The winter that Judith was twelve years old was an unusually bad
one. For days the heavy rains fell drearily over the sodden earth.
The all-pervading mud went everywhere in the house, in spite of Mrs.
Pippinger's housewifely efforts to keep it out. It dried in light gray
flakes on the floor, the rungs of chairs, the lower parts of walls
and doors and furniture, wherever careless passing feet smeared it
off. When Mrs. Pippinger swept it rose in a fine, dry, choking dust
that filled the air and then settled thickly on every object in the
room. Luella and Lizzie May were kept busy dusting and shaking the
dust-filled rags out at the door. The air of the kitchen was damp with
steam from wet coats and overalls hung to dry behind the stove. The
woodbox was full of sodden, half-rotten fence rails or newly cut green
wood, both of which required the greatest coaxing to induce them to
burn. Usually the fence rails had to be dried in the oven. They shed
rotted scraps over the oven and the floor and the steam of their drying
rose up and joined the other exhalations.
When the rain stopped it always turned cold and a piercing, bitter wind
came out of the north. For two or three days it stayed cold, then grew
mild and cloudy; the wind changed into the south-east and the fine,
penetrating rain began all over again.
One bleak, windy day in February the children came home from school
to find their mother with a very bad cold. She had done a big washing
the day before, had gone out warm from working in the hot suds and got
chilled hanging out the clothes in the bitter wind. She was hot and
feverish from the cold, her head ached and her chest was tight. Before
going to bed Bill made her rub her chest well with skunk grease and
take a tablespoonful of castor oil and a good dose of the sugar and
vinegar cough mixture.
In the morning she was still poorly and the twins, now grown into a
sense of responsibility, insisted on her remaining in bed. They sent
Judith and the boys off to school and stayed at home to take care of
their mother and do the work. By evening she was much better; and the
next day she got up and went about her work as usual.
But two days later, when the children came home from school, she was
worse again. She had a high fever, could eat nothing, and failed to
make her usual resistance when Bill and the twins insisted on her going
straight to bed.
The next day she was no better. The twins stayed home again and Bill
drove over and fetched her half sister Abigail.
Aunt Abigail's children were grown and so she could be spared to help
in time of sickness. It was for this reason and this only that Bill
went for Abigail instead of for Cousin Rubena or Aunt Libby Crupper.
"I might a knowd," she snapped, as she climbed into the wagon, "that
Annie'd be daown sick. She don't never take no care of herse'f; an'
them folks that don't take care of theirselves makes a heap o' trouble
for others. An' I declare with all them near growed-up young uns she
works jes as hard as if they was still babies. You an' her has allus
babied yer chillun, Bill. They ain't never been made to learn to work
the way they'd otta."
Bill made no reply. He always avoided argument with Aunt Abigail.
She was the sort of person, not infrequently found in out-of-the-way
places, who combines great narrowness with great strength of mind. To
a lover of domestic peace and harmony she was not comfortable to live
with.
She was considerably older than her sister, a thin, painfully tidy
little person with bright, hard, shallow black eyes, a close-shut,
thin-lipped mouth and shiny black hair drawn tightly back into a knot
that looked as hard as granite. When she took off her jacket and
sunbonnet and the many folds of scarf wound round and round her head
and neck, she disclosed a spotless checked dress and a white apron with
small black polka dots, faultlessly starched and ironed. The apron was
frilled and rounded at the corners. The strings, tied in a careful bow
in the back, were ample and rustling with starch. Aunt Abigail was very
particular about her aprons.
She bustled into the room where her half sister lay in bed restless and
feverish.
"Waal Annie, you sholy are a-lookin' bad; an' all, as I ses to Bill,
jes 'cause you don't take no care of yo'se'f. The idee of a-goin'
aout drippin' with sweat from the washtubs an' hangin' out clothes in
this weather when you don't have to! What's all them gals here fer,
anyway? Can't they hang aout their mammy's washin' when they git home
from school? Law, when I was their age I was a-doin' the washin' an'
a-hangin' it aout an' a-cookin' an' a-scrubbin' an' a-milkin' four
caows fer dad an' the boys after mammy was took away. Wait till them
young uns finds aout what it's like to be without a mammy, an' they'll
soon feel the diff'rence."
Aunt Abigail's manner of saying this last almost suggested that she
hoped that such time would soon arrive.
The worst thing about Aunt Abigail was her voice. It was even more
nasal than that of most Kentuckians; and her a's were harder and
flatter. It was hard, shallow, and piercing, like her eyes, and
absolutely without depth or resonance. It was as soulless as the
hammering of a poker on a tin stewpan. It rang and vibrated through the
three rooms of the little log house like a call to arms. The Pippingers
all shrank from it but took it for granted because she was their aunt.
"I'd best go on to Clayton, naow I'm hitched, an' fetch Doc
MacTaggert," said Bill, looking tentatively at his wife.
"Nothin' o' the kind, Bill! I don't need no doctor. I ain't got but a
bad cold, an' I'll be all right in a day or two. You ain't a-goin' to
fetch no docter." Mrs. Pippinger's voice had a ring of genuine alarm.
"Waal, I dunno," hesitated Bill, appealing with his eyes to Aunt
Abigail, who was bustling about the room setting things to rights.
"If ye'd ast me, I'd say Annie'd otta have a doctor," said Abigail.
"But of course folks allus knows their own business best. I don't
never advise people, so's they won't have a chanct to turn back on me
an' say, 'I told ye so!'"
Still Bill hesitated, looking from one woman to the other.
"No, Abigail, I really ain't so bad as that," placated her sister.
"'Tain't nothin' but a hard cold. An' I think mebbe if Bill would chop
the head off that rooster--the little un that don't seem to be good fer
nothin'--I could take a little chicken broth."
So Bill went to slaughter the inadequate white rooster and Aunt Abigail
hastened to see to it that there was hot water to scald him.
But when the chicken broth was made Mrs. Pippinger could eat none
of it. The next day she was no better; but still she made alarmed
resistance whenever Bill suggested going for a doctor. Aunt Abigail
sent home for some more dresses and aprons and prepared to make a stay
of it.
Two days later she was so much worse that Bill did not stop to argue
with her but hitched up and drove to Clayton for Dr. MacTaggert.
Aunt Abigail busied herself mightily putting a clean gown on Mrs.
Pippinger, clean sheets and pillow slips on the bed, clean towels on
the washstand, in preparation for the august visit.
The doctor came, a bald, dust-colored little man with spectacles
and an air of patient resignation to his lot. He took her pulse and
temperature, asked about her bowels, listened at her chest, and said
that she had congestion of the lungs. From a black leather satchel he
took out two bottles of medicine, some pills in a little brown box,
and some pills in a small envelope. On the labels of these he wrote
directions for giving them and left them with Aunt Abigail, saying that
he would call again day after to-morrow. When he was gone they all
experienced a sense of great relief, as though the necessary thing had
now been done and the sick woman would at once begin to get well.
But Mrs. Pippinger did not get well; and when Dr. MacTaggert paid his
second visit she was half delirious. He looked serious and concerned
and left several more medicines with more complicated directions
for administering them. Aunt Abigail, who always prided herself on
her devotion to duty, carried out his instructions with scrupulous
exactness. She was also very particular about excluding draughts and in
fact all outside air. With great care she pasted up the cracks about
the two small windows.
There followed a long period when Mrs. Pippinger alternated between
being very sick and not quite so sick. The house was kept unnaturally
tidy. The children moved about on tiptoe and spoke in whispers. Judith
and the boys stayed outside or in the barn as much as they could.
The rooms were full of the smell of strong medicines and ointments.
Neighbors and relatives came bringing presents of soups and jellies
and pickles and such bedside delicacies, which the children ate with
subdued relish after their mother had refused them. The air was full of
anxiety, of restlessness, of a sense of waiting, as though the regular
flow of life hung for a time suspended and everybody was waiting with
half-taken breath for the signal to breathe and live again.
When Bill came in from the barn after the evening chores were done,
he pulled off his shoes very quietly and went about in sock feet.
Sometimes he went to his wife's bedside and sat silently watching her
flushed, restless tossing, or talked with her for a while in low tones
if the fever was gone and she was lying pale and quiet. Then he would
go back into the kitchen and sit by the stove with his quid of tobacco
in his cheek, now and then lifting the lid nearest him to spit into
the wood fire. He was a man of clean habits and hardly ever spat in
the woodbox. Often he would sit like this till long after his usual
bedtime, to be roused at last by Aunt Abigail's strident tones.
"Well, land sakes, Bill Pippinger, if you hain't a-settin' there yet!
You'd otta be in bed this hour an' a half. If you're fixin' to be over
bright an' early to help Andy Blackford butcher hawgs to-morrow mornin'
you'd best be a-gittin' some sleep else ther'l be no rousin' you in the
mornin'."
Thus exhorted, Bill would grunt sleepily, slouch to his feet, stretch,
yawn, wind the clock, whittle a few kindlings for the morning and
retire into the little back room where the air was already heavy and
stale from the breathing of Craw and Elmer.
In spite of the occasional days when she felt better and talked about
getting up, Mrs. Pippinger grew steadily worse. There were whole days
now when she lay in a semi-stupor only rousing a little to smile feebly
if Bill or one of the children came to her bedside. She had grown very
thin, and her hands that lay on the quilt were white and transparent.
One day on leaving the doctor took Aunt Abigail aside and said in a low
tone: "I'm afraid there's not much hope that she'll live through it. If
she's in pain and her breath comes hard, give her one of these."
And he handed Aunt Abigail a little envelope containing small, white
pills.
Her stupor increased very noticeably after this and she was hardly ever
conscious. The neighbors came in and took turns sitting up with her
to relieve Bill and Abigail. They moved her bed into the kitchen for
greater warmth and convenience of waiting on her; and there she lay day
after day more like a dead woman than a living one.
One very cold day her breathing was loud and sonorous like snoring.
It echoed all through the stagnant air of the little house. When the
doctor came that afternoon he took Bill and Aunt Abigail aside on the
way out.
"It isn't likely she'll live till morning," he said.
Bill did not answer; he went to the barn to do his chores. Aunt Abigail
hurried back into the house with the air of one who has work to do.
Aunt Sally Whitmarsh came that night to sit up. She was an elderly
woman with crafty eyes and rather handsome regular features that were
always set and composed, as though she were sitting in church listening
to a sermon. She was not so thin as most of her neighbors and her skin
was white and fine and almost free from wrinkles.
Then when the supper table was cleared, the dishes washed and the
children in bed, and the watchers were settling down for the night,
the doorknob turned and old Aunt Selina Cobb stood in the doorway.
She came in with teeth chattering, the remains of an old Paisley shawl
drawn tightly about her head and shoulders. A blast of icy air swept in
after her.
"Land, but it's a-goin' to be a cold night!" she quavered, as she drew
off two pairs of ragged mittens and warmed her withered, claw-like
hands over the stove. "It'll like be zero afore mornin'."
She was a tiny, dried-up creature, not more than four and a half feet
high and so thin that there seemed to be nothing at all between the
yellow, wrinkled skin and the bones beneath. The eyes, as in many old
people, showed the only remains of youth and life. They were bright and
brown and looked about the room with birdlike alertness. Her movements
were sudden, quick and nervous, like those of a person living always
at high tension. Her calico dress, when she took off her jacket, was
seen to be patched in so many places and with so many different kinds
of goods that it was idle to speculate as to its original color and
pattern. Her apron was even more patched than the dress. The patchwork
garments were clean, stiff with starch and smoothly ironed.
"She's bad off to-night, ain't she, poor thing?" said Aunt Selina,
stepping from the fire to the bedside of the sick woman.
Aunt Sally Whitmarsh moved to the bedside and stood beside her. "Yes,"
she said in a low voice, "she's bad off. The doctor don't think she'll
last through the night."
"Eh, dear! Well, well, poor Annie! It seems like yestiddy she was a
little gal a-runnin' araound bareleggèd."
"Yes, an' we two stood together at her weddin' here in this very house.
You mind that day, Aunt Selina? It don't seem no time sence."
They could see their breath in the cold air about the bed. Their teeth
began to chatter and they went back to rub their hands together over
the stove, then settled down in kitchen chairs close to the warmth.
"You'd best be a-gittin' to bed, Bill," advised Aunt Abigail. "You
can't do nothin' fer her, an' the rest of us'll set up."
Bill was sitting beside the woodbox, between the stove and the wall,
apart from the three women. When Abigail spoke he cleared his throat,
recrossed his legs, and said: "No, I guess I'll set."
They settled down to wait. Outside it was growing steadily colder. An
icy wind was sweeping down from the north, whistling about the decayed
old house, rattling window sashes and worming its way through every
chink and crevice. It whispered eerily behind the ugly old wall paper
and fluttered little loose fragments like struggling wings. Long dust
webs clinging to the ceiling above the stove swung to and fro in the
draught like clotheslines on a windy day. The loud, sonorous snoring
sound filled the room and dominated the hushed voices of the woman
about the stove. The little glass lamp threw its dim yellow light over
the oilcloth-covered table, threw its dim reflection to the low ceiling
and left the rest of the room in deep shadow. They sat waiting.
As the night wore on, the breathing of the dying woman grew gradually
less noisy. The creeping cold crowded the three women more closely
about the stove and the lid was often lifted to put in more wood.
Gradually the breathing grew fainter, so that it ceased to dominate
the room and became scarcely audible even when listened for. The clock
struck three slow strokes. Still the women huddled about the stove and
Bill sat silently beside the woodbox and the scarcely heard breath
fluttered on the lips of the dying woman.
Suddenly she gave a short, quick gasp. Aunt Abigail got up quickly and
stood for a moment by the bedside, long enough to make sure that she
was still breathing.
"If she lives past four," she said, turning away with a slight shade of
disappointment, "she'll likely last another day. This is the time they
most gener'ly go."
A movement passed almost imperceptibly through the group about the
stove; but no one spoke.
"Waal, I'm ready to be took when my time comes," went on Aunt
Abigail, coming back to her seat by the stove. "And when I'm gone it
hain't a-goin' to be said of me that I didn't do my duty in times
o' sickness an' death. I bin real bad lately with them liver spells
I git, an' I was in the very midst o' puttin' up new paper on the
front bedroom--it's a awful nice paper an' one that won't show dirt,
a chocolate ground with kinder red flowers on it. But when Bill come
a-drivin' over with word that Annie was down sick, I put my things
right on an' come back with 'im. An' I hain't bin home sence."
Still they sat about the stove and dozed and talked and waited. It
seemed as if the faint breathing, the ticking of the clock, the
crackling of the fire, and the low intermittent drone of the women's
voices would go on forever.
"If the signs tells true, there'll be other deaths among the hills this
winter," went on Aunt Abigail, looking from one to the other of the
little group. "The dawgs has been a-howlin' awful this winter. Well,
the Lord gives an' the Lord takes away; an' none of us knows when our
time is a-comin'. When you settle on a spot fer Annie's grave, Bill,
you'll want to see that there's a piece left alongside fer yerse'f to
lay beside her."
Bill shifted his legs and grunted. The grunt might have meant anything.
There was a low moan. This time they all looked toward the bed for a
moment, then sank back into the old positions. Again a faint, rattling
gasp. Aunt Abigail got up from her chair with ill-concealed alacrity.
Aunt Sally and Aunt Selina looked at each other, then toward the bed,
and rose and followed her lead. Once more a faint, guttural gasp came
from the dying woman's white lips. Aunt Abigail bent over her, her hand
on her pulse, and listened. Then she turned back the covers and placed
her hand upon her sister's heart. There were a few moments of heavy
silence broken at last by the voice of Aunt Abigail, who spoke with a
certain subdued sharpness and authoritativeness. "It's time to stop the
clock. Annie's gone!"
Preparations for the funeral began at once. The children, confused
and bewildered, were dazed more than grieved by their mother's death,
the full gravity of which they could not realize in the midst of Aunt
Abigail's hectic hurry and scurry. There was much to be done. The
girls' Sunday dresses of red cotton crêpe must be dyed black, their
hair ribbons likewise. Aunt Abigail stood over the boiling dye in the
wash boiler and stirred and lifted the goods with two long smooth
pieces of broom handle till they were funereal enough to satisfy her.
Then she soused and rinsed them through many waters and hung them
dripping on the line, three sad little black garments, weeping as it
were for their own dismal transformation. Lizzie May went out and
looked at them and burst suddenly into loud weeping at the sight of
what had so lately been the three pretty little red dresses that their
mother had made for them. She could not have told whether it was for
the dresses or her mother that she was crying. Then the dresses had to
be pressed by Aunt Abigail's swift, capable hands. And the boys' Sunday
clothes and Bill's Sunday suit--the one he was married in--had to be
aired and pressed also.
"Air you sure yer dad's got a fine white shirt?" asked Aunt Abigail,
looking up at Luella from the suit she was pressing.
Luella was washing dishes. She let her hands rest idle in the dishwater
for a moment.
"Dad's got a fine shirt," she answered promptly, "but it's stripèd."
"Is the stripes black?"
"I couldn't say fer sure if the stripes is black or navy blue."
"Well, you'd best fetch it here an' let me look at it, Elly, 'cause if
the stripes hain't black it won't do fer 'im to wear at his own wife's
funeral," opined Aunt Abigail.
Luella wiped off her hands and brought the shirt, which Aunt Abigail,
after careful inspection at the window, pronounced to be satisfactory.
"The stripes is black all right. It'll do," she approved, handing it
back to Luella, who folded it away again in the drawer.
Bill went about in a dazed way, hardly conscious of the life about him.
He did the chores about the barn and chopped the wood mechanically
from force of habit. When he was spoken to he did not hear. He looked
haggard and grief-stricken.
"He feels bad, don't he, poor man," said Aunt Mary Blackford, looking
out of the kitchen window at his stooping figure straggling aimlessly
toward the barn.
"Yaas, he grieves some," admitted Aunt Abigail. "But he'll be a-lookin'
araound fer another afore the year's out. That's haow men is."
The neighborhood for miles around came to the funeral. The hitched
buggies filled the barnyard and were strung out for some distance along
the side of the road. The women wore their black mourning clothes,
with little white aprons tied about their waists. Some of the men had
on their wedding suits. Some wore ill-fitting readymades bought from
the mail order house after a good crop year. Others came in clean
overalls and corduroy jackets lined with sheepskin. All were shaved,
sleek-haired and serious-looking. When they had tied their horses, they
gathered together in little knots in the barnyard talking in low tones,
not about the dead, but about the price of hogs on the hoof, the long,
hard winter that it had been this year, and the best way of preparing
a tobacco bed. At a sign from the undertaker, they filed respectfully,
with bared heads, into the little front room whither their womenfolk
had preceded them.
The long coffin stood on a trestle in the middle of the room. It seemed
tremendously large and imposing. The mouse-like little woman was
claiming more attention now than she had ever done in all the forty-odd
years of her drab existence. Bill sat at the head, staring straight
before him. The children, with red eyes and dazed, frightened faces,
sat along one side. Aunt Abigail and several other near relatives,
with solemn faces and handkerchiefs in their hands, completed the
circle about the bier. The other mourners stood or sat against the
walls. Several of the women were crying. The three women who had laid
out Aunt Annie and had not shed a tear at her death, were all weeping
copiously now.
The preacher was young, insignificant, and ineffectual, a poor wisp
of humanity, who had probably drifted into preaching because it was
the only thing that he could do, and had been elbowed into this remote
corner by the law of the survival of the fittest. In the flat, empty
voice of one who has sounded no depths of life, he spoke feebly of
the virtues of the "dear departed sister," offered a sort of canned
consolation to the "bereaved husband and children," and mumbled a few
concluding words about the "hope of a glorious resurrection."
Then Jabez Moorhouse rose to the six feet three inches of his height.
"Friends an' neighbors," he said, standing simply with his hands in
his pockets and speaking in the tone of one talking across the kitchen
stove, "the Reverend Mister Spragg has spoke the blessin' of the
church over Aunt Annie Pippinger that lies here in the coffin. But not
many of us is church goers an' the Reverend Mister Spragg is not much
acquainted among us. The Bible says, 'Out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaketh.' So I can't let this moment go by without risin' to
my feet to offer our respects as friends an' neighbors to the memory
of one o' the kindest, best-hearted and hardest-workin' wimmin in the
whole of Scott County. Solomon, the wise man, says, 'The heart knoweth
its own bitterness.' An' we all know that talk don't do much to help
them that suffers. But I feel I speak for all of us here when I say
how sad we feel for Bill Pippinger an' for these motherless little uns
an' how we're all a-standin' here ready to do what we kin to make this
loss easier for him to bear. Amen. Let us all sing, 'Nearer, my God, to
Thee.'"
Most of the women were crying now and the men clearing their throats
and furtively wiping their eyes with the backs of their hands. But they
all joined bravely if haltingly in the old funeral hymn, as Jabez'
deep, sonorous voice leading them filled the little room.
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee,
E'en though it be a cross
That raises me;
Still all my song shall be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee.
With the end of the hymn the mourners passed about the coffin to take
their last look at the dead, then went out respectfully and left the
family alone.
On the way out to form the funeral procession, the Reverend Spragg
touched Jabez Moorhouse on the elbow.
"I--I wonder if you would mind reading the service at the grave? You
could do it as well as I can. You know I preach in three churches and
they're a long way apart and it keeps me busy going between them,
especially with the roads so bad. It's a long way to the graveyard and
I have to preach at seven to-night in Mayville Junction."
The little preacher was embarrassed, apologetic, but anxious to be
released. He pressed a leaflet containing the service into Jabez' hand.
"All right," said Jabez, not without a trace of condescension, "I'll do
it. But you don't need to give me no book." He handed back the leaflet.
The long, cold drive seemed as though it would never end; but at last
they got to the little graveyard, a few white and gray stones and
painted wooden slabs crowning a hill. Here they climbed out of the
buggies and stamped up and down a bit to limber up their numb feet and
stiff legs.
Then they gathered about the open grave, Bill and his children nearest,
the others clustered about them in a silent group, the men holding
their hats awkwardly in their hands, and Jabez Moorhouse spoke over the
dead what he remembered of the graveside service.
"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full
of misery. He cometh up and is cut down. He fleeth as it were a shadow.
"Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take
unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed, we therefore
commit her body to the ground."
He said it tenderly, as one who has come to realize that to be
committed to the ground may be sweet, soothing, and desirable.
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, earth to earth."
It was over and they turned away.
But there was one to whom the thought of the lonely grave was anguish.
It was when they were getting into the wagon for the long drive home,
and the other mourners were letting their thoughts dwell with pleasant
expectancy on fried side of hog and corn cakes, that Bill spoke for the
first time since they left the house.
"Well, young uns, you hain't got no mammy now." His voice broke and
he dropped his face in his hands and shook with sobs. The children
gathered about him, wailing dismally. It was a long time before he
could control himself enough to gather up the lines and say: "Git up
there," to Tom and Bob.