another uneasily. Still we did not go to see her. The weeks went by
until, one morning, Calliope met the little new Friendship doctor on the
street and asked him about his patient.
"I up an' ask' him flat out," Calliope confessed afterward; "not that I
really cared to be told, but I hated to know I was heathenish. You don't
like the feelin'. To know they ain't heathens is all that keeps some
folks from _bein_' 'em. Well, so I ask' him. 'Doctor Heron,' s'I, 'is
that Mis' Johnson real sick, or is she just sickish?' He looks at me
an'--'Looks pretty sick, don't she?' s'e. 'Well,' s'I, 'I've seen folks
look real rich that wa'n't it by right-down pocketbook evidence.' 'Been
to see her?' s'e. 'No,' s'I, short. 'Might drop in,' s'e, an' walks off,
lookin' cordial. That little Doctor Heron is that close-mouthed I
declare if I don't respect him same as the minister an' the pipe-organ
an' the skippin' hills."
So, as midsummer passed and found the little woman still ailing, I
obeyed an idle impulse and went one evening to see her. I recall that as
soon as I had crossed her threshold the old influence came upon me, and
I was minded to run from the place in sheer distaste of the overemphasis
and the lifted, pointed chin and the fluttering importances of her
presence. I was ashamed enough that this should be so, but so it was;
and I held my ground to await her coming to the room only by a measure
of will.
I sat with Mrs. Johnson for an hour that evening. And it would seem
that, as is the habit of many, having taken my own way I was straightway
possessed to draw others after me. There are those who behave similarly
and who set cunningly to work to gain their own ends, as, for example, I
did. For one night soon I devised a little feast, which I have always
held to be a good doorway to any enterprise, and, at the
Friendship-appointed supper hour of six, I made my table as fair as
possible, as has been done in like case ever since butter was first
served "in a lordly dish." And my guests were Calliope, without whom no
festival is wholly in keeping, and Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, and
Mis' Postmaster Sykes, and that great, tolerant Mis' Amanda Toplady.
Because they had arrived so unsuspectingly I own myself to have felt
guilty enough when, in that comfortable half-hour after a new and
delectable dessert had been pronounced upon, I suggested with what
casualness I might summon that we five pay a visit that night to Mrs.
Oliver Wheeler Johnson.
"Land!" said Mis' Holcomb, "I've thought I would an' then I've thought I
wouldn't till I feel all two-faced about myself. I donno. Sometimes I
think one way an' sometimes I think the other. Are you ever like that?"
"I s'pose," said Mis' Postmaster Sykes, majestically, "that them in our
position ought to overlook. I donno's 'twould hurt us any to go," she
added graciously.
Calliope's eyes twinkled.
"That's it," she said; "let them that's got the social position to
overlook things be Christian an' overlook 'em."
That great Mis' Amanda Toplady folded her hands, dimpled like a baby
giant's.
"I'd be glad to go," she said simply; "I've got some grape jell that
looks to me like it wasn't goin' to keep long, an' I'd be thankful to be
on terms with her so's I could carry it in to her. They ain't a single
other invalid in Friendship."
Calliope sprang to her feet and crossed her little arms, a hand hugging
either shoulder.
"Well said!" she cried; "do let's go! I'm sick to death of slidin' off
the subject whenever it comes up in my mind."
So, in the fair October dusk, we five went down the Plank Road--where
Summer lingers late. The air was gentle with the soft, impending dark. I
wonder why the colonnade of sweet influences, down which we stepped, did
not win us to themselves. But I remember how, instead, our imminent
visit drew us back to the days of Mrs. Johnson's coming, so that
presently we were going over the incident of the Java entertainment,
and, as Calliope would have put it, "crystallizing and boiling over"
again in the old distaste.
But when we reached the little cottage of the Johnsons, our varied
motives for the visit were abruptly merged in a common anxiety. For
Doctor Heron's buggy stood at the gate and the little one-story cottage
was dark save for a light in what we knew to be a corner bedroom. The
hallway was open to the night, but though we could distinctly hear the
bell jingle in the kitchen no one answered the summons. Then, there
being somewhere about a murmur of voices, Calliope stepped within and
called softly:--
"Doctor, Doctor Heron--you there? Is they anything we can do?"
The doctor came momentarily to the lighted doorway down the hall.
"That you, Calliope?" he said. "You might come here, will you? Tell the
rest to sit down somewheres. And you tell Mr. Johnson he can come."
On which, from out the dark living room, some one emerged very swiftly
and without a word pushed by us all where we were crowded in the passage
and strode down to the little lighted chamber. Calliope hurried after
him, and we four shrank back in sudden dread and slipped silently into
the room which the young husband had left, and stood together in the
dimness. Was she so sick? In that room he must have heard the door-bell
as we had heard it, and yet he had not answered. Was it possible that we
had come too late?
While we waited we said nothing at all, save that great Mis' Amanda
Toplady, who said three times or four, "Oh, dear, oh, dear, I'm always
waitin' till somethin's too late--either me or the other thing." It
seemed very long before we heard some stir, but it can have been only a
few minutes until the doctor came down the little hall and groped into
the room. In answer to all that we asked he merely occupied himself in
lighting a match and setting it deliberately to the candles on the table
and adjusting their shades. They were, we noted afterward, the same
candles whose presence we had detected and derided at those long ago
tête-à-tête suppers in that house. The light glowed on the young
doctor's pale face as he looked at us, each in turn, before he spoke.
And when he had done with his slow scrutiny--I think that we cannot
wholly have fancied its accusation--he said only:--
"Yes, she's pretty sick. I can't tell yet."
Then he turned and closed the outer door and stood leaning against it,
looking up the hall.
"Miss Marsh!" he called.
But why did the man not tell us something, we wondered; and there
flashed in my mind Calliope's reference to the pipe-organ and the
skipping hills. At all events, Calliope would tell us.
And so she did. We heard her step in the hall, coming quickly and yet
with a manner of exceeding care. I think that with the swift sense which
wings before intelligence, the others understood before they saw her,
even as I understood. Calliope stopped in the doorway as if she could
trust herself to go no farther. And she was holding something in her
arms.
"Calliope," we said; "Calliope...."
She looked down at that which she held, and then she looked at us. And
the tears were in her eyes, but her face was brighter than I have ever
known it.
"It's a baby," she said, "a little bit of a baby. _Her_ baby. An' it
makes me feel--it makes me feel--oh," she broke off, "don't it make you
feel that way, too?"
We looked at one another, and avoided one another's look, and then
looked long at the baby. I do not remember that we said anything at all,
or if we did so, that it bore a meaning. But an instant after Calliope
gave the baby to the nurse who appeared in the doorway, we all tiptoed
down to the kitchen by common consent. And it was plain that Mrs.
Johnson's baby made us feel that way, too.
In our desire to be of tardy service we did the most absurd things. We
took possession of the kitchen, rejoicing that we found the supper
dishes uncared for, and we heated a great kettle of water, and washed
and wiped and put away, as softly as we could; and then we "brushed up
around." I think that only the need of silence kept us from cleaning
windows. When the nurse appeared--who had arrived that day unknown of
Friendship--we sprang as one to do her bidding. We sent the little maid
to bed, we tidied the living room, walking tiptoe, and then we went back
through the kitchen and sat down on the little side "stoop." And all
this time we had addressed one another only about the tasks which we had
in hand.
After a little silence,
"The milkman was quite late this morning," observed Mis' Holcomb.
"Well, he's begun to deliver in cans instead o' bottles," Mis' Sykes
explained; "it takes him some longer to get around. He says bottles
makes his wife just that much more to do."
Then we fell silent again.
It was Calliope, sitting on the porch step outside, where it was dark,
who at last had the courage to be articulate.
"I hope--I _hope_," she said, "she's goin' to be all right."
Mis' Sykes shaded her eyes from the bracket lamp within.
"I'll go bail," she said, "that little you-do-as-I-say chin'll carry her
through. I'm glad she's got it."
Just then we heard the thin crying of the child and we could divine
Calliope, that on the step where she sat she was hugging her arms and
rocking somewhat, to and fro.
"Like enough," she said, "oh, like enough--folks ain't so cramped about
runnin' their own feelin's as they think they are!"
To this we murmured something indefinite in sound but positive enough in
sense. And we all knew what we all knew.
"Let's go out around the house to the front gate," said that great Mis'
Amanda Toplady, abruptly. "Have any of you ladies got two
handkerchiefs?"
"I've got two," said Mis' Postmaster Sykes, "an' I ain't used either
one. Do you want the one with essence or the one without?"
"I ain't partial," said Mis' Amanda.
We rose and stumbled along the grassy path that led round the house. At
the gate we met Doctor Heron.
"Well," he said slowly, "well." And after a moment, "Will--will any of
you be here in the morning?" he asked.
"Yes," we all said simply.
"That's good," he commented shortly, "I didn't know."
We five had to separate at the first corner to go our home ways, and we
stood for a moment under the gas-light. I remember how, just then,
Peter's father came singing past us, like one of the Friendship family
who did not understand his kinship. Even as we five had not understood
ours.
"You haven't got a shawl, hev you?" Mis' Sykes said to me solicitously.
"The nights have been some chilly on a person's shoulders for a day or
two now," said Mis' Holcomb.
Calliope put her hand up quickly to her throat.
"Quit," she said. "All of you. Thank God. An' shake hands. I tell you,
after this I bet I'll run my own feelin's about folks or I'll bring down
the sky an' make new feelin's! Oh," said Calliope, "don't her--an'
_now_--an' the baby--an'--oh, an' that bright star winkin' over that
hitchin' post, make things seem--easy? Good night. I can't stand out
here any longer."
But when we had gone away a few steps, Calliope called us back. And as
we turned again,
"To bring down the sky," she repeated, "I bet that's the way God meant
us to do. They ain't any of us got enough _to_ us to piece out without
it!"
X
EVENING DRESS
I have said that Daphne Street has been paved within the past year, but
I had not heard of the manner in which the miracle had been wrought
until the day when Calliope's brief stay in the village ended and she
came to tell me good-by--and, more than incidentally, to show me some
samples of a dress which she might have, and a dress which she wouldn't
have, and a dress which she had made up her mind to have.
"We don't dress much here in Friendship Village," she observed. "Not but
what we'd like to, but we ain't the time nor the means nor the places to
wear to. But they was one night--"
She looked at me, as always when she means to tell a story, somewhat
with the manner of asking a permission.
"None of the low-neck' fashion-plates used to seem real to us," she
said. "We used to look at 'em pinned up in Lyddy Ember's dressmakin'
windows, ah-ahing in their low pink an' long blue, an' we'd look 'em
over an' think tolerant enough, like about sea-serpents. But neither the
one nor the other bit hold rill vital, because the plates was so young
an' smilin' an' party-seemin', an' we was old an' busy, like you get,
an' considered past the dressin' age. Still, it made kind of a nice
thing to do on the way home from the grocery hot forenoons--draw up
there on the shady side, where the street kitters some into a curve, an'
look at Lyddy's plates, an' choose, like you was goin' to get one.
"Land knows we needed some oasises on that street from the grocery up
home. Daphne Street, our main street, didn't always use' to be what it
is now--neat little wooden blocks an' a stone curb. You know how it use'
to be--no curb an' the road a sight, over your shoe-tops with mud in the
wet, an' over your shoe-tops with sand when it come dry. We ladies used
to talk a good deal about it, but the men knew it meant money to hev it
fixed, an' so they told us hevin' it fixed meant cuttin' the trees down,
an' that kept us quiet--all but the Friendship Married Ladies Cemetery
Improvement Sodality.
"Mis' Postmaster Sykes was president o' the Sodality last year, you
know,--she's most always president of everything,--an' we'd been
workin' quite hard all that winter, an' had got things in the cemetery
rill ship-shape--at least I mean things _on_ the cemetery was. An' at
one o' the July meetin's last summer Mis' Sykes up an' proposed that we
give over workin' for the dead an' turn to the livin', an' pave the main
street of Friendship Village.
"'True,' she says, 'our constitution states that the purpose of our
Sodality shall be to keep up the graves of our townspeople an' make 'em
attractive to others. But,' says she, 'when they ain't enough of us dead
to occupy all the time, the only Christian way to remedy that is to work
for folks before they die, while we're waitin' for their graves.'
"This seemed reasonable, an' we voted unanimous to pave Daphne Street.
An' on the way home Mis' Sykes an' Mis' Timothy Toplady an' I see
Timothy Toplady settin' in the post-office store, an' we went in to tell
him an' Silas Sykes about it. But before we could start in, Silas says,
eyebrows all eager, 'Ain't you heard?'
"'Heard what?' says his wife, kind o' cross, bein' he was her wedded
husband an' she _hadn't_ heard.
"''Bout Threat Hubbelthwait,' says Silas, lookin' at Mis' Toplady an'
me, bein's Mis' Sykes was his wife. 'Drunk again,' says Silas, 'an'
fiddlin' for dear life, an' won't let anybody into the hotel. Mis'
Hubbelthwait has gone over to her mother's, an' the hired girl with
her; an' Threat's settin' in the bar an' playin' all the hymn tunes he
knows.'
"It wasn't the first time it had happened, you know. Threat an' his wife
an' the hired girl keep the only hotel in Friendship Village--when
Threat is sober. When he isn't, he sometimes closes up the house an'
turns out whoever happens to be there, an' won't let a soul in--though,
of course, not much of anybody ever comes to Friendship anyway, excep'
now an' then an automobile on its way somewheres. An' there Threat will
set in the bar, sometimes most of one week, sometimes most of two, an'
scrape away on the only tunes he knows--all hymns, 'Just As I Am,' an'
'Can A Little Child Like Me?' Threat don't mean to be sacrilegious; he
shows that by never singin' them two hymns in church, when they're give
out.
"'Land!' says Mis' Sykes, when Silas got through, 'what men are!'
"'We ain't so much as woman, lemme tell you,' says Silas, right crisp.
Which wasn't what he meant, an' we all laughed at him, so he was a
little mad to start with.
"'The Sodality's decided to pave Daphne Street,' Mis' Sykes mentions
then, simple.
"'Pave _what_?' shouts Silas--Silas always seems to think the more you
do in sound the more you'll do in sense.
"'Do _what_ to Daphne Street?' says Timothy, whirlin' from the peanut
roaster.
"'Pave Daphne Street,' says Mis' Sykes an' Mis' Toplady an' me,
wonderin'.
"Silas wrapped his arms around his own shoulders.
"'When,' says he, lettin' his head lurch with his own emphasizin', 'did
the Common Council hear about this?'
"'They ain't heard, about it,' says Mis' Sykes, 'no more'n we ever hear
anything about them.'
"Silas an' Timothy is both aldermen, an' rill sensitive over it. I guess
the Common Council always _is_ a delicate subject, ain't it?
"Mebbe it wasn't a rill diplomatic way to begin, but it hadn't entered
the Sodality's head that the town wouldn't be glad to hev the pavin'
done if the Sodality was willin' to do it. Ain't it a hard thing to
learn that it ain't all willingness, nor yet all bein' capable, that
gets things done in the world? It's part just edgin' round an' edgin'
round.
"What did the Common Council do that night but call a special meetin'
an' vote not to order any city pavin' done that present year. Every
member was there but Threat Hubbelthwait, who was fiddlin', an' every
vote was switched by Silas an' Timothy to be unanimous, excep' Eppleby
Holcomb's vote. Eppleby, we heard afterwards, said that when a pack o'
women made up their minds to pave, they'd pave if it was to pave--some
place that Eppleby hadn't ought to 'a' mentioned; an' he was goin' to be
on the pavin' side. But then, Eppleby is the gentlest husband in
Friendship Village, an' known to be.
"Sodality met special next day, not so much to do anything as to let it
be known that we'd took action. This we done by votin' to lay low till
such time as we could order the wooden blocks. We preferred to pave
peaceable, it bein' hot weather.
"Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Sykes an' Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss an'
Mis' Mayor Uppers an' I walked home together from that meetin'. It was a
blisterin' July afternoon--one of them afternoons that melts itself out
flat, same as a dropped pepp'mint on a brick walk, an' you're left
stickin' in it helpless as a fly, an' generally buzzin'. I rec'lect we
was buzzin'--comin' down Daphne Street in that chokin' dust an' no
pavement.
"'It's a dog's life, livin' in a little town--in some respects,' I
remember Mis' Sykes says.
"'Well,' says Mis' Toplady, tolerant, 'I know. I know it is. But I'd
rather live in a little town an' dog it out than go up to the city an'
turn wolf, same as some.'
"An' yet we all felt the same, every one of us. They ain't a woman
livin' in a little place that don't feel the same, now and again. It's
quiet an' it's easy housework, an' you get to know folks well. But oh,
none of it what you might say _glitters_. An' they ain't no woman
whatever--no matter how good a wife an' mother an' Christian an' even
housekeeper she is--that don't, 'way down deep in her heart, feel that
hankerin' after some sort o' _glitter_.
"So it was natural enough that we should draw up at Lyddy's dressmakin'
window an' rest ourself. An' that afternoon we'd have done so, anyway,
for she hed been pinnin' up her new summer plates--Lyddy don't believe
in rushin' the season. An' no sooner had we got a good look at 'em--big
coloured sheets they was, with full-length pictures--than Mis' Toplady
leaned 'way forward, her hands on her knees, an' stood lookin' at 'em
the way you look at the parade.
"'Well, look-a-there,' she says. 'Look at that one.'
"The one she meant was a woman with her hair all plaited an' fringed an'
cut bias, an' with a little white hat o' lilacs 'bout as big as a cork;
an' her dress--my land! Her dress was long an' rill light blue, an'
seemed like it must have been paper, it was so fancy. It didn't seem
like cloth goods at all, same as we hed on. It was more like we was
wearin' meat an' vegetable dresses, an' this dress was dessert--all
whipped cream an' pink sugar an' a flower on the plate.
"'Dear land!' says Mis' Toplady, lookin' 'round at us strange, 'do they
do it when they get gray hair? I didn't know they done it when their
hair was gray.'
"We all looked, an' sure enough, the woman's hair was white. 'Afternoon
Toilette for Elderly Woman,' it said underneath, plain as plain. Always
before the plates hed all been young an' smilin' an' party-seemin', an'
we'd thought of all that as past an' done for, with us, along with all
the other things that didn't come true. But here was a woman grayer than
any of us, an' yet lookin' as live as if she'd been wearin' a housework
dress.
"'Why,' says Mis' Sykes, starin', 'that must be a new thing this season.
I never heard of a woman well along in years wearin' anything but brown
or navy blue or gray,--besides black.' Mis' Sykes is terribly dressy,
but even she never yet got anywheres inside the rainbow, except in a bow
at the chin.
"'My,' says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, wistful, 'wouldn't it seem
like heaven to be able to wear colours without bein' talked about?'
"An' Mis' Mayor Uppers--her that her husband grew well off bein' mayor,
an' never'd been back to Friendship Village since he was put out of
office, she says low:--
"'You ladies that has husbands to keep thinkin' well of you, I should
think you'd think about this thing. Men,' she says, 'loves the light
shades.'
"At that Mis' Toplady turned around on us, an' we see her eyes
expressin' i-dees.
"'Ladies,' says she, impressive, 'Mis' Uppers is right. We hadn't ought
to talk back or show mad. We ladies of the Sodality had ought to be able
to get our own way peaceable, just by takin' it, the way the Lord give
women the weapons to do.'
"We see that somethin' was seethin' in her mind, but we couldn't work
our way to what it was.
"'Ladies,' says she, an' stepped up on the wooden step to Lyddy's
dressmakin' shop, 'has the husbands of any one of us seen us, for twenty
years, dressed in the light shades?'
"I didn't hev any husband to answer for, but I could truthfully say of
the rest that you'd think black an' brown an' gray an' navy had
exhausted the Lord's ingenuity, for all the attention they'd paid to any
other colour He'd wove with.
"'Let's the Sodality get up an evenin' party, an' hev it in post-office
hall, an' invite our husbands an' buy new dresses--light shades an' some
lace,' says Mis' Toplady, lettin' the i-dee drag her along, main
strength.
"Mis' Sykes was studyin' the fashion-plate hungry, but she stopped an'
stepped up side o' Mis' Toplady.
"'Well, sir,' she said, 'I donno but 'twould help us to work the pavin'
of Daphne Street. Why, Silas Sykes, for one, is right down soft-hearted
about clothes. He always notices which one of their waists the choir's
got on. I heard him say once he wasn't goin' to church again till they
bought somethin' new.'
"Mis' Holcomb nodded. 'Five years ago,' she said, 'I went up to the city
with Eppleby. An' I saw him _turn around_ to look after a woman. I'll
never forget the sensation it give me--like I was married to a man that
wasn't my husband. The woman had on a light pink dress. I know I come
home an' bought a pink collar; I didn't think I could go any farther,
because she was quite young. Do you s'pose....'
"Mis' Toplady pointed at Lyddy's fashion-plate. 'I should go,' she says,
'just as far as my money would let me go.'
"Mis' Uppers stood lookin' down to the walk. 'The mayor,' she says--she
calls him 'the mayor' yet--'was terrible fond o' coloured neckties. He
was rill partial to green ones. Mebbe I didn't think enough about what
that meant....'
"Mis' Toplady came down off the step. 'Every man is alike,' says she,
decided. 'Most of us Friendship ladies thinks if we give 'em a clean
roller towel we've done enough towards makin' things pretty; an' I
think it's time, as wives, we took advantage of the styles.'
"'An',' says Mis' Sykes, the president, rill dreamy for her, but firm,
'I think so, too.'
"I tell you, we all walked home feelin' like we'd hed a present--me too,
though I knew very well I couldn't hev a light dress, an' I didn't hev
any husband. You start out thinkin' them are the two principal things,
but you get a-hold o' some others, if you pay attention. Still, I judged
the ladies was on the right track, for men is men, say what who will.
All but Threat Hubbelthwait. We passed the hotel an' heard him settin'
in there by the bar scrapin' away on 'Can A Little Child Like Me?' We
took shame to him, an' yet I know we all looked at each other sort of
motherly, like he _was_ some little shaver, same as he sung, an'
performin' most fool.