At the top of the mean street on which Margaret's house was situated,
and looking down upon its meaner neighbours in much the same way that
its mistress looked upon the denizens of the street, stood Miss Prime's
cottage. It was not on the mean street,--it would have disdained to
be,--but sat exactly facing it in prim watchfulness over the unsavoury
thoroughfare which ran at right angles. The cottage was one and a half
stories in height, and the upper half-story had two windows in front
that looked out like a pair of accusing eyes. It was painted a dull lead
colour. In summer the front yard was filled with flowers, hollyhocks,
bachelor's-buttons, sweet-william, and a dozen other varieties of
blooms. But they were planted with such exactness and straightness that
the poor flowers looked cramped and artificial and stiff as a party of
angular ladies dressed in bombazine. Here was no riot nor abandon in
growth. Everything had its place, and stayed therein or was plucked up.
"I jest can't abide to see flowers growin' every which way," Miss Prime
used to remark, "fur all the world like a neighbourhood with different
people's children traipsin' through everybody else's house. Everything
in order, is my motto."
Miss Hester had nearly arrived at her fortieth mile-stone; and she
effected the paradox of looking both younger and older than her age.
Younger, because she had always taken excellent care of herself. Her
form had still much of the roundness of youth, and her step was
sprightly and firm. She looked older than her age, because of the strong
lines in her face, the determined set of her lips, and the general air
of knowledge and self-sufficiency which pervaded her whole being.
Throughout her life she had sacrificed everything to duty, whether it
was the yearning of her own heart or the feelings of those who loved
her. In the world about her she saw so much of froth and frivolity that
she tried to balance matters by being especially staid and stern
herself. She did not consider that in the seesaw of life it takes more
than one person to toss up the weight of the world's wickedness. Her
existence was governed by rigid rules, from which she never departed.
It is hard to explain just what Miss Hester's position was among the
denizens of the poorer quarter. She was liked and disliked, admired and
feared. She would descend upon her victims with unasked counsel and
undesired tracts. Her voice was a trumpet of scathing invective against
their shiftlessness, their untidiness, and their immorality, but her
hand was as a horn of plenty in straitened times, and her presence in
sickness was a comfort. She made no pretence to being good-hearted; in
fact, she resented the term as applied to herself. It was all duty with
her.
Up through the now dismantled garden to the prim cottage she led the boy
Fred. The child had not spoken a word since he had left the house of his
friend. His little heart seemed to be suddenly chilled within him. Miss
Hester had been equally silent. Her manner was constrained and
embarrassed. She had, indeed, tried to find some words of soothing and
encouragement to say to the child, such as she had heard Melissa Davis
use; but she could not. They were not a part of her life's vocabulary.
Several times she had essayed to speak, but the sentences that formed in
her mind seemed so absurd and awkward that she felt them better unsaid.
It is true that every natural woman has the maternal instinct, but
unless she has felt the soft face of a babe at her breast and looked
down into its eyes as it drew its life from her life, she can know
nothing of that freemasonry of womanhood which, by some secret means too
deep and subtle for the knowledge of outsiders, wins the love of
childhood. It is not so with men, because the childish mind does not
demand so much of them, even though they be fathers. To be convinced,
look about you and see how many more bachelors than maids are favourites
with children.
Once within the house, Miss Hester was at an entire loss as to what to
do with her charge. She placed him in a chair, where he sat
disconsolately. She went to the bookshelves and laid her hand upon
"Pilgrim's Progress;" then she reflected that Freddie was just five
years old, and she allowed a smile to pass over her face. But her
perplexity instantly chased the expression away. "How on airth am I
a-goin' to do any work?" she asked herself. "I 'm shore I can't set down
an' tell that child stories all the time, as I 've heerd tell o' folks
doin'. What shall I do with him?" She had had a vague idea that the time
of children was taken up in some way. She knew, of course, that they had
to be washed and dressed, that they had to eat three times a day, and
after all to sleep; but what was to be done with them in the mean time?
"Oh," sighed the poor woman, "if he was only old enough to go to
school!" The wish was not entirely unmotherly, as motherhood goes in
these days, for it is not an unusual thing for mothers to send their
babes off to kindergarten as soon as they begin to babble, in order to
be relieved of the responsibility of their care. But neither wishes nor
hopes availed. It was a living, present situation with which Miss Hester
had to grapple. Suddenly she bethought herself that children like
pictures, and she secured from the shelf a copy of the "Bible
Looking-Glass." This she opened and spread out on the child's knees. He
glanced at it a moment or two, and then began to turn the leaves, his
eyes riveted on the engravings. Miss Hester congratulated herself, and
slipped out to work. The thought came to her, of course, that the
novelty of "Bible Looking-Glasses" could n't remain for ever, but she
put the idea by in scorn. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
The book was good while it lasted. It entertained the child and gave him
valuable moral lessons. This was the woman's point of view. To Fred
there was no suggestion of moral lessons. It was merely a lot of very
fine pictures, and when Miss Prime had gone he relaxed some of his
disconsolate stiffness and entered into the contemplation of them with
childish zest. His guardian, however, did not abandon her vigilance, and
in a few minutes she peeped through the door from the kitchen, where she
was working, to see how her charge got on. The sight which met her eyes
made her nearly drop the cup which she held in her hand and with which
she had been measuring out flour for a cup-cake. With the book spread
out before him, Freddie was lying flat on his stomach on the floor, with
his little heels contentedly kicking the air. His attitude was the
expression of the acme of childish satisfaction.
Miss Prime's idea of floors was that they were to be walked on,
scrubbed, measured, and carpeted; she did not remember in all the extent
of her experience to have seen one used as a reading-desk before. But
she withdrew without a word: the child was quiet, and that was much.
About this time, any one observing the cottage would have seen an
old-fashioned phaeton, to which a plump old nag was hitched, driven up
to the door and halted, and a man alight and enter at the gate. If the
observer had been at Margaret's funeral, he would instantly have
recognised the man as the Rev. Mr. Simpson's assistant, Mr. Hodges. The
man walked deliberately around to the kitchen, and, tapping at the door,
opened it without ceremony and went in, calling out, "Miss Hester, Miss
Hester, I 'm a-runnin' right in on you."
"I do declare, 'Liphalet Hodges, you do beat all fur droppin' in on a
body at unexpected times."
"Well, I guess you 're right. My comin' 's a good deal like the second
comin' o' the Son o' man 'll be. I guess you 're right."
To Miss Prime, Eliphalet Hodges was always unexpected, although he had
been dropping in this way before her mother and father died, twenty
years gone.
"Well, I 'low, 'Liphalet, that you 've heerd the news."
"There ain't no grass grows under the feet of the talkers in this town,
I tell you."
"Dear me! a body can't turn aroun' without settin' a whole forest of
tongues a-waggin' every which way."
"Oh, well, Miss Hester, we got to 'low that to yore sex. The women folks
must talk."
"My sex! It ain't my sex only: I know plenty o' men in this town who air
bigger gossips 'n the women. I 'll warrant you did n't git this piece o'
news from no woman."
"Well, mebbe I did n't, but I ca'c'late there wa'n't no men there to git
it fust hand."
"Oh, I 'll be bound some o' the women had to go an' tell a man the fust
thing: some women can't git along without the men."
"An' then, ag'in, some of 'em kin, Miss Hester; some of 'em kin."
"You 'd jest as well start out an' say what you want to say without
a-beatin' about the bush. I know, jest as well as I know I 'm a-livin',
that you 've come to tell me that I was a fool fur takin' that child.
'Liphalet, don't pertend: I know it."
"Oh, no, Miss Hester; I would n't dast do nothin' like that; you know,
'He that calleth his brother a fool is in danger o' hell fire,' an' I
'low the Lord don't make it no easier when it happens to be a sister.
No, Miss Hester, you know yore own business best, an' you 've got along
this fur without bein' guided by people. I guess you 'll git through;
but a child, Miss Hester, don't you think that it 's a leetle bit
resky?"
"Resky? I don't see why. The child ain't a-goin' to eat me or burn the
house down."
"No, no,--none o' that,--I don't mean that at all; but then, you see,
you 'ain't never had no--that is--you 'ain't had much experunce in the
bringin' up o' childern, specially boys."
"Much! I 'ain't had none. But I 've been brought up."
"That 's true, that 's true, an' a mighty good job yore mother made of
it, too. I don't know of no spryer or stirrin'er woman around here at
yore age."
"At my age! 'Liphalet, you do talk as ef I was about fifty."
"Well, ef I do, I ain't a sayin' what I want to say, so I 'd better
hush. Where is the little fellow?"
For answer, Miss Prime pushed the door open and bade him peep. Freddie
was still upon the floor, absorbed in his book. The man's face lighted
up: he pulled the door to long enough to say, "I tell you, Miss Hester,
that boy 's a-goin' to make a great reader or a speaker or somethin'.
Jest look how wrapped up he is in that book."
"Well, I do hope an' pray to goodness that he 'll make somethin' better
than his father ever made."
"Ef he don't under yore trainin', it 'll be because there ain't nothin'
in him.--Come here, Freddie," called Hodges, pushing the door open, and
holding out his hand with a smile. The child got up from the floor and
came and put his hand in the outstretched one.
"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Miss Hester. "I tried my level best to git
that child to make up with me, an' he would n't."
"It's jest like I say, Miss Hester: you 'ain't never had no experunce in
raisin' childern."
"An' how many have you ever raised, 'Liphalet?"
The bachelor acknowledged defeat by a sheepish smile, and turned again
to the child. "You want to go a-ridin' in my buggy, Freddie?"
"Yes, sir," said the child, unhesitatingly.
"All right; Uncle 'Liph 'll take him out fur a while. Git his hat an'
wrap him up, Miss Hester, so Jack Frost can't ketch him."
The man stood smiling down into the child's face: the boy, smiling back,
tightened his grasp on the big hand. They were friends from that moment,
Eliphalet Hodges and Fred.
They went out to the old phaeton, with Miss Prime's parting injunction
ringing after them, "Don't keep that child out in the cold too long,
'Liphalet, an' bring him back here croupy."
"Oh, now, don't you trouble yoreself, Miss Hester: me an' Freddie air
a-goin' to git along all right. We ain't a-goin' to freeze, air we,
Freddie, boy? Ah, not by a long sight; not ef Uncle 'Liph knows
hisself."
All the time the genial man was talking, he was tucking the lap-robe
snugly about the child and making him comfortable. Then he clucked to
the old mare, and they rattled away.
There was a far-away look in Miss Prime's eyes as she watched them till
they turned the corner and were out of sight. "I never did see sich a
man as 'Liphalet Hodges. Why, a body 'd think that he 'd been married
an' raised a whole houseful o' childern. He's worse 'n a old hen. An' it
's marvellous the way Frederick took to him. Everybody calls the child
Freddie. I must learn to call him that: it will make him feel more
home-like, though it does sound foolish."
She went on with her work, but it was interrupted every now and then by
strange fits of abstraction and revery, an unusual thing for this
bustling and practical spinster. But then there are few of us but have
had our hopes and dreams, and it would be unfair to think that Miss
Hester was an exception. For once she had broken through her own
discipline, and in her own kitchen was spending precious moments in
dreams, and all because a man and a child had rattled away in a rickety
buggy.