Friendship, so that her name, and that of the Oldmoxons, in whose former
house I lived, and many others were like folk whom one passes often and
remembers. I had been told how Aunt Cornie More had made her own shroud
from her crocheted parlour curtains, lest these fall to a later wife of
her octogenarian husband; and how as she lay in her coffin the curtain's
shell-stitch parrot "come right acrost her chest." This woman beside me
had called her "Aunt" Cornie More. And then I remembered the name which
Doctor June had spoken on the train and the wheels had measured.
"Delia More!" I said, involuntarily, and regretted it as soon as I had
spoken. But, indeed, it was as if some legend woman of the place walked
suddenly beside me, like the quick.
Who in Friendship had not heard the name, and who, save one who keeps
her own thoughts and forgets to give back greeting, would not on the
instant have remembered it? Delia More's stepsister, Jennie Crapwell,
had been betrothed to a carpenter of Friendship, and he was at work on
their house when, a month before the wedding-day, Delia and that young
carpenter had "run away." Who in Friendship could not tell that story?
But before I had made an end of murmuring something--
"I might 'a' known they hadn't done talkin' yet," Delia More said
bitterly. "They say it was like that when Calliope Marsh's beau run off
with somebody else,--for ten years the town et it for cake. Well, they
ain't any of 'em goin' to get a look at me. I don't give anybody the
chance to show me the cold shoulder. You can tell 'em I was here if you
want. They can scare the children with it."
"I won't tell," I said.
She looked at me.
"Well, I can't help it if you do," she returned. "I'm glad enough to
speak to somebody, gettin' back so. It's fourteen year. An' I was fair
body-sick to see the place again."
At this she asked about Friendship folk, and I answered as best I might,
though of what she inquired I knew little, and what I did know was
footless enough for human comfort. As to the Topladys, for example, I
had no knowledge of that one who had earned his money in bricks and had
later married a "foreigner"; but I knew Mis' Amanda, that she had hands
dimpled like a baby giant's, and that she carried a blue parasol all
winter to keep the sun from her eyes. I could not tell whether Liddy
Ember had been able to afford skilled treatment for her poor, queer,
pretty little sister, but I knew that Ellen Ember, with her crown of
bright hair, went about Friendship streets singing aloud, and leaping up
to catch at the low branches of the curb elms, and that she was as
picturesque as a beautiful grotesque on a page of sober text. I had not
learned where the Oldmoxons had moved, but I knew of them that they had
left me a huge fireplace in every room of my house. I could have
repeated little about Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, save that her
black week-day cloak was lined with wine broadcloth, and that she wore
it wrong side outward for "best." And of whether Abigail Arnold's
children had turned out well or ill, I was profoundly ignorant; but I
remembered that she had caused a loaf of bread to be carved on the
monument of her husband, the home baker. And so on. But these were not
matters of which I could talk to the hungry woman beside me.
Then, to my amazement, when I mentioned the Proudfits,--those great and
rich Proudfits whose motor had raced by our train,--Delia More would
have none of them.
"I do' want to hear about 'em," she said. "I know about 'em. I use' to
play with Miss Clementina an' Miss Linda when we were little things. I
use' to live with the Proudfits then, an' go to school. They were good
to me--time an' time again they've told me their home was mine, too. But
_now_--it wouldn't be the same. I know 'em. They always were cruel proud
an' cruel pious. Mis' Proudfit, she use' to set up goodness an' worship
it like a little god."
This judgment startled me, and yet to its import I secretly assented.
For though I barely had their acquaintance, Madame Proudfit and her
daughter Clementina were thorns to me too, so that I had had no pleasure
in giving them back their greetings. Perhaps it was that they alone in
Friendship sounded for me a note of other days--but whatever it was,
they were thorns to me; and I remember how, once more, something within
me seemed to answer to this woman's bitterness.
None the less, since of the Proudfits I could give her some fragment of
account, I did so, to forge for Delia More what link I might between her
present and her past. And it was knowledge which all Friendship shared.
"You knew," I said, "that Miss Linda does not come here now, because she
married against the wish of her family."
Delia More looked up at me. But though I saw that now she softened
somewhat, I had no relish for giving to her anything of the sad romance
of beautiful Linda Proudfit (as they said) and the poor young clerk of
nobody knew where, who, a dozen years before, had fled away together
"into the storm."
"Then there is Calliope Marsh," I ventured, to turn my thought not less
than hers. But Delia More did not answer, and at this I was puzzled, for
I think that Calliope has lived in Friendship since the beginning, when
she and Liddy Ember were partners in their little "modiste" shop. "You
will recall Calliope?" I pressed the matter.
And at that, "Yes. Oh, yes," she said, and would say no more. And
because Calliope had forbidden me, I did not mention that I had seen her
on the train that morning, and that she was absent from Friendship, but
it grieved me that this stranger should be indifferent to anything about
her.
I would have passed my own gate, because the basket was heavy and
because I knew that the girl was crying. But she remembered how I had
shown her my house, and there she detained me and caught at her basket,
in haste to be gone. So I, who feel upon me a weak necessity to do a
bidding, watched her go down the still road; yet I could not let her go
away quite like that, and before I had meant to do so I called to her.
"Delia More!" I said--as familiarly as if she had been some other
expression of myself.
I saw her stop, but I did not go forward. I lifted my voice a little,
for by the distance between us I was less ill at ease than I am in the
usual personalities of comfort.
"I heard that on the train," I said then awkwardly,--and I was the more
awkward that I was not persuaded of any reason in my words,--"that about
'the shadow of good things to come.' Maybe it meant something."
Delia More's thin, high-pitched voice came back to me, expressing all my
unvoiced doubt.
"Tisn't like," she said. "I never take any stock."
Then I looked at my dark house in a kind of consternation lest it had
heard me trying to give comfort, for within those walls I had sometimes
spoken almost as this woman spoke. But it occurred to me that even the
drowned should throw immaterial ropes to any who struggle in dark
waters.
It will not be necessary, I hope, to say that I followed Delia More that
night from no faintest wish to know what might happen to her. For I have
a weak desire for peace of mind, and I would rather have forgotten her
story. I followed because the quiet highroad was so profoundly lonely,
and the country silence is ambiguous, and I cannot bear to think of a
woman abroad alone in the dark. I cannot bear to think of myself abroad
alone in the dark, though I go quite without fear; but certain other
women have fear, and this one was crying. I kept well behind her, and as
soon as she reached the village, I meant to lose sight of her and
return, for a village is guardian enough. But when we had passed the
bleak meadow of the slaughter-house and the wide, wet-smelling wood yard
and had reached the first cottage on Daphne Street, I was startled to
see her unlatch that cottage gate and enter the yard. And I was suddenly
sadly apprehensive, for the cottage was the home of Calliope, who that
morning had left the village and had asked me to say nothing about it.
What if this poor creature had fled to Calliope for sanctuary, only to
find locked doors? So I waited in the shadow of a warehouse like a
bandit; and I raged at the thought of having possibly to harbour this
stranger among the books of my quiet home.
Then suddenly I saw a light shining brightly in Calliope Marsh's
cottage, and some one wearing a hat came swiftly and drew down a shade.
On the instant the matter was clear to me, who have a genius for certain
ways of a busybody. Calliope must have known that this poor girl was
coming; Calliope's warning to me to keep silence must have been a way of
protection to her. And here to Calliope's cottage Delia More had come
creeping, whom all Friendship would hold in righteous distaste. But I
alone of all Friendship knew that she was here, "fair body-sick to see
the place again."
I turned back to the highroad, pretending great wrath that I should be
so keen over the doings of any, and that my walk should have been
spoiled because of her. But there are times when wrath is difficult. And
do what I would, there came some singing in my blood, and like a
busybody, I found myself standing still in the road fashioning a plan.
VI
STOCK
It was as if Time and the Hour were my allies, for at once I was aware
of a cutter driven smartly from the village, and I recognized the
Topladys' sorrel. At my signal the cutter drew up beside me, and it held
Timothy Toplady on his way home from the station. I asked him what
o'clock it was, and when he had found a match to light his huge silver
watch--
"Blisterin' Benson!" he said ruefully, "it's ha'-past six, an' me late
with the chores again. I'm hauled an' sawed if it hain't _always_ ha'
past six. They don't seem to be no times in between."
"Mr. Toplady," I said boldly, "let us get up a surprise party on
Calliope Marsh--you and Mrs. Toplady and me."
I had learned that he was loath to oppose a suggestion and that he
always preferred to agree, but I had not hoped for enthusiasm.
"That's the _i_-dea," said Timothy, heartily. "I do admire a surprise.
But what I think is this," he added, "when'll we hev it?"
"To-night," I proposed boldly.
"Whew!" Timothy whistled. "Sudden for General--eh? Suits me--suits me.
Better drive out home with me an' break it to Amanda," he cried.
I smiled as I sat beside him, noting that his enthusiasm was very like
relief. For if any one was present, he well knew that his masterful
Amanda would say nothing of his tardiness. And so it was, for as we
entered the kitchen she entirely overlooked her husband in her amazement
at seeing me.
"Forevermore!" that great Amanda said, turning from her stove of savoury
skillets; "ain't you the stranger? Timothy says only to-day, speakin' o'
you, 'She ain't ben here for a week,' s'e. 'Week!' s'I; 'it's goin' on
_two_.' I'm a great hand to keep track. Throw off your things."
At that I began to feel her influence. Mis' Toplady is so huge and
capable that her mere presence will modify my judgments; and instantly I
fell wondering if I was not, after all, come on a fool's errand. She is
like Athena. For I can think about Athena well enough, but if I were
really to stand before her, I am certain that the project in which I
implored her help would be sunk in my sudden sense of Olympus.
Not the less, I made my somewhat remarkable proposal with some show of
assurance, and I should have counted on Mis' Toplady's sympathy, which
ripens at less than a sigh. In Friendship you but mention a possible
charity, visit, or new church carpet, and the enthusiasm will react on
the possibility, and the thing be done. It is the spirit of the West,
the pioneer blood in the veins of her children, expressing itself (since
there are of late no forests to conquer) in terms of love of any
initiative. We love a project as an older world would approve the
civilizing reasons for that project. Mis' Amanda plunged into the
processes of the party much as she would have felled a tree. It warmed
my heart to hear her.
"We'd ought to hev a hot supper--what victuals'll we take?" she said.
"Land, yes, oysters, o' course, an' we'll all chip in an' take
plenty-enough crackers. We might as well carry dishes from here, so's to
be sure an' hev what we want to use. At Mis' Doctor Helman's su'prise we
run 'way short o' spoons, an' Elder Woodruff finally went out in the
hall an' drank his broth, an' hid his bowl in the entry. Mis' Helman
found it, an' knew it by the nick. That reminds me--who'll we ask?"
"Mrs. Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss," said I, promptly, "and Abigail
Arnold, and Doctor June, and Abel Halsey."
"An' the Proudfits," Mis' Amanda went on.
"Suppose," said I, with high courage, "that we do not ask the Proudfits
at all?"
Mis' Amanda threw up her giant hands.
"Not ask the Proudfits?" she said. "Why, my land a' livin', the minister
hardly has church in the church without the Proudfits get an invite."
"Calliope mends their fine lace for them," I reminded her, feeling
guilty. "They wouldn't care to come, Mrs. Amanda, would they?"
But of course I was remembering Delia More's "But _now_--I know 'em.
They worship goodness like a little god." And that night I was not
minded to have them about, for it might befall that it would be
necessary to understand other things as well.
"Miss Linda would 'a' cared to," said Mis' Amanda, thoughtfully, "but I
donno, myself, about Mis' Proudfit an' Miss Clementina--for sure."
So bold an innovation as the Proudfits' omission, however, moved Timothy
Toplady to doubt.
"They might not come," he said, frowning and looking sidewise, "but what
I think is this, will they like bein' left out?"
His masterful Amanda instantly took the other side.
"Land, Timothy!" she said, "you _be_ one!"
I have heard her say that to him again and again, and always in a tone
so skilfully admiring that he looked almost gratified. And we mentioned
the Proudfits no more.
So Calliope Marsh's surprise party came about. When supper was over, the
table was "left setting," while pickles and cookies and "conserve" were
packed in baskets; and presently the Topladys and I were stealing about
the village inviting to festivity. I love to remember how swiftly Daphne
Street took on an air of the untoward. Kitchens were left dark,
unaccustomed lights flashed in upper chambers, some went scurrying for
oysters before the post-office store should be closed, and some spread
the news, eager to share in the holiday importance. I love to remember
our certainty, so reasonably established, that they would all join us as
infallibly as children will join in jollity. No one refused, no one
hesitated; and when, at eight o'clock, the Topladys and I reached the
rendezvous in the Engine-House entry, every one was there before
us--save only, of course, the Proudfits.
"Where's the Proudfits? Ain't we goin' to wait for the Proudfits?" asked
more than one; and some one had seen the Proudfit motor come flashing
through the town from the Plank Road, empty. At all of which I kept a
guilty silence; and I had by then not a little guilt to bear, since I
was becoming every moment more doubtful of my undertaking. For at heart
these people are the kindly of earth, and yet they are prone, as Delia
More had said of the Proudfits, "to worship goodness like a little god,"
nor do they commonly broaden their allegiance without distinguished
precedent. And how were we to secure this?
Every one was there--the little gray Doctor June, flitting about as
quietly as a moth, and all those of whom Delia More had asked me: Mis'
Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, wearing her cloak wine broadcloth side out
to honour the occasion; Abigail Arnold, with a huge basket of
gingerbread and jumbles from her home bakery; Photographer Jimmy
Sturgis, and even Mis' Sturgis, in a faint aroma of caraway which she
nibbled incessantly; Liddy Ember, and poor Ellen, wearing her
magnificent hair like a coronet, and standing wistfully about, with her
hand, palm outward, persistently covering her mouth; and Abel Halsey,
who was to leave at midnight for a lonely cross-country ride into the
hills. And as they stood, gossiping and eager, the women bird-observant
of one another's toilettes, I own myself to have felt like an alien
among them, remembering how I alone knew that Calliope Marsh was not
even in the village.
Very softly we lifted the latch of Calliope's gate and trooped in her
little dark yard.
"Blisterin' Benson!" Timothy Toplady whispered, "ef the house hain't
pocket-dark, front _and_ back. What ef she's went in the country?"
"Sh--h!" whispered his great Amanda, masterfully. "It's the shades down.
I'm nervous as a witch. My land! if the front door ain't open a foot!"
Though there are no locked doors in Friendship, I had feared that
Calliope's cottage door would now be barred, and that Delia More would
answer no formal summons. At sight of the unguarded entrance I had a
sick fear that she had in some way heard of our coming and fled away,
leaving the door ajar in her haste. But when we had footed softly across
the porch and peered in the dark passage, we saw at its farther end a
crack of light.
"Might as well step ri' down to the dinin' room--that's where she sets,"
Mis' Amanda said in her whisper, which is gigantic too.
The passage smelled of the oilcloth on the floor and of a rubber
waterproof which I brushed. And I shrank back beside the waterproof and
let the others go on. For, after all, to that woman within I was a
stranger, and these were her friends of old time. So it was Mis' Amanda
who opened the dining-room door.
I could see that the room was cheery with a red-shaded hanging-lamp, and
shelves of plants, and a glowing fire in the great range. A table was
covered with red cotton and laid with dishes. Also, there was the
fragrance of toast, so that one wished to enter. And in a rocking-chair
sat Delia More. She stared up in a kind of terror at the open door, and
then turned shrinkingly to some one who sat beside her. But at that one
beside her I looked and looked again, for her rich fur cloak had fallen
where she had let it fall; and there, sitting with Delia More's hand in
hers, was that great Madame Proudfit of the Proudfit estate.
"For the land!" Mis' Amanda said. "For the land...."
But she was not looking at Madame Proudfit. And hardly seeing her, as I
could guess, that great Mis' Amanda went forward, holding out her arms.
"Delia More!" she cried, "Delia More!"
I saw Abel Halsey's pale, luminous face as he pushed past Timothy and
strode within and crossed to her; and I remember Abigail Arnold and Mis'
Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, and how they followed Abel with little
sharp cries which must have been a kind of music. And with them went
Ellen Ember, as if, secretly, she were wiser than we knew. And while the
others blocked the passage or crowded into the room, according to the
nature which was theirs, some one came from the cellarway and paused,
smiling, on the threshold. And it was Miss Clementina Proudfit, with
eggs in her hands.
"Wait!" I heard Delia's sharp, piping voice then; "wait!"
She rose, one thin little hand pressed tensely along her cheek. But the
other hand Madame Proudfit held in both her own as she, too, rose beside
her. And with them Abel stood, facing the rest.
"O, Abel Halsey--Abel Halsey ..." Delia said, "an' Mame Bliss--nor you,
Abigail, don't you, any of you, come in yet. I got somethin' to tell
you."
"But shake hands first, Delia," cried Abel Halsey, and Delia looked up
at him, in her face a sudden, incredulous thankfulness which flushed it,
brow and cheek, and won it to a way of beauty. But she did not give him
her hand. And before she could speak again Miss Clementina put down the
eggs, and, with some little stir of silk, she took a step or two steps
toward us.
"Ah," she said, "let us not wait for anything--it has been so long since
we have met! Delia has just told mother and me all about these
years--and you don't know how splendid we think she has been and how
brave in great trouble. Come in, everybody, and let's make her welcome
home!"
Madame Proudfit said nothing, but she nodded and smiled at Delia More,
and it seemed to me that in the Proudfits' way with Delia, their
beautiful Linda had won a kind of presence with them after all. And in
the moment's hush the toast, propped on a fork before the coals in the
range, suddenly blazed up in blue flame at the crust.
"Somebody save the toast!" cried Clementina and smiled very brightly.
They needed no more. Timothy Toplady sprang at the toast, and already
Abel Halsey and Doctor June were shaking Delia's hand; and Mis' Amanda,
throwing her shawl back over her shoulders from its pin at her throat,
enveloped Delia in her giant arms. And the others came pushing forward,
on their faces the smiles which, however they had faltered in the
passage seeking a precedent, I make bold to guess bodied forth the
gentle, hesitant spirit which informed them.
As for me, I waited without, even after the others had entered. And as I
lingered, the outer door was pushed open to admit some late comer who
whisked down the passage and stood in the dining-room doorway. It was
Calliope.
"Delia More!" she cried; "didn't I tell you how it'd be if you'd only
let 'em know? An' Mis' Proudfit, you here? I been worried to death on
account o' forgettin' to take home your cream lace waist I mended."
Madame Proudfit's voice lowered the high key of the others talking in
chorus.
"We drove over to get it, Calliope," she said. "And here we found our
Delia More."
* * * * *
At eleven o'clock that night, as I sat writing a letter in which the
spirit of what had come to pass must have breathed--as a spirit will
breathe--Calliope Marsh tapped at my door; and she had a little basket.
"Here," she said, "I brought you this. It's some o' everything we hed.
An'--I'm obliged for my s'prise," she added, squeezing my hand in the
darkness. "I surmised first thing, most, when Delia described you. No;
land, no!--Delia don't suspicion you got it up. She don't think of it
bein' anybody but just God--an' I donno's 'twas. An' that's what Abel
thinks--wa'n't Abel splendid? You know 'bout Abel--an' Delia? You know
he use' to--he wanted to--that is, he was in--oh, well, no. Of course
you wouldn't know. Well, Delia don't suspicion you--but she said I
should tell you something. 'You tell her,' she says to me, 'you tell her
I say I guess I take stock now,' she says; 'tell her that: I guess I
take stock now.'"
At this my heart leaped up so that I hardly know what I said in answer.
"Delia's out here now," Calliope called from the dark steps. "The
Proudfits brought us. Delia's goin' home with 'em--to stay."
Thus I saw the eyes of the Proudfits' motor, with the threads of
streaming light, about to go skimming from my gate. And in that kindly
security was Delia More.
"Calliope," I cried after her because I could not help it, "tell Delia
More I take stock, too!"
VII
THE BIG WIND
Of Abel Halsey, that young itinerant preacher, I learned more on a
December day when Autumn seemed to have come back to find whether she
had left anything. Calliope and I were resting from a racing walk up the
hillside, where the squat brick Leading Church of Friendship overlooks
the valley pastures and the village. Calliope walks like a girl, and
with our haste and the keen air, her wrinkled cheeks were as rosy as
youth.
"Don't it seem like some days don't belong to any month, but just whim
along, doin' as they please?" Calliope said. "Months that might be
snowin' an' blowin' the expression off our face hev days when they sort
o' show summer hid inside, secret an' holy. That's the way with lots o'
things, ain't it? That's the way," she added thoughtfully, "Abel feels
about the Lord, I guess. Abel Halsey,--you know."