“Say not ‘small event’! Why ‘small’?
Costs it more pain than this, ye call
A ‘great event,’ should come to pass,
Than that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!”
—Robert Browning.
On the lounge in the sitting-room, Judith lay cuddled up with a rare
ailment for her, a throbbing headache; Aunt Affy had brought a pillow
from her own entry bedroom, and bathed her forehead with Florida
water; then brushed her hair for a long time and told her a story
about her far-away girlhood, “when Becky and Cephas and I had our
good times. Not that we don’t have good times now; Becky has hers up
yonder, and poor Cephas and I do the best we can for each other down
here.”
Judith wondered why she should say “poor Cephas”; he had laughing
eyes, and a merry laugh, and everything that happened to him seemed
just the very best thing that could happen.
Aunt Rody had brewed a bowl of bitter stuff and stood threateningly
near while Judith lifted her dizzy head and forced herself to taste
it.
“More,” urged Aunt Rody.
She tasted again.
“More,” insisted Aunt Rody.
She tasted several times with a look of pitiful appeal that Aunt Rody
resisted.
“More,” commanded Aunt Rody.
“I can’t,” sobbed Judith, but she obeyed, and Aunt Rody set the
yellow bowl on a chair by the sofa, that she might taste it whenever
she felt like it.
Homesick Judith hid her face in the small pillow as soon as she was
left alone, and cried; she cried for her mother not a year dead, for
her father whom she scarcely remembered, for the pretty room she had
with her mother in her own city home, for her picture of the Madonna
with the child, that Aunt Rody declared popish and would not suffer,
even in Judith’s own room; then she cried because Miss Kenney had not
come yesterday, as she half promised, and then because Aunt Rody had
made Cephas say that she should not run about in the fields with him,
but stay in the house these wonderful days and sew carpet rags; and
then, if she cried about anything she cried in her sleep; a soft step
was in the room, the lightest touch covered her with Aunt Affy’s
fleecy white shawl.
“Sit down,” whispered Aunt Affy’s voice, “she is fast asleep; she is
a good sleeper, we shall not disturb her; I shouldn’t wonder if she
had fits of home-sickness; she never tells; we are all old folks;
Rody thinks she doesn’t need any more schooling because she can do
sums and writes such a handsome hand, so she doesn’t go to school—and
doesn’t know many young folks. Rody never _did_ understand young
folks, you know that.”
“I should think _you_ knew that,” replied the other whispering,
indignant voice. “So Cephas is back again; he was gone five years,
wasn’t he?”
“Five this last time, three the other time.”
Judith stirred, pushed the white wool away from her face, and
listened.
“He was good to go,” replied the still indignant voice.
Judith made a soft rustle; Aunt Affy did not heed it.
“Yes, he _was_ good,” assented Aunt Affy’s sweet, old voice, “he is
always ready to do the thing that’s happiest for me. He was so
homesick and wrote such heart-rending letters that I couldn’t stand
it. Rody sniffed, as she has always sniffed at us, but she said he
might come back if we were both so set on it, so shamelessly set on
it.”
Judith’s little protesting groan was not noticed; then she shut her
eyes and listened, because she could not help it.
“It’s a burning shame, and the sister you have been to her, too. You
took your money and bought your sisters out that you might keep the
old place for Rody.”
“I wanted it for myself, too,” was Aunt Affy’s honest reply.
“But you could have taken your money and married Cephas—”
“But, you see, she never could bear the thought of my marrying at
all; she doesn’t dislike Cephas so much, but she wants me all to
herself. She doesn’t like men, I’ll allow that; she never had any
kind of happy experience herself, unless it happened before I was
born, and she doesn’t _know_. After Becky died, Cephas and I had to
comfort each other; Rody never was a great hand at comforting, and
the other girls were all dead or married. She had been a mother to me
all my life; I was a two week’s old baby left in her care; and Becky
was only two years old; we were her two babies.”
“You had whippings and scoldings enough thrown in, I’ll be bound,”
was the visitor’s tart rejoinder.
“The scoldings are thrown in now,” said Aunt Affy, with the glimmer
of a smile; “I am only a girl to her; I shall never grow up to her;
not old enough to be married, sixty years old as I am. Cephas told
her yesterday that he would fix up the old house with his own money,
he has considerable laid by, and she dared him to pull off a shingle
or drive a nail. He said she should always be the head of the house,
and she said there was no need for him to tell her _that_. You see
that we could not be happy in making her old age unhappy. She is so
old that defiance might kill her; she is eighty-four.”
“I’d _let_ it kill her then,” said Miss Affy’s life-long friend.
“No, you wouldn’t. Your sister is your sister, and she is all the
mother I ever knew. Cephas and I jog on together like two old married
folks. She says we will be glad when she is under the sod and we can
have our own way.”
“She might let you have it now, and then you wouldn’t be glad,” urged
Jean Draper’s mother.
“She cannot let us have it; her own will is too strong for her; when
she gives up to us she will die.”
“Then I’d do it anyway,” counselled the other voice.
“We did talk of that, but we are afraid to—she is so old,” whispered
Aunt Affy, feeling faint with the very thought of it.
“Well, it’s an old folks’ romance, and I didn’t know old folks had
any,” said the woman who was married at sixteen.
But the girl on the lounge with her face in the pillow had listened;
she had listened and learned something Aunt Affy would not have told
her for the world.
How could she ever look into Aunt Affy’s face again? And, oh, how
could she ever love Aunt Rody?
She groaned, and Aunt Affy came to her and asked if she felt worse.
The neighbor went out on tiptoe; Aunt Rody came from the kitchen to
stand threateningly near while Aunt Affy coaxed mouthful by mouthful
the draining of the bitter bowl.
While Aunt Rody was taking her nap that afternoon Jean Draper knocked
on the open kitchen door. Judith and Aunt Affy were washing dishes
together at the kitchen sink; Judith gave a cry of pleased surprise
at the sound of the knock and the vision of the girl in the doorway.
“O, Jean, I _wished_ for you,” she said, with the longing for young
companionship in her heart.
“And I wanted you. I am going to see Miss Marion on a secret errand,
and I can’t do it without you. Can you spare her, Miss Affy?”
“If her head will let her go,” began Miss Affy, doubtfully.
“Oh, that’s well,” cried Judith, joyfully, “but what will Aunt Rody
say?” she questioned in dismay.
“I will take care of that,” promised Aunt Affy, anticipating with
dread the half hour’s scolding the permission would bring upon
herself.
“You are making her a gad-about just like yourself,” the monologue
would begin.
“Are you _sure_, Aunt Affy, dear?” asked Judith, anxiously.
“Yes, sure. Run away and put on your new gingham.”