Lydia Hersey sat out on the porch carding flax. She had taken her
work out there that she might not litter the house. It was Saturday
afternoon, and she had set every room in fine order for the Sabbath.
Three tall Lombardy poplar-trees stood in a row on the road line, and
their long shadows, like the shadows of giant men, fell athwart the
gray unpainted house and the broad grassy yard. At the south of the
house was a flower bed of pinks and honeysuckles and thyme, and also a
vegetable garden. Beyond that were three beehives in a row, with little
black clouds of bees around them. Lydia carded assiduously, and never
looked up. Her long black lashes lay against her pink cheeks, her full
lips were half-smiling, as if she were saying some pleasant thing to
herself. Lydia wore her black hair in a braided knot at the back of her
head; in front she combed it smoothly down over her ears, then looped
it up behind them in two clusters of soft curls. Her flowered chintz
gown was cut low in the neck, and she wore a string of gold beads
around her long white throat.
Lydia sat very erect as she carded; her shoulders never wavered with
the clapping motion of her hands; she even sat well forward in her
chair, and did not come in contact with its straight back.
Lydia Hersey was noted for the majesty of her carriage as well as her
beauty, and was talked of as far as Boston. Young men had been known
to come from other villages and walk past her house on the chance of
seeing her at a window, although they dared not address her, nor do
more than halt and stand for a second with their hats raised like
school-boys before the parson or the squire, and that might have been
accounted poor reward for a long journey. But there were for these
New-Englanders no great pictures by old masters and no famous statues,
and Lydia Hersey’s beautiful living face, set like a jewel for a moment
in a window of the gray old Hersey house, served them instead. The
young Abington men, the North Bridgewater men, and the Canton men would
go home with their love of beauty all aflame, and never forget Lydia’s
face in the window; indeed, it would turn towards them like a portrait,
whichever way they moved, through their whole lives. Years afterwards,
when these admirers were old men and heard some young beauty praised,
they would look scornful and say, “You ought to have seen Lydia Hersey,
of East Bridgewater.”
A bumblebee flew with a loud buzz past Lydia’s head, and she started
a little. He flew straight into the open window of the keeping-room.
“That’s a sign of company,” she thought, and she thought also
complacently how nicely the house was set in order, and she did not
care who came.
The doors were all open as well as the windows. She heard the bee
buzzing and striking against the ceiling of the keeping-room. Presently
she heard another sound that made her drop her cards in her lap and
listen intently. It came from down the street, and sounded like an
irregular chorus of horns, a medley of harsh, hollow screeches. Lydia
frowned. The sounds grew louder; there were also great shouts of
laughter and clamorous voices. Soon a company of young men came in
sight; there were a dozen of them, and they had great conch shells at
their mouths, which they blew between their laughter and merry calls.
Lydia stood up. She laid the cards down on the chair, folded the linen
cloth which she had spread on the porch floor carefully over the fluffy
heap of carded flax, and brushed all the shreds that she could from her
gown. Then she walked, carrying her beautiful head high, down to the
road. There was a sudden hush when the young men saw her. They took
their conch shells from their lips, and saluted her respectfully. One
young man, who came foremost of the troop, colored high. One of his
comrades nudged him, and he thrust his elbow back angrily in response.
Lydia took no notice of the other young men, she walked straight up to
this one. He stopped, and all the others halted at his back.
“Where are you going, Freelove?” said she.
“Not far,” he returned, evasively.
“Where?” she demanded.
The young man turned towards his companions. “Move on, lads,” he said,
in an imperious voice, which he tried to make good-natured, “I’ll be
with you in a moment.”
His handsome face was burning. The young men trooped on; there was a
subdued chuckle. Freelove Keith looked Lydia full in the face, and his
blue eyes were as haughty as her black ones.
“We’re going down to see Abraham White and Deborah,” said he.
Lydia stared back at him scornfully. “You are going down there with
those loafers to blow those conch shells under the windows?” said she.
“Squire Perkins’s son is one of ’em,” returned Freelove, defiantly.
“The more shame to him!” said Lydia. “And the more shame to you,
Freelove Keith!”
It seemed as if her bright scornful eyes, full on Freelove’s face,
could see all the weaknesses that he hid from himself behind his own
consciousness, but he did not flinch.
“I don’t know what you call shame,” he said. “’Tis what the young
fellows in East Bridgewater have always done when they have not been
asked to a wedding.”
“Asked to a wedding,” repeated Lydia, contemptuously. “A pretty
wedding! Deborah Belcher marrying Abraham White, when he’s twice as old
as she is, and his wife not dead six months. No wonder she asked nobody
to the wedding, marrying old Abraham White for his silver teaspoons and
tankard, and his wife’s silk gowns and satin pelisse!”
“You don’t know that she married him for any such thing,” protested
Freelove, stoutly, although he had started on this very expedition with
a gay contempt for Deborah White. She was a very pretty girl, and once,
before he had dared address Lydia Hersey, people had coupled his name
with hers. He had gone home with her from singing-school, and kissed
her once at a husking.
“Stand up for a girl like that if you want to,” said Lydia. She had
always had a lurking jealousy of Deborah Belcher. Deborah’s hair
was very fair, and she had a delicate evanescent bloom like a wild
rose. Lydia had often wondered if Deborah were not prettier than she
herself, and if men did not love fair hair better than black.
Freelove Keith did not continue the dispute; he looked uneasily
after his comrades, who were nearly out of sight, even at their slow
lingering pace. Now and then the note of a conch shell was heard. “I
must go,” said he. “Good-day, Lydia.”
“Do you mean that you are really going with that noisy crew to blow
conch shells under Abraham White’s windows, Freelove Keith?”
“Yes, I am going, Lydia Hersey,” returned the young man, hotly; “and if
you thought I’d be ordered back by you before them all, like a whipped
puppy, you were mightily mistaken.”
Lydia stared at him, she was so full of proud amazement that she would
say nothing; this Freelove Keith had often fretted beneath her rule,
but never before openly resisted it.
“Go back to your flax-carding, Lydia,” said Freelove, in a softer tone.
“See, the flax is blowing all over the yard. I shall be up to see you
after supper.”
Then Lydia found her tongue. “You haven’t been asked to come that
I know of,” said she. “I don’t know as I care to keep company with
young men that go blowing horns and shouting through the street, and
disturbing decent people.”
“Then you needn’t,” retorted Freelove.
He went quickly down the road after his companions. He was dressed
like a farmer, in slouching homespun, but there was a certain jaunty
grace about him, and a free swing in his gait, which did not accord
with his appearance. He had followed the sea for a living, going as
mate on a merchantman, and had been home only for a year and a half,
since his father’s death, managing the farm.
Lydia went back to the house. She stepped as if she bore a crown on her
head instead of a tortoise-shell comb, and had a train to her cotton
gown. The wind had indeed stirred the linen cloth, and bits of flax
were floating about the yard, but she ignored that. She would not so
far unbend her dignity as to gather it up, even with nobody but herself
for witness. She folded the linen cloth firmly over the remaining flax,
and placed her foot in its buckled shoe on it when she sat down. She
fell to work with the cards again. The wild clamor of horns, which she
had heard break forth when Freelove joined his comrades, died away in
the distance.
Lydia sat there steadily carding flax, as if imbued by nature with the
single instinct of industry, like a bee out in the garden. Her lips
were tight shut, and no longer smiling; her heart was anxious, but she
still made her store of linen as unquestioningly as the bee its honey.
In about an hour the troop of young men with the conch shells returned.
Lydia heard them at a distance, and long before they reached the house
she sat with stiffer majesty, keeping her eyes so closely upon her work
that the flax became a silvery blur. However, she need not have taken
the trouble, for Freelove Keith swung past with as scornful a lift of
his head as she, and never once glanced her way. And, indeed, the young
men all passed very decorously and quietly, and only a few dared raise
their eyes towards the queenly figure on the porch, and then only for a
second. One of them was Abel Perkins, Squire Perkins’s son. He was home
from college on a vacation, and was quite looked up to by the village
youth, as he was the only collegian among them. Abel Perkins was slight
and pale, and walked with a nervous strut; but he wore broadcloth and
a fine flowered waistcoat, and carried a gold watch. He even gave a
hesitating glance back at Lydia on the porch, turning his little face
over his shoulder; but she did not see it. She did not look up from her
work until long after the company had passed.
A half-hour later the stage went by, with the four horses at a gallop.
A fair face overtopped by white plumes looked out of the surging
window. Lydia turned her head hastily, and the red in her cheeks
deepened. It was the bride, Deborah White, going with her new husband
to spend the honeymoon with his relations in Abington. There was a
nice little hair trunk strapped on behind the stage. Lydia eyed it
contemptuously when Deborah could no longer see her. She thought,
“Maybe his first wife’s satin pelisse is in there.”
A man emerged from the cloud of dust in the wake of the stage. He was
old, and wore his white hair in a queue. He had on a green double
cloak, although the day was warm, and walked with a stick, to whose
height he accommodated himself at every step with a downward motion of
his shoulders. He did not seem to need its support.
When he approached the house, Lydia stood up and courtesied low.
“Good-day, Lydia,” said he, in a solemn voice.
“Good-day, sir,” she returned, with stately deference; and she
ushered the minister, Elihu Eaton, into the fore room, and placed the
rocking-chair with the feather cushion for him.
The fore room was close and cool, for the windows had been shut all
day to keep out the flies. There was a smell of mint and lavender. The
great testered bedstead, with its chintz valance and curtains, stood in
one corner. There was a high chest of drawers and a splendid carved oak
linen chest, which Lydia’s grandmother had brought over from England.
On one side of the fireplace was a great cupboard with panelled doors,
and that was filled with gallipots. Lydia’s father had been a doctor.
Lydia sat beside the window, opposite the minister. There was a
restrained defiance in the lift of her chin. Now and then she picked a
bit of the flax from her gown.
She knew well why the minister had come. Aunt Nabby Keith had warned
her. It was ten months since her banns with Freelove had been
published, and she held herself aloof, and would not marry him out of
sheer wilfulness and coquetry, the neighbors said. Freelove’s aunt
Nabby had come to see her only the day before, and talked seriously
with her.
“You ain’t livin’ up to your professions,” the old woman had said, “and
I’m going to speak plain. If you let this year go by and don’t marry
Freelove according to your banns, you’ll have a good deal to answer
for.”
“Well, I’ll ask nobody else to answer for me,” Lydia returned.
“The parson says he’s coming to reason with you, Lydia Hersey.”
“Let him come,” said Lydia; and her head tossed up like a rose in a
wind.
And now the parson had come. It was some little space before he opened
on the subject in hand. In truth, he stood somewhat in awe, although
he did not know it, of this beautiful high-spirited young woman. There
had been always a brisk feminine rule in his own house. Even now he
sweltered under the weight of the green double cloak which his wife
Sarah had hoisted upon his slender shoulders because she thought he had
taken cold. The waistcoat, which she had made to suit her own ideas
and not his requirements, bound his back; his neckcloth, which she had
wound with ardor, half choked him and fretted his chin.
When at length he reasoned with Lydia Hersey on the matter of her
non-fulfilment of the marriage banns, and the report that she was about
to let the lawful year go by and jilt Freelove Keith, it was with
circumspect solemnity. Lydia’s cheeks flamed redder and redder, but her
black eyes never left his face.
“Did you meet Freelove Keith with that noisy crew, who ought to have
been at home at work in the middle of the afternoon, shouting and
blowing conch shells under Mr. Abraham White’s windows?” she demanded.
The minister admitted that he had, and had remonstrated with them.
“It would make a better text for a discourse than some others that
meddlesome folks set,” said Lydia, for she had no fear of any one
before another, not even the minister or the squire. She stood up. The
minister Elihu Eaton’s sober peaked face rising out of his great capes,
which shrugged to his ears, looked up at her. “Either,” said she, in a
masterful way, and yet with a remembering sweetness, for the minister
looked suddenly very old to her--“either Freelove Keith has got to do
as I say or I have got to do as he says before we are married, if the
banns have been cried a thousand years.”
Then she went out into the keeping-room, and presently returned with
a tray, on which were set out a decanter of West India Rum, a little
silver bowl of loaf-sugar, a tumbler, and a plate of pound-cake.
When the minister had partaken of these refreshments, he offered a
prayer and took his leave. Lydia courtesied when he went out the door,
but her lips were tightly shut again, for Elihu Eaton, in his appeal
to the Lord, had spoken with more fire concerning her affairs than he
had dared use towards her. “O Lord, make this, Thy handmaiden, to keep
to the vows which she has spoken, and let not a froward mind lead her
aside into strange paths,” the minister had said, and more, and Lydia
could not expostulate.
She went into the keeping-room and got supper ready. Lydia Hersey
had lived alone ever since her father’s death. All the more reason,
people thought, why she should fulfil her marriage contract with
Freelove Keith. There was she, living all alone in a large house, with
a comfortable income, and there was Freelove, who was no longer so
necessary at home since his sister had married and taken her husband
there to live, and who could easily manage his farm and live in the
Hersey house. There was Freelove, whom everybody liked, yet felt a
certain anxiety about, because he had been to sea, and might have seen
much evil in foreign ports, going too often to the tavern, people said,
and neglecting his farm to go on junketings with idle young men, to
Abington or Braintree, and once even over to Boston, and to be away all
night. It looked no better, people said, because Squire Perkins’s son
went with him, and he was college-learned. It was generally conceded
that Abel was not as reliable, and would not make as smart a man, as
the old squire.
Lydia Hersey saw Abel Perkins again that night. After supper she
strolled down the road a little way. She was mindful that Freelove had
said he was coming, and she wondered if her rebuff would quite drive
him away. Before she started she stood hesitating a moment in the
doorway. The evening was cool, and she had put a yellow blanket over
her head and bare shoulders.
She thought, angrily, that she would not stay at home and watch for
Freelove Keith, when he might not come; but, on the other hand, she did
not want to go away and never know if he had called.
Finally she pulled some sprigs of mint from the bank under the
keeping-room windows, and she shut the house door, and stuck them
carefully under the sill. Then she went on down the road, and soon she
met Abel Perkins. He stood about, and took off his hat in a way he had
learned in college, and Lydia courtesied gravely. Abel was considerably
younger than she, and she had always had a certain disdain for him, in
spite of his being the squire’s son. Still it was quite evident that he
humbly admired her, and some deference was due him for that.
So when he asked humbly if he might walk with her a way, she said yes,
and they went on together. Alder-trees, faintly sweet in a pale mist
of bloom, stood beside the road; there were distant peals of laughter,
tinklings of cow bells, and a hubbub of nestward birds. Lydia stepped
proudly along beside the little anxiously smiling squire’s son; her
beautiful face looked out of her yellow blanket as if it were a frame
of gold.
Abel Perkins kept glancing up at her and blushing. “If you had told me
that you didn’t want me to go to Abraham White’s, I wouldn’t have gone,
Lydia,” he said, after a while.
“I don’t approve of any such goings on,” Lydia returned, severely.
“I don’t know as they are very becoming,” said Abel Perkins.
They sauntered on slowly. The sunset light lay in red-gold patches
on the dusty road, some elm-trees ahead swayed in a mystical, rosy,
smokelike incense. Presently at the right of the road showed the red
walls of Aunt Nabby Keith’s house out of a thicket of purple-topped
lilac-bushes. Freelove suddenly appeared in the road. When he saw Lydia
he started, then went on with a jauntier swing. He scarcely nodded as
he went by. Lydia held her head like a statue.
“Is he huffy?” whispered Abel.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” replied Lydia, coldly. But in a second
she faced about. “I must go home,” said she. “It is getting damp.”
Abel went obediently at her side. Freelove was still visible in the
road ahead. Lydia talked and laughed very loud, but he did not turn his
head, although he must have heard. When they reached the Hersey house,
Lydia turned promptly into the yard. “Good-night, Abel,” she called,
loudly. And Abel Perkins responded with rueful sweetness, for he had
thought to be asked in, and went on down the road in Freelove’s tracks.
Lydia watched him out of sight. She knew he would meet Freelove at the
village store, if he did not overtake him. She did not go into the
house and disturb the mint on the door-sill. She waited a few minutes,
then she also went on a little way to the next house, where lived a
young woman mate of hers. She went in and stayed until nearly nine
o’clock, and the two girls talked over Deborah Belcher’s wedding, but
not a word did Lydia say about her quarrel with Freelove.
When she went home, she got down on her knees in the porch, and
examined the mint carefully. It was bright moonlight; not a sprig had
been disturbed. Lydia opened the door and walked in, trampling the mint
ruthlessly.
The next day was Sunday, and she went to meeting dressed in her best
gown, with roses sprinkled over a blue ground, and her Leghorn bonnet
trimmed with a rose-colored ribbon, and sat fanning herself calmly with
a painted fan when Freelove entered, but he never looked at her.
The minister preached from Psalm lxxv. 5, “Lift not up your horn on
high; speak _not_ with a stiff neck,” and there was much nudging in
the congregation, and uneasiness among the young men who had saluted
Abraham White and his bride. Freelove sat straight and stiff, but his
face was red. Lydia smiled behind her fan.
The next morning Sarah Porter, the girl whom she had visited Saturday
evening, came in. She had heard that Lydia had really jilted her lover.
She and her mother had watched, and knew that he had not come courting
the night before.
“I hear you and Freelove have fallen out,” said she. Her lips were
smiling archly, but her eyes were hard and curious.
“There’s plenty to hear, if folks keep their ears pricked up,” replied
Lydia, and she would say no more.
She smiled scornfully when presently she watched Sarah Porter’s squat
figure go out of the yard. “She didn’t find out much,” she muttered.
“She’d give all her old shoes to get Freelove herself, but he wouldn’t
look at her.”
That forenoon Lydia took her flax-carding out on the porch again.
Soon, as she sat there, she saw Abel Perkins coming. He hesitated at
the gate. He carried a great bunch of white lilacs. Purple lilacs were
plenty in East Bridgewater, but white ones grew nowhere except in the
squire’s yard.
“Ain’t you coming in, Abel?” called Lydia, and she smiled her sweet
imperious smile at him.
Abel came up the path, extending the great bunch of lilacs like a
propitiatory offering to a deity.
“I thought maybe you’d like a bunch of these white lilacs, Lydia,” he
said.
“Thank you, Abel; they’re real handsome, and I’ll put them in a pitcher
when I go in,” replied Lydia, graciously.
This morning she wore a green and white gown, which made her face still
more like a rose. Abel stood leaning against a post of the porch,
looking at her, then looking quickly away.
“Have you got any errands or anything you want done, Lydia?” he
stammered.
Lydia looked at him; a sudden wicked light came into her eyes. There
he stood, in his fine waistcoat and broadcloth, with his handsome
knee-buckles and gold chain. His hands were long and slim and white,
much whiter than hers.
“Why, yes, Abel,” said she; “if you really want something to do, the
pease out in my garden need sticking.”
Abel Perkins stared aghast a minute; then he started eagerly.
“You’ll have to go up in the pasture and cut some brush,” said Lydia.
The truth was that Freelove Keith had taken it upon himself to tend
Lydia’s garden, which was but a small one, and she thought with
spiteful delight how, when he came again, if he came at all, he would
find some of the work done, and wonder. But it did not fall out as she
had planned, for presently she heard loud voices out in the garden, and
peering around the corner of the porch, she saw Freelove and Abel, each
with a bundle of brush.
Lydia gathered up her work hastily, and fled into the house. She went
up to the south chamber, and peeped around the curtain. Both of her
lovers were sticking the pease, Abel awkwardly, with trembling haste,
and Freelove with a sturdy vehemence that might have suited Cadmus
sowing the dragon’s teeth. Just then there was a sullen quiet, but
presently arose another altercation. Lydia spied a long rent in the
skirt of Abel’s fine coat. Soon Abel started towards the house, and she
sat down on the floor of the south chamber and laughed. She heard a
faint voice below calling her, but she did not reply, and Abel dared
not search for her in the house.
Lydia peered out again, and saw Freelove at work alone in the garden,
but he never once glanced up at the house. She saw Sarah Porter’s face,
and her mother’s over her shoulder, at a window of their house across
the yard, and she watched jealously lest Freelove should glance that
way; but he did not. When the pease were finished, he went out of the
yard, looking neither to the right nor left. Lydia went down-stairs
cautiously, to be sure Abel Perkins was gone.
However, when he came again, as he did soon, she greeted him kindly,
and smiled sweetly by way of indirect condolence when he told how
Freelove Keith had driven him from the garden. Lydia spied the rent,
which his mother had neatly mended, in his broadcloth coat.
“Why, Abel, you have torn your fine coat,” said she.
Abel blushed. “I tore it getting the sticks for the pease. But ’tis of
no account,” he said; “and I’m willing to tear it again if there is
anything else you want done, Lydia.”
“Maybe your mother won’t be quite so willing to mend it again,” said
Lydia.
But presently she brought out the churn, and set Abel Perkins, in his
fine clothes, churning cream out on the porch. Sarah Porter called her
mother out into their front yard to see, and Freelove Keith went by; he
went often to see his Aunt Nabby.
Abel churned until the butter came, and it took full long, and his fine
waistcoat was spattered with cream; and then she sent him home like a
little boy. Lydia found many another domestic task for Abel Perkins,
and all on the porch. She set him carding flax, and spinning, and
making candle-wicks. She found errands also for him to do, and many
commands for him to obey. She sent him to Abington with a couple of
feather pillows for her aunt, and awkwardly enough he managed them on
horseback. She forbade his going to Boston on a little trip with some
of the village young men, Freelove being of the party. Abel Perkins
never rebelled against her rule, but there came a time when Lydia
herself arose for him.
One afternoon he sat on the porch spinning at the wheel, and Lydia had
tied one of her blue aprons around his waist, when she suddenly spoke.
“Take off that apron now, and stop spinning, and go home, Abel
Perkins,” said she.
Abel jumped up, and stared at her.
“I mean what I say,” said she. “If you are not ashamed for yourself, I
am ashamed for you, and I am ashamed for myself more than I am for you.
No man can make a woman like him by doing everything she tells him to;
she only despises him for it. You remember it next time. Now you had
better go home and learn your Latin books.”
“Can’t I come again, Lydia?” said Abel. He was quite pale, and tears
stood in his eyes.
But Lydia would not speak softly to him. “No,” she replied, “you can’t.
You mustn’t come here wasting your time any more. You must study your
books. You are not old enough to go courting; get your college books
learned through first.”
“Can I come then, Lydia?” he inquired, faintly.
“No,” said she; “I shall never want anybody coming again. Take off that
apron and go home.”
And Abel Perkins obeyed. He looked very dejected and youthful going out
of the yard. Lydia went into the house and cried.
Abel stayed away for a week; then he came again. Lydia would not have
gone to the door had she known who it was plying the knocker. She never
heard the knocker but with a hope that it might be Freelove, although
he never came now.
When she saw Abel standing there, she frowned.
“Don’t look at me so, Lydia,” he pleaded. “I couldn’t help coming.
I can’t eat, and I haven’t slept any. I’m sick, Lydia. Mother keeps
asking me what the matter is.”
Indeed Abel looked ill; he was paler than usual, and had a pinched
and woe-begone expression that drew his face down, and made it appear
thinner.
“Well, you come in,” said Lydia. “I’m going to mix you up some
medicine, if you’re sick. I know a very good one that my father showed
me how to make. It’ll cure you right up, Abel.”
And Lydia made Abel seat himself on the settle in the keeping-room, and
went with a cup and spoon to the cupboard in the fore room, where her
father’s old gallipots were kept. Then she took from this and that, and
mixed carefully, and returned to Abel.
“Here, drink this,” said she.
Abel held out his hand, but turned his face away.
“’Tis only a little assafœtida that I put in to quiet the nerves that
you smell,” said she. “’Tis mostly for the liver. My father used to say
that the root of all sickness was the liver, and he did not know but it
was the root of all evil. If your liver were in good order you would
not fret, Abel Perkins. Drink it down.”
And Abel drank it down with an effort.
“Now you’d better go home,” said she, “and wait till it takes effect.
I’ll warrant you’ll eat some supper to-night.”
“I sha’n’t, Lydia, if you don’t let me come to see you,” said Abel,
piteously.
“Yes, you will. How long did you go without your supper when that girl
in Abington gave you the mitten? I ain’t the first one you’ve stopped
eating for, Abel Perkins, and you not twenty! You know it’s so.”
Abel blushed, and looked down foolishly.
Lydia laughed. “If you keep on this way, you’ll starve to death before
you come of age,” said she. “Now you’d better go home and study your
books, and leave such matters alone until you get more sense to manage
them. I suppose you will when you’ve got the college books learned
through.”
Abel arose. Lydia followed him to the door, and her voice was softer
as she bade him good-bye. He looked piteously backward at her as he
went out of the yard, but still she was not so touched as she had been
before.
“That story about his being so crazy over that girl in Abington was
true,” she said to herself; and although she was generous enough
to feel relieved that her unlucky lover had an elastic as well as
susceptible temperament, and was likely to recover from his wounds,
still she disliked him the more for it.
It now wanted only a month for the expiration of the year since Lydia
and Freelove’s banns had been published. Should they not marry before
then, they could not legally, unless they were again published.
It was a month since Freelove had set foot in Lydia’s house, or indeed
spoken to her. He came, early in the morning sometimes, and cared for
her garden, but they never exchanged a word. Everybody said that the
marriage was broken off. Lydia kept on as usual. She had some beautiful
linen in the loom, and she wove as if she were certainly going to be
married. Sarah Porter used to come in and wonder, but she found out
nothing from Lydia, who never spoke Freelove’s name.
“She’s making more linen,” Sarah told her mother when she got home, and
the two women speculated anxiously. They knew that Freelove did not go
to see Lydia, at all events, for they and all the neighbors watched.
When the last day of the year since the banns came, there was no longer
doubt in anybody’s mind, nor was there, indeed, in Lydia’s. She stayed
in-doors, and wove her linen in a mechanical fashion. She sat before
the great loom, and it was as if she were playing a harmony of sweet
housewifely industry upon it like a very artist, but the tears rolled
down her cheeks, which were not rosy that morning.
Had she not listened two months for the sound of the knocker, she would
not have heard it above the great hum of the loom that afternoon; but
hear it she did, and went to answer it, wiping her eyes.
Freelove Keith stood in the porch, and out at the gate stood his horse,
with a pillion behind the saddle.
“Come, Lydia,” said Freelove, “I want you to get on the pillion, and
ride over to Aunt Nabby’s with me.”
“I can’t,” said Lydia, faintly. “I’m all over flax lint from the loom.”
“Put on an apron,” said Freelove.
Lydia went into the house, and tied an apron around her waist, and came
out again. Freelove lifted her on the pillion, and they rode down the
street without a word, until they reached the minister Elihu Eaton’s
house, which was about half way to Aunt Nabby’s.
Freelove drew rein. “Now we’ll go in and get married, Lydia,” said he.
“Oh, Freelove, _I_ can’t!” gasped Lydia.
“Now or never,” said Freelove, sternly.
“I was going to have a wedding, Freelove, and a brocade gown, and
cake--”
“Now or never,” said Freelove.
He sprang off the saddle and held up his arms. Lydia slipped down
into them, and followed him, trembling, her head drooping, into the
minister’s house.
When they came out, a stout old woman stood waiting for them at the
gate.
“I’ve got married, Aunt Nabby,” said Freelove, with a gay laugh.
“Well, I should think ’twas time,” replied the old woman. She chuckled;
her iron-bowed spectacles flashed back the light. “I’ve got a bedquilt
made for Liddy, and six yarn socks for you, Freelove,” she said; “and
I’m going home and bake a pound-cake with some plums in it.”
Aunt Nabby went scuttling down the road. Freelove and Lydia remounted,
and went back at a canter. Freelove pulled a conch shell from his
pocket, and blew as lustily as a herald. Folks ran to the windows, and
Lydia hid her blushing face against her husband’s shoulder.