WELL, I don’ knaow ’s I go’s fur’s Sabriny, ’n’ say ther’s a cuss
on th’ fam’ly, ’n’ thet M’tildy Warren put it there, fur after all,
three deaths hand-runnin’ in tew years ain’t an onheerd-of thing, but
I don’t blame her fur gittin’ daown-hearted over it. Poor ole creetur,
she’s be’n a carryin’ the hull load o’ grief on her shoulders sence
Sissly died. I shouldn’t wonder if it’d be tew much for her naow.”
Alvira sighed, and let her eyes wander compassionately from the kneading
board and its batch of dough to the old, cushioned arm chair by the
kitchen stove where Aunt Sabrina customarily sat. This last bereavement
had rendered the hired-girl almost sentimental in her attitude toward
the stricken old maid--so much so that when young Samantha Lawton
dropped in, toward evening, and offered to sit down in this chair,
Alvira had sharply warned her to take another.
The girl had brought a note over from Annie to Seth, and was not
a little vexed that Alvira should have taken it from her, and gone
upstairs to deliver it herself, instead of allowing the messenger to
complete her errand. She declined, therefore, to display any interest
in the subject of the aged aunt, and warmed her hands over the glowing
stove-griddles in silence. The elder Lawton girl, Melissa, resting for a
moment from her churning, turned the talk into a more personal channel.
“Fur _my_ part, I think it’s a pesky shame, where there’s three
big strappin’ men ’raoun’ th’ haouse, to make a girl wag this old
chum-dash till her arms are ready to drop off. ’N’ I’ll tell ’em
sao, tew.”
“I sh’d thought Dany’d done it fur yeh” said her younger sister, with
a grin. “He allus seemed to me to be soft enough to do all yer work fur
yeh, ef you’d let him.”
“Not he! Both he ’n’ Leander ain’t so much’s lifted a finger ’raoun’
th’ haouse to-day. They’re off daown to th’ corners, hangin’ raoun’ th’
store, ’n’ swoppin’ yarns ’baout th’ accident. _They_ wouldn’t keer
’f I churned away here till I spit blood. In th’ mornin’ he’ll be
awful sorry, of course, ’n’ swear he furgot all ’baout Wednesday’s
bein’ churnin’ day. Thet’s th’ man of it!”
“’N’ I s’pose Milton never does nothin’ ’baout th’ haouse
naowadays,” remarked Samantha, interrogatively.
“No, siree!” snapped Alvira. “You bet he daon’t! He’s tew high ’n’
mighty fur thet! Prob’ly he’s furgot so much as th’ name of a churn,
even. He might git his broadcloth suit spotted, tew. I wouldn’t dream o’
askin’ _him_. I’d ruther ask Seth any day then I hed Milton. _He_ don’t
put on half so many airs, even if he does git thirty dollars a week in
Tecumseh, ’n’ live ’mong ladies ’n’ gentlemen ev’ry day ’f his
life.”
Melissa rested from her labors again, to say sneeringly: “Pritty ladies
’n’ gentlemen he _use’t_ to travel with, there in Tecumsy, accordin’
to all accaounts!” Alvira paused in turn, with her arms to the elbow in
the floury mixing, and an angry glitter in her little black eyes. “Ef I
was _some_ folks, ’n’ hed _some_ folk’s relations in Tecumsy, ’pears
to me I’d keep my maouth pritty blamed shut ’baout what goes on
there!”
The retort was ample. There was no answering sound, save the muffled
splash and thud of Melissa’s vigorously-resumed churning.
The lull in conversation was beginning to grow oppressive when the young
visitor asked: “Haow does th’ fine lady take it?”
“She seems more opset than anyone’d given her credit fur,” Alvira
answered, sententiously.
Melissa interposed to expand this comment, and rest her arms: “Yes, she
_seems_ opset enough. P’raps she _is_. But then agin, p’raps ef you was
young ’n’ good lookin’, with blew eyes ’n’ a lot o’ yalleh hair thet
was all yer own, ’n’ you hed a hus-ban’ twice as old as you was, ’n’
he sh’d fall daown ’n’ break his neck, ’n’ leave you a rich young
widder, p’raps you’d cry yer eyes aout--when people was lookin’--speshly
if thet husban’ o’ yours left a likely young brother who was soft on
yeh. When you git as old ’s I be, S’manthy, you’ll learn ther’s a good
deal in appear’nces.”
“When she gits as old as you air,” broke in Alvira, sharply, “I hope
she’ll learn better ’n’ to blab everythin’ thet comes into her head!
You’ll let that cream break, ef yeh don’t look aout!”
“I don’t b’lieve its within an ’aour o’ comin’” said Melissa, wearily
resuming her task.
“No, but--reelly,” began Samantha, “_is_ Seth----?”
“Never you mind whether Seth is or whether he isn’t,” answered Alvira.
“A young tadpole of a girl like you’s got no business pryin’ ’raoun’
older folks’ affairs. You better go home! M’tildy may need yeh. Yer
sister’s got her work to dew, ’n’ so ’ve I.”
This plain intimation produced no effect upon Samantha. She continued to
warm her hands, which were already the hue of a red apple with the heat,
and remarked: “No, she don’ want me. Annie said I might stay ’s long
’s I wanted to. She said she wanted to be left alone. She’s abaout the
wuss broke up girl _I_ ever sot eyes on. You ought to see the way _she_
takes on, though. I bet the widder ain’t a succumstance to her. Ef you’d
seen what _I_ saw, ’n’ heern what _I_ heerd this afternoon, I guess
you’d think so tew.”
The girl spoke calmly, with a satisfied conviction that nobody would
tell her to go home again in a hurry.
“What was it?” came simultaneously from the kneading-board and the
churn.
“Oh, I dunnao,--I ain’t much of a han’ to blab everythin’. A young
tadpole of a girl like me, yeh knaow, ain’t got no business----”
“Come naow! _Don’t_ be a _fool_, S’manthy! Ef you’ve got anythin’ to
say, spit it aout!”
Thus adjured by the commanding tones of Alvira, the girl trifled no
more, but related what she had seen, while hidden behind the thorns. She
had a talent for description, and made so much of Annie’s stony face
and strange behavior, that she succeeded in producing an effect of
mystification upon her listeners scarcely second to that under which
she, as an involuntary spectator, had labored. The success of her
recital was not lost upon Samantha, as she went on:
“Et was after th’ undertaker’s waggin ’n’ th’ men--some gallus lookin’
young fellers, f’m Tecumsey I guess, was amongst ’em--et was after
these’d all gone by, thet I heerd her talk. She kind o’ hid herself in
th’ bushes while they was a goin’ by, ’n’ stared at ’em like mad,
ez fur’s she c’d folly ’em. Then she bust aout--not a-cryin’ mind yeh,
fur she never shed a tear--but wringin’ her han’s ’n’ groanin’ ’n’
actin’ ’s ef she was goin’ to faint. I c’d see her jest ez plain ’s I
kin see you stan’in’ there naow, ’n’ heer her, tew. All to onc’t she
up ’n’ said----”
The young girl stopped here in the narrative abruptly, with a fine
disregard for the consuming interest with which her companions were
regarding her; she lifted her nose, and drew two or three leisured
sniffs. Then she bent down at the side of the stove and repeated them.
“Ther’s somethin’ burnin’ in thet oven,” she said at last, confidently.
“Et’s th’ barley. I knowed S’briny’d traipse off ’n’ leave it. She
allus does;” said Alvira, flinging open the oven door, and dragging out
with her apron a smoking pan of scorched grain.
Through the dense, pungent smudge which temporarily filled the room,
Samantha was heard to remark with offensive emphasis: “We allus drink
genu-wine coffee over to M’tildy’s. She’s mean enough ’baout
some things, but she wouldn’t make us swell ourselves aout with no
barley-wash.”
“’N’ sao do we here, tew--all but S’briny!” retorted Alvira,
indignantly. “She got use’ to drinkin’ it in war-times, when yeh
couldn’t git reel coffee fur love n’r money, jes’ ez all th’ other
farm-folks did. On’y she’s more contrary ’n’ th’ rest, ’n’ she
wouldn’t drink nothin’ else naow, not ef yeh poured it into her maouth
with a funnel. But go on ’th yer yarn!”
Samantha had to cough a little, on account of the smoke, and then it
took her some moments to collect the thread of her narrative. But at
last even the spirit of Tantalus could invent no further delay, and she
proceeded:
“Well, she didn’t say much, fer a fact, but they was business in ev’ry
word she did say. Fust she hollered aout--right aout, I tell yeh: ‘_Et’s
a wicked lie! She’s a bad, wicked woman!_ ’ Then she stopped fer
awhile ’n’ put her han’s up to her for’id--like this. Then she shuk
herself, ’n’ commenced to climb back over th’ stile, but she seemed to
think better of it, ’n’ started fer her own haouse, like’s ef she was
a walkin’ in her sleep, ’n’ a groanin’ to herself: ‘_Seth a murd’rer!
Seth a murd’rer!_’ Thet’s what I heerd!”
The girl put both feet up on the stove hearth, and tilted her chair back
in conscious triumph. “Got ’n’ apple handy?” she inquired of Alvira,
carelessly, in the tone of one whose position in life was assured.
To this strange recital, involving such terrible suggestions, there
succeeded a full minute of silence in the kitchen, broken only by the
ponderous clucking of the high wooden clock. Alvira and Melissa looked
at each other dumbly--each for once willing to forego the first word.
“Well, what d’yeh say to _thet?_” finally asked Melissa.
After some reflection, Alvira answered, “I sh’d say S’manthy was a
lyin’.”
“S’elp me die, crisscross, I ain’t!” protested the girl at the stove:
“I’ve told it all, jest’s it happened, straight’s a string. Where’s yer
apples?”
Alvira meditated again for a moment. Then she said to her subordinate:
“Go down ’n’ git that sister o’ yourn a Spitzenberg--’n’ bring up
some cider, yeh might’s well, too.”
When Melissa had gone, Alvira went over to the ‘younger girl, and
gripped her sharply by the shoulder: “Look here, you, is what you’ve
be’n tellin’ us here honest? Don’t lie to _me!_”
“Honest Injun? Alviry! ev’ry word!”
Alvira returned to her dough, and slapped it savagely into a huge,
unnatural pancake. She maintained silence until Melissa had returned,
and not only supplied her sister’s wants, but poured out a cupful of
the new cider for herself, as a proof of her appreciation of the Lawton
family’s supremacy over the existing crisis. Then Alvira spoke:
“I don’t ’tach th’ least ’mportance in th’ world to what S’manthy
heerd. Annie’s a school-teacher, ’n’ she’s be’n workin’ pritty
hard, ’n’ this thing’s kind o’ opset her--what with tendin’ to her
gran’mother, ’n’ then this teachin’, which is narvous, wearin’ kine o’
work. Thet’s th’ trewth o’ th’ matter. _I_ kin un-derstan’ it. She was
jest aout of her senses. But other folks won’t understan’ it as I dew.
Once a hint gits flyin’ amongst outsiders, who knaows where it’ll stop?
Naow, girl ’n’ woman, I’ve be’n in this haouse twenty year ’n’
more. I’m more a Fairchild than I’m anythin’ else. I remember th’ man in
there--layin’ dead in th’ parlor--when he was a youngster, comin’ home
f’m college; I remember Seth when he was a baby. I ain’t got no folks
of my own thet I keer a thaousandth part ‘s much abaout, nur owe a
thaousandth part ’s much tew, ez I dew this Fairchile fam’ly. _Well!_
They’ve hed trouble enough, this las’ tew year, ‘thout havin’ any added
onto it by th’ tattlin’, gossipin’ tongues of outsiders. I ain’t goin’
to _hev_ it! D’yeh understan’! Ef I heer s’ much’s a whisper of this yere
crazy school-teacher’s nonsense reported ‘raound, by th’ Lord above,
I’ll skin yeh both alive!”
“Who’s _b’en_ a gossipin’?” asked Samantha, reproachfully. “I shouldn’t
never said a word, ef you hadn’t insisted, ’n’ called me a fool fur
holdin’ my tongue.”
“I dunnao where you’ll gao to when you die, S’manthy,” said Alvira,
reflectively. “But nao, girls, trewly naow, this mustn’t be mentioned.
Yeh kin see with half ’n eye what a raow it’d stir up. Naow prommus
me, both o’ yeh, thet not a word of it shell pass yer lips. Yeh can see
fer yerself haow foolish it is! Ev’rybody knaows he driv off th’ raoad,
’n’ killed himself ’n’ th’ hosses by th’ fall. It’s ez plain ‘s th’
nose on yer face. Still it’s jest sech cases as this thet people git
talkin’ abaout, once they’re sot goin’--so yeh _will_ promise me, won’t
yeh?”
They promised.
“Hon’r bright, ye’ll never say a word to nao livin’ soul?”
They asseverated solemnly, honor bright, and Samantha had a doughnut as
well as another cup of cider.
*****
The tiresome butter came at last, and the dough passed into a higher
form of existence through the fiery ordeal of the oven; supper was laid
and silently eaten; two neighbors, volunteers for the night-watch with
the dead, came, and were ushered into the gloomy parlor; while apples,
cheese, doughnuts and a pitcher of cider were placed on the table
outside, for their refreshment in the small hours. Night fell upon the
farm.
*****
Melissa Lawton stole out-doors as soon as Alvira retired to her room,
and made her way through the darkness to the barns. As Albert had done
on the fatal previous evening, she opened the sliding door of the big
stable, and called up the stairs to Milton. There was no response, and
investigation showed that he was not in his room, although the lamp was
burning dimly. The girl stopped long enough to look over the familiar
coarse pictures on the walls and the shelf, and then crept down the
steep stairs again.
As she groped her way through the blackness to the stable door she came
suddenly in contact with a person entering, and felt herself rudely
seized and pushed back at arms’ length.
“Who’s here? What d’yeh want?” demanded a harsh voice, which seemed
despite its gruffness to betray great trepidation.
“It’s me--M’lissy!”
“Come along aout here into the light, so I kin see yeh. What a’ yeh
doin’ here, praowlin’ ’raoun’ ’n th’ dark, skeerin’ people fur?”
The Lawton girl’s native assurance all came back to her as she
confronted Milton in the dim starlight outside--which was radiance by
contrast with the stable’s total darkness--and she grinned satirically
at him.
“You’ve got a nerve on you like a maouse, I swaow! You trembled all
over when yeh tuk holt o’ me, in there. What was yeh skeert abaout? I
wouldn’t hurt yeh!”
“I wa’n’t skeert,” the man replied, sullenly. “What was yeh after in
there?”
“I was lookin’ fur you.”
“What fur?” The tone was still uneasily suspicious.
“I got somethin’ to tell yeh.”
“Well?”
“D’yeh knaow, I more’n half b’lieve this thing wa’n’t an accident at
all. What’d yeh say ’f it sh’d turn aout to be a murder?”
Even in this faint light Melissa could see that Milton was much taken
aback by the suggestion. He thrust his hands into his pockets, pulled
them out again, shuffled his feet, stammered, and betrayed by other
signs general among rustics his surprise.
“Pshaw--git aout!” he said at last; “what nonsense! Of caourse ’t was
’n accident. Didn’t th’ Cor’ner say sao? Daon’t ev’rybody knaow it?”
“Annie Fairchile don’t say sao. _She_ don’t knaow it.”
The girl went on to relate the substance of Samantha’s revelations,
adding unconsciously sundry embellishments which tended to throw a
clearer light upon Seth as the chief figure in the mystery.
Milton listened with deep attentiveness. His slow, inefficient brain
worked hard to keep up with the recital, and assimilate its chief
points. When the girl had finished he still thought steadily on this
strange story, with its unforeseen, startling suggestions. Gradually two
items took shape in his mind as most important: that Annie believed Seth
to be the criminal, and hence would be estranged from him; and that if
by any unexpected means people came to suspect foul play, here were the
elements of a ready-made suspicion against Seth. The first of these
was very welcome; it would be time enough to think of the other if a
discovery were made.
“What dew I think?” he said at last, in response to the girl’s repeated
inquiries. “I think thet sister o’ yourn lied, ’n’ I think yeh better
keep yer maouth, ’n’ her’n tew, pritty dum shet, ef yeh don’t want to
git into trouble.”