I didn't know myself there'd be a funeral for
certain till yesterday. There wasn't time to send for you. I thought
of it, but I knew there wouldn't be time to get word to you in season
for you to start. You might, as long as you're a professing
Christian, Eloise Green, have a little mercy in a time like this."
Ann's voice quavered a little, but she set her mouth harder.
The large man nudged his wife and whispered something. He drew the
back of his rough hand across his eyes. The three little blue-clad
girls stood toeing in, dangling their cotton-gloved hands.
"I thought you might have sent word by the butcher," said the little
woman. Her manner was softer, but she wanted to cover her defeat
well.
"I couldn't think of butchers and all the wherewithals," said Ann,
with stern dignity. "I didn't think Abel's relations would lay it up
against me if I didn't."
The large man's face worked; tears rolled down his great cheeks. He
pulled out a red handkerchief and wiped his eyes.
"You'd ought to had a white handkerchief, father," whispered the
little woman; then she turned to Ann. "I'm sure I don't want to lay
up anything," said she.
"I don't think you have any call to," responded Ann. "I haven't
anything more to say. If you feel like staying to supper I shall be
glad to have you, but I don't feel as if I had strength to urge
anybody."
The large man sobbed audibly in his red handkerchief. His wife cast
an impatient glance at him. "Well, if that is the way it was, of
course we shall all be happy to stay and have a cup of tea," said
she. "We've got a long ride before us, and I don't feel quite as well
as common this spring. Of course I didn't understand how it happened,
and I felt kind of hurt; it was only natural. I see how it was, now.
'Lisha, hadn't you better slip out and see how the horse is
standing?" The little woman thrust her own white handkerchief into
her husband's hand as he started. "You put that red one under the
wagon seat," she whispered loud in his ear. Then she and the little
girls in blue returned to their chairs. The rest of the company had
been listening with furtive attention. Jerome had been trembling with
indignation at his mother's side. He looked at the large man, and
wondered impatiently why he did not shake that small woman, since he
was able. There was as yet no leniency on the score of sex in the
boy. He would have well liked to fly at that little wrathful body who
was attacking his mother, and also blaming him for not riding those
ten miles to notify her of the funeral. He scowled hard at her and
the three little girls after they had returned to their seats. One of
the girls, a pretty child with red curls, caught his frown, and
stared at him with scared but fascinated blue eyes.
Supper was announced shortly. Belinda Lamb, instigated by Paulina
Maria, stood in the door and said, with melancholy formality, "Will
you come out now and have a little refreshment before you go home?"
Ann did not stir. The others went out lingeringly, holding back for
politeness' sake; she sat still with her black veil over her face and
her black gloved hands crossed in her lap. Paulina Maria came to her
and tried to induce her to remove her bonnet and have some tea with
the rest, but she shook her head. "I want to just sit here and keep
still till they're gone," said she.
She sat there. Some of the others came and added their persuasions to
Paulina Maria's, but she was firm. Jerome remained beside his mother;
Elmira had been bidden to go into the other room and help wait upon
the company.
"There's room for Jerome at the table, if you ain't coming," said
Paulina Maria to Ann; but Jerome answered for himself.
"I'll wait till that crowd are gone," said he, with a fierce gesture.
"You wouldn't speak that way if you were my boy," said Paulina Maria.
Jerome muttered under his breath that he wasn't her boy. Paulina
Maria cast a stern glance at him as she went out.
"Don't you be saucy, Jerome Edwards," Ann said, in a sharp whisper
through her black veil. "She's done a good deal for us."
"I'd like to kill the whole lot!" said the boy, clinching his little
fist.
"Hold your tongue! You're a wicked, ungrateful boy!" said his mother;
but all the time she had a curious sympathy with him. Poor Ann was
seized with a strange unreasoning rancor against all that decorously
feeding company in the other room. There are despairing moments, when
the happy seem natural enemies of the miserable, and Ann was passing
through them. As she sat there in her gloomy isolation of widowhood,
her black veil and her dark thoughts coloring her whole outlook on
life, she felt a sudden fury of blindness against all who could see.
Had she been younger, she would have given vent to her emotion like
Jerome. Her son seemed the very expression of her own soul, although
she rebuked him.
The people were a long time at supper. The funeral cake was sweet to
their tongues, and the tea mildly exhilarating. When they came at
last to bid farewell to Ann there was in their faces a pleasant
unctuousness which they could not wholly veil with sympathetic
sorrow. The childish old lady was openly hilarious. "That was the
best cup o' tea I ever drinked," she whispered loud in Ann's ear.
Jerome gave a scowl of utter contempt at her. When they were all
gone, and the last covered wagon had rolled out of the yard, Ann
allowed Paulina Maria to divest her of her bonnet and gloves and
bring her a cup of tea. Jerome and Elmira ate their supper at one end
of the disordered table; then they both worked hard, under the orders
of Paulina Maria, to set the house in order. It was quite late that
night before Jerome was at liberty to creep off to his own bed up in
the slanting back chamber. Paulina Maria and Belinda Lamb had gone
home, and the bereaved family were all alone in the house. Jerome's
boyish heart ached hard, but he was worn out physically, and he soon
fell asleep.
About midnight he awoke with a startling sound in his ears. He sat up
in bed and listened, straining ears and eyes in the darkness. Out of
the night gloom and stillness below came his mother's voice, raised
loud and hoarse in half-accusatory prayer, not caring who heard, save
the Lord.
"What hast thou done, O Lord?" demanded this daring and pitiful
voice. "Why hast thou taken away from me the husband of my youth?
What have I done to deserve it? Haven't I borne patiently the yoke
Thou laidst upon me before? Why didst Thou try so hard one already
broken on the wheel of Thy wrath? Why didst Thou drive a good man to
destruction? O Lord, give me back my husband, if Thou art the Lord!
If Thou art indeed the Almighty, prove it unto me by working this
miracle which I ask of Thee! Give me back Abel! give him back!"
Ann's voice arose with a shriek; then there was silence for a little
space. Presently she spoke again, but no longer in prayer--only in
bitter, helpless lament. She used no longer the formal style of
address to a Divine Sovereign; she dropped into her own common
vernacular of pain.
"It ain't any use! it ain't any use!" she wailed out. "If there is a
God He won't hear me, He won't help me, He won't bring him back. He
only does His own will forever. Oh, Abel, Abel, Abel! Oh, my husband!
Where are you? where are you? Where is the head that I've held on my
breast? Where are the lips I have kissed? I couldn't even see him
laid safe in his grave--not even that comfort! Oh, Abel, Abel, my
husband, my husband! my own flesh and my own soul, torn away from me,
and I left to draw the breath of life! Abel, Abel, come back, come
back, come back!"
Ann Edwards's voice broke into inarticulate sobs and moans; then she
did not speak audibly again. Jerome lay back in his bed, cold and
trembling. Elmira, in the next chamber, was sound asleep, but he
slept no more that night. A revelation of the love and sorrow of this
world had come to him through his mother's voice. He was shamed and
awed and overwhelmed by this glimpse of the nakedness of nature and
that mighty current which swept him on with all mankind. The taste of
knowledge was all at once upon the boy's soul.