THAT DISPASSIONATE OBSERVER, MRS. RAY
THERE never was the human tragedy, comedy, or melodrama, yet, which did
not have one or more dispassionate observers. This is strictly true
because, even if a man goes off into the wilderness to fight his fight
out utterly alone, there are moments when one part of his own spirit
will dissever itself from all the rest and, standing forth, tell him of
his progress or retrogression with a pitiless, unbiassed truth. The
wilderness is advisable for that very reason, but no one makes a greater
mistake than when he or she goes to a small far-away village and
pleasantly terms it "the wilderness," supposing soul-solitude an
integral part thereof. It is very right, proper, and conventional to
view life from one's own standpoint, but the real facts of the case are
old and trite enough to warrant me in repeating the statement that all
doings in this world have their dispassionate observer.
Mrs. Ray was the natural observer for the town of Ledge. The town was
not quite aware that added to her keen powers of observation she was
also the Voice of the community. People never expressed themselves
fully, without first knowing what she said. Public opinion simmered all
over the township, so to speak, and then finally boiled over in Mrs.
Ray.
It will be quite impossible to impress upon the ordinary reader the
importance of such Public Opinion, unless a few paragraphs are devoted
to the town of Ledge and its history. If one fails to properly
appreciate the town of Ledge, the tale might just as well have been
located in North Ledge, South Ledge, Ledgeville, Ledge Centre, or any of
the other Ledges.
Therefore on behalf of the lovely little hamlet of Ledge itself, I will
state in as few words as possible that it lies upon a hill overlooking
one of the most beautiful and picturesque scenes in all Northeastern
America; that it took its name and being from a great and noble-hearted
man, who, passing that way by chance, half a century since, paused near
its site to sadly contemplate the denuded banks of the little river
winding its way amidst the débris and desolation left by the lumber
barons of the period. Time was when the same banks had been smiling
terraces covered thick with primeval pines, but "civilization" had
demanded their downfall and they fell. Fell without warning, and also
without discretion. Fell forever, flinging the riches of all the future
aside for the plenty of one man's day. Blackened stumps, great beds of
unsightly chips, waste which would never have been called waste in any
other land, ruthless destruction,--all this disfigured the landscape
that stretched before that visitor of fifty years ago. His heart was
heavy, for he was one who loved everything good, and trees and beauty
are two of man's best gifts from above; but while he gazed over what to
him and many others was almost as much desecration as desolation, he
saw, forever flowing--however choked--the little river below. Like the
thread of idealism which illuminates the most despairing situation, so
flowed the silvery stream down through the scene before him. Its bed was
clogged with drift, its banks covered with rotting rubbish, yet the
promise of its beauty remained; and then and there the traveller
formulated a plan for its redemption to the end that unborn generations
might revel in the realization of that of which he alone seemed then
conscious.
The town of Ledge was a part of what resulted. There had to be a town,
and Ledge came into existence. Where there is work to be done, come the
workers, and with them come towns. Ledge came and grew. To the call of
prosperity many other Ledges gathered a little later; but they never
enjoyed the dignity of the one and original. The first Ledge was
tenacious of its priority. It held to its privileges as rigidly as any
medieval knight held to his. Castled upon the hill above, it simulated
power in more ways than one. For many years all the others had to go to
Ledge for their mail. Ledge also owned the sheriff, the blacksmith, and
the lawyer, and kept a monopoly on the summer excursionist; the express
office was its natural perquisite; a bend of the canal took it in, and
when the canal went the railroad came to console the losers. Mr. Ledge's
plans, which had turned his private estate into a public park for the
gently disposed, also held Ledge in high honor. To visit Ledge Park from
any of the other Ledges was rendered well-nigh impossible. The little
town stood like a sentinel at the end of the Long Bridge, and at the top
of the First Fall. Every picnicker had to go through it, had to check
such articles as could not conveniently be carried all day, in its
hotel; had to get whatever he might feel disposed to drink in the same
place. During the summer, visitors were so plenteous that it became the
fashion in Ledge to despise them, and that right heartily, too. The
people who brought the town most of its means of livelihood received
much that species of sentiment with which an irritating husband and
father is frequently viewed. It was the fashion in Ledge to despise city
people and their ways in all things; even their coming to see the Falls
was referred to as special proof of their singularly feeble minds, while
the way in which the visitors climbed and walked was the favorite topic
of mirthful criticism, all summer long. Criticism is a strange habit. It
is contagious, thrives in any soil or no soil at all, and is far more
destructive to him or her who gives it birth than it can possibly be to
any other person. Not that it really is destructive, but that the weight
of criticism rarely falls where it is supposed to be most needed.
The summer visitors evoked so much comment between May and November that
a great longing to have something to talk about between November and May
followed. It therefore became the fashion in Ledge to talk of everything
and everybody, and as the summer visitors were rated low, the rest of
the world was pretty freely given over to the same cataloguing. It was
usual to rate Ledgeville and all the other Ledges particularly low, and
this opinion held firm, until a biting edge was given it by a second
railroad which came down the valley's bottom to the unspeakable wrath of
the hills on either side and of Ledge in special. It took several years
to assimilate the second railroad, and resume the even tenor of life.
But the adjustment was finally made, and at the date of this story Ledge
was a wee country idyll set like a pearl amidst the beautiful
environment of that fairest of country counties. He who was responsible
for town and environment lived on his own estate near by, and came in
for his share of consideration from the tongues of his namesake. The
great philanthropist was busily engaged in his battle to preserve
intact, for the good of the many to come, that matchless picture with
its open Bible of Nature's Own History. Of the picture and its practical
value, Ledge had its own opinion. It had its own opinion of the dam,
too. It had its own opinion of Alva. And of Lassie. And of Ingram. And
all these opinions flowed freely forth through the medium of Mrs. Ray.
As that lady herself put it: "Whether I'm picking chickens or digging
fence-posts, or carting the United States mail down to the train in the
wheelbarrow that I had to buy and the United States Government won't pay
for,--I never am idle; I'm always taking in something."
And it was quite true. Whatever Mrs. Ray was working at, her brain was
never idle; it was always absorbing something. It was not uncommon to
see a neighbor walking with her while she ploughed, conversation going
briskly on meanwhile. She swept the church with company, and she almost
never sat alone between mail times. It was a full, busy life, and an
interesting one. It was full of importance and responsibility, too. Mrs.
Ray liked to be responsible and was naturally important. Her opinions
were in the main correct, but sometimes she did draw wrong conclusions.
For instance, when she looked down the road the morning after Lassie's
arrival, and saw the two friends departing over the Long Bridge.
"Oh, dear," she said to whoever was near by at the minute, "I smell
trouble for that oldest one if she's planning to keep that pretty girl
here long. That man is going to fall in love with that pretty girl. He
never has cared much for her, anyway. He don't even seem to like to go
over to their house with her; she goes alone mostly. Yes, indeed."
The somebody sitting near by at the minute was Mrs. Dunstall. And
Pinkie, of course. They had dropped in to see if they had any mail, and
had found Mrs. Ray cutting the hair of the three youngest children left
her, first by her predecessor and then by Mr. Ray himself.
"Sit down," she had said cordially; "the second train isn't in yet, and
it's got to come in and go out and let the mail-train come in, even if
the mail ain't late, on account of the wreck."
"Oh, is there a wreck?" Mrs. Dunstall asked anxiously.
"Yes. Forty-four run into a open switch up at Cornell. If the switch is
open, I never see why the train don't just run on out the other end and
keep right along; but all the accidents is as often open switches as
anything, so I guess there's a reason. At any rate, the wrecking-train's
gone up and the second mail's going to be late. Tip your head a little,
Billy. Yes, indeed."
"I wonder if we'd better wait," said Mrs. Dunstall, unwrapping her shawl
somewhat and taking a chair. "What do you say, Pinkie?"
Pinkie was already seated. She weighed two hundred pounds and never
stood up when she could help it. "I say 'Wait,'" said Pinkie.
Mrs. Dunstall thereupon sat down, too, and after ten minutes of a most
solemn silence Mrs. Ray finished her task and dismissed the children.
She faced her callers, then, folding her little gray shoulder-wrap
tightly across her bosom as she did so, and tucking the ends in close
beneath her armpits. The little gray shawl was one of the first signs of
winter in Ledge; Mrs. Ray always donned it at the beginning of October,
and never took it off before the last day of May.
"Well!" she said now; "anything new come up?"
"Millicent come on the same train with that girl," Mrs. Dunstall began
at once. "I wasn't really expecting any mail this morning, but I thought
I might as well come down about now and tell you how Millicent come on
the train with her. You know who I mean, of course?"
"She knows," said Pinkie.
"I s'posed you would. And so Millicent come on the same train with her.
Seems too curious of Millicent coming on the same train with her, when
Millicent hasn't been on a train but twice in her life before, and then
to think that she would come back with that girl. Things do fall out
queer in this world. She sit right in the seat behind her, too. That was
awful curious, I think."
Mrs. Ray gave the ends of her shawl a fresh tuck, and drew in some extra
breath.
"You never can tell," she began; "things do come about mighty strange in
this world. Yes, indeed. It's the unexpected that has happened so much
that it's got to be a proverb in the end. I always feel when a thing has
been coming about till it gets to be proverb, it's no use me disputing
it. Dig around in smoking ashes long enough, and I've never failed to
find some sparks yet. And what you just said is all true as true can
be. It's the unexpected as always happens. Look at me, for instance.
Look at how the post-office fell out of a clear sky on me, and Mr. Ray
much the same, too. I never had any idea of either of 'em beforehand,
and now here I am stamping letters morning and night to keep up the
payments on his tombstone. Things do work in circles so in this world. I
always say if I hadn't been postmistress no one would have expected to
see my husband have a fringed cloth hang on a pillar over his dead body,
and if I hadn't been postmistress I never could have paid for such a
thing. But where there's a will there's a way, which is another proverb
as I've never found go wrong, unless your way is to stay in bed while
you're willing."
"Oh, but you never could have put anything plain on Mr. Ray--not in your
circumstances, and him passing the plate every Sunday and you the sexton
yourself." Mrs. Dunstall looked almost shocked at the mere fancy.
"Couldn't I! Well, I guess I could if I'd had my own way. But I wasn't
allowed my own way. Nobody is. That's what holds us back in this world;
it's the being expected to live up to what we've got; and in this
country, where the garden is open to the public, most of us has to live
up to a good deal more'n we've got. If America ever takes to walls,
it'll show it's going to begin to economize. It'll mean we're giving up
tulips and going in for potatoes. And you'll see, Mrs. Dunstall, that
just as soon as we really have to economize we'll begin to build walls.
There's something about economy as likes walls around the house--high
ones."
"You was raised with walls, wasn't you?" said Mrs. Dunstall.
"I should think I was. I'm English-born--I am."
"How old was you when you come to this country, Mrs. Ray?"
"I've lived here thirty-eight years; that's how old I was."
"You wasn't here before Mr. Ledge?"
"No, I wasn't, nor before the Falls, neither."
"Why, the Falls was here before Mr. Ledge," said Mrs. Dunstall,
enlarging her eyes. "Oh, I see, you're making a joke, Mrs. Ray."
"I do occasionally make a joke," said Mrs. Ray, giving her shawl another
tuck.
"Well, to go back to the girl," said Mrs. Dunstall, "she sit right
behind Millicent too, and what makes it all the stranger, is, she asked
Millicent the name of the next station. Millicent told her it was going
to be Ledge, and asked her if she was for Ledge, because if she was for
East Ledge she ought to stay on one station more. You know, Mrs. Ray,
how folks are always getting off here for East Ledge, and having to stay
all night or hire a buggy to drive over--two shillings either way; and
Millicent asked her, too, if she was for Ledge's Crossing, because if
she was for the Crossing the train don't stop there, and Millicent
always was kind-hearted and wanted her to know it right off. You know
how Millicent is, Pinkie; the last time she rode on a train she threw
the two bags off to the old lady who forgot them, and they weren't the
old lady's bags; they were the conductor's, and he had to run the train
way back for them; he did feel so vexed about them, Millicent said."
"So vexed," said Pinkie.
"And so then Millicent asked her if maybe she was for Ledgeville,
because if she was for Ledgeville she was on the wrong train, and had
ought to have took the Pennsylvania, unless she telegraphed from Ledge
Centre for the omnibus to come up, which nobody ever knows to do; and
then it come into Millicent's head as maybe she was going to visit Mr.
Ledge, in which case goodness knows what she would do, for although he
gets his mail at Ledge, he gets his company at Castile, and here was
that poor child five miles of bridge and walk out of her way, and
Millicent's heart just bleeding for her, she looked so tired. But she
said she was for Ledge."
"Yes, I could have told you she was for Ledge," said Mrs. Ray; "there
was two letters for her here. When I have letters for people without
having the people for the letters, it always means one or two
things,--either the people are coming or the letters are addressed
wrong. I learned that long ago. Yes, indeed."
"Millicent says she liked her looks from the first," pursued Mrs.
Dunstall, "only her hat did amuse her. I must say the hats folks from
town wear is about the most amusing things we ever see here. One year
they pin 'em to their fronts and next year to their backs, and Millicent
says this one was on hindside before with a feather duster upside down
on top. She never saw anything like it; but she said the girl was so
innocent of what a sight she was that she wouldn't have let her see her
laughing behind her back for anything. What do you think of city people
anyhow, Mrs. Ray?"
"City people are always mooney," responded Mrs. Ray; "such mooney ideas
as come into their heads in the country always. Seems like they save
all their mooney ideas for the country. Yes, indeed. They take off their
hats and their shoes and carry stones around in their handkerchiefs; and
when I see 'em slipping and scrambling up and down that steep bank all
the hot summer long, and taking that walk to the Lower Falls that's
enough to kill any Christian with brains, I most humbly thank our
merciful Father in heaven that I've stayed in the country and kept my
good senses. Yes, indeed. And then what they lug back to town with them!
That's what uses me all up! Roots and stones! Why, I saw some one bring
a root from the Lower Falls last year, yes, indeed."
"That walk to the Lower Falls is terrible," said Mrs. Dunstall,
meditatively. "I took it once,--and you, too,--didn't you, Pinkie?"
"Twice," said Pinkie.
"I took it once, too," said Mrs. Ray, who was never loath to discuss
that famous promenade. "Mr. Ray and me took it together. It was when we
first met. He took me, and we walked to the Lower Falls. It was a awful
walk; I never see a worse one, myself. They say it isn't so bad now. Of
course, the time I went with Mr. Ray was while he was still alive. It
was harder then. He asked me to marry him coming back. Oh, I'll never
forget that awful walk!"
"It's bad enough yet," said Mrs. Dunstall. "Mr. Ledge has done all he
could to build things to catch hold of where you'd go head over heels to
heaven if he hadn't, but it's a awful walk still. And then the steps!
Why, Nathan and Lizzie was there last summer, and Lizzie says all the
way down she was thinking how she was ever going to be able to get back,
and all the way back she was thinking just the same thing. Going, you
go down steps till it seems like there never would come the bottom, and
coming back you come up steps till you're ready to move to Ledgeville
and live on the bottoms for life. You know how that is, Pinkie?"
"Yes," said Pinkie.
"It wouldn't do any good to move to Ledgeville to get rid of the Lower
Falls," said Mrs. Ray, "because the dam is going to do away with the
Lower Falls and drown Ledgeville entirely. That's the next little
surprise the city folks will be giving us."
"I shall like to stand on the bridge the day they let the water in over
the dam the first time," said Mrs. Dunstall. "It'll be a great sight to
see the valley turn into a lake, and South Ledge and Ledgeville go
under."
"I wouldn't look forward to it too much if I was you," said Mrs. Ray;
"it's going to take three or four years to dig that dam, they tell me.
You can't lay out a lake and break up three sets of falls in a minute."
"They haven't got to do something to all the Falls," said Mrs. Dunstall.
"Josiah Bates was holding stakes for one of the surveyors yesterday, and
he heard him say as the Lower Falls wouldn't need a thing, for it was a
mill-race already."
"Well, it's a blessing if there's one thing ready to their hands," said
Mrs. Ray, "for I must say the way the State has took hold of us, since
Mr. Ledge set out to give it something for nothing, is a caution. If
he'd offered to sell the Falls at cost price, we'd of had a petition and
our taxes increased and been marked 'keep off the grass,' in all
directions; but just because he offered to give it to 'em all cleared up
and in order, they must tear around and build a dam and drown five
villages and go cutting up monkey-shines generally. Yes, indeed."
"They do say that the dam will keep the Falls, instead of spoiling
them," said Mrs. Dunstall; "they say the Falls is stratifying backward,
and is most through being falls, anyway, and if the dam is built, we'll
all have that to look at always."
"It'll be all one to me," said Mrs. Ray; "I never get time to look at
nothing, anyway, unless it's folks waiting for their mail, and goodness
knows they've long ceased to interest me."
Mrs. Dunstall looked a bit uncertain as to how to receive this outburst
of confidence. "It does you good to take a little rest," she said at
last; "you work too hard for a woman of your time of life, Mrs. Ray."
"Well, I'd like to know how I can help it, with my farm and my chickens
and my grocery business, not to speak of the boarders and the children
and the post-office. When one's a mother and a farmer and a sexton and
an employee under bond to the United States Government one has to keep
on the jump."
Mrs. Dunstall rearranged the set of her lips slightly. "The mail's very
late, ain't it?" she asked.
"Late! I should think it was late. I guess that open switch has settled
Forty-four for to-day. But that train's always late. It isn't in the
block yet, and the mail-train follows it."
"If it don't come soon, I can't wait," said Mrs. Dunstall; "this is one
of my awful days, and speaking of awful days, what do you think of the
doings over at the old Whittaker house, Mrs. Ray?"
"I've heard she's wrecking it completely."
"Josiah Bates' been doing some carting there. He says it's enough to
make old Grandma Whittaker shiver in her grave. He says they've turned
the house just about inside out. That girl must be crazy."
"She is crazy," said Mrs. Ray with decision; "she's in love."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Dunstall, "with him, you mean?"
"Of course. But she's crazy two ways, I think, to go bringing that
pretty girl here, and she so thin and white herself. You can't tell me
that that man doesn't know a pretty girl when he sees her, even if he
ain't seen her yet--which he hasn't, for he didn't see 'em this morning.
I know that, for I was watching."
"That's the train now, isn't it?" said Mrs. Dunstall, listening.
Mrs. Ray pricked up her ears. "Yes, that's the train, rushing along and
sprinkling soot over everything. Picking hops used to be such nice clean
work, but now they're all over soot."
"The canal was better, I think," said Mrs. Dunstall.
Mrs. Ray made no answer; she was absorbed in looking out of the window.
"It was cleaner, anyhow," Mrs. Dunstall continued; "but they do say the
men swore most awful locking boats through in the night. I never lived
on the canal, myself, but you did, Pinkie; did they swear much or not?"
"They swore," said Pinkie.
"Well," said Mrs. Ray, now facing about and making certain active
preparations for the reception of the mail, "it must be nice to spend
your days ways that lets you lay awake nights listening to anything
swear. I've never had time nor money to lay awake nights. I leave that
for those who can, but I can't. Walking to the Lower Falls and laying
awake nights is pleasant, I've no doubt, but I need my days other ways.
Summer folks is always coming in here and saying, 'Oh, have you seen the
gorge this morning, Mrs. Ray,' and me like enough out ploughing in the
opposite direction since sun up. I haven't got any time to lay awake or
to look at views. If the weeds grew up all around my fence-posts while I
was hanging over the bridge looking at the gorge, I guess you'd hear of
it, and since I've taken to raising chickens, there's hen-houses to
spray and me busier than ever. If I was a hen, my day's work would be
over when I'd laid my egg and I could run out with a free mind and look
at the gorge, but as it stands now, I ain't got time to look at
nothing,"--in testimony whereof she disappeared into the kitchen.
"I'll tell you who's got time," said Mrs. Dunstall as soon as she
reappeared; "it's those Lathbuns down at Nellie's. How long are they
going to stay around here, do you suppose?"
"I don't know; I don't know anything about them. They don't get any
mail, so I've no way of knowing a thing. My own opinion is that if I was
Nellie I'd keep a sharp eye on my shawls, for folks who come walking
along without baggage, can go walking off without baggage, too. Those
are her shawls they're wearing, you know; they haven't got so much as a
jacket between them of their own."
"Nellie says they're very nice people," said Mrs. Dunstall; "and the
girl has got a love affair. She don't mind their wearing her shawls."
"Why don't he write her, then," said Mrs. Ray; "that's the time even the
poorest letter-writer writes letters. Mr. Ray wrote me the first
Thursday after he was in love. I've got the letter yet."
"What did he write you for, when you was keeping house for him, anyway?"
asked Mrs. Dunstall.
"He was gone to Ledge Centre for the license."
"I never see why you married him," said Mrs. Dunstall; "he paid you for
keeping house for him before that, didn't he?"
"Yes, but he had his mind set on marrying some one, and I thought I'd
better marry him than any one else. And I was fond of the children, and
I didn't know nothing about the mortgages. I always say we was real
fashionable. I didn't know nothing about the mortgages, and he thought I
had some money in the bank. Well, it was an even thing when it all came
out. I guess marriage generally is. Everything else, too."
"I don't see why the mail don't come, if it's in," said Mrs. Dunstall.
Mrs. Ray went to the window and looked out.
"It'll come soon now," she declared, hopefully.
"But I can't wait any longer," said Mrs. Dunstall, rising, "I wasn't
expecting anything, anyway. Come, Pinkie."
They both rose and started to go out together.
But just at the door they met one of the surveyors.
"Oh, that reminds me why I come," said Mrs. Dunstall, stopping; "young
man, do you know Sallie Busby?"
The young surveyor looked startled.
"Chestnuts in a blue and white sunbonnet, mainly?" said Mrs. Dunstall.
"I don't recollect."
"Well, you might not have noticed, or she might not have had it on, but
either way she's been most amused watching your young men pegging those
little flags all through her meadow, but she says that when you got
through last night you forgot seven, and she saw 'em when she went out
to pick the two trees up the cow-path this morning, and run down and got
'em, and has 'em all laid by for you whenever you want to send for 'em."
The young man stood speechless.
Finally he said: "But they were meant to be left there."
"Were--were they?" said Mrs. Dunstall, in great surprise; "well, you
ought to have told her so then. She saw you pull some up, so she thought
you meant to pull them all up. Too bad! Now you'll have to get your
machine and go peeking all over her land again, won't you?"
"We will if she's pulled up the flags, certainly."
"Well, she's pulled up the flags. If Sallie set out to pull them up,
they'd up, you can count on that! How's the dam coming on, anyway?"
The young man laughed. "Why, there's no question of the dam yet. You all
seem to think that we're here to build it. We have to make a report to
the commission first, and the commission will lay the report before the
legislature. That's how it is."
Mrs. Ray folded her arms and joined in suddenly, "So--that's how it is,
is it? Well, I don't wonder it's difficult to run a post-office, when
anything as plain as a dam has to be fussed over like that. By the way,
you're one of the surveyors and you ought to know,--is it true that if
they do build the dam, it may get a little too full and run over into
our valley or burst altogether and drown Rochester? I'm interested to
know."
"That's what we want to know, too," said Ingram's assistant; "that's
what we're surveying for."
"How long will it take you to tell? I've got a friend--maybe you know
him, Sammy Adams?--and he owns most of the valley back here. He's the
worrying kind, and he's worried. Yes, indeed."
"It wouldn't make so much difference about Rochester," said Mrs.
Dunstall; "it's a deal easier to go for our shopping to Buffalo from
here; but wouldn't it be awful for Sammy Adams! Why, his house is right
in the valley."
"Yes," said Mrs. Ray, "and as a general thing Sammy's right in his
house. It's bad enough now, with the freshets scooping sand all over the
farm every other spring, but if the dam goes and scoops Sammy Adams, the
legislature'll have something else to settle besides the Capitol at
Albany. Sammy Adams looks meek, but he'd never take being drowned
quietly; he's got too much spirit for that. Yes, indeed!"
"We're going to do away with the freshets, Mrs. Ray," the young man
said; "the dam--if it comes--will be the biggest blessing that ever came
this way, let me tell you. In the summer you'll have a beautiful lake to
sail on, and no end of excursions."
"Why, I thought they were going to store up the water in spring, and
draw it off in the summer," said Mrs. Dunstall. "A man told my husband
that that was what they wanted the dam for,--to save the high water in
the spring so as to use it in the summer. Wasn't that what Ebenezer
said, Pinkie?"
"Yes, it was," said Pinkie.
"How do you explain that?" asked Mrs. Ray, turning an inquisitorial eye
sternly on the surveyor. "Where's your beautiful lake going to be by
July? Marsh and mosquitoes, that's what we'll have left. Don't tell me;
I've seen too many kind thoughts about making folks happy end that way,
and I've seen one or two reservoirs, too. The dam'll drown Sammy Adams,
that's what it'll do, and Ledge'll be left high and dry with a lot of
dead fish lying all over the fields. I know!"
"Well, we'll see!" said the young man, laughing.
"But I thought you was all for the dam, Mrs. Ray," said Mrs. Dunstall, a
little surprised. "Whatever has changed you so?"
Mrs. Ray shut her mouth tightly and then opened it with a snap. "I've
been thinking," she said abruptly; "and I don't mind changing my opinion
when I must. Any one who wants to hold a position under the United
States Government has got to have brains and use 'em freely in changing
their opinion."
"But you said--" began Mrs. Dunstall.
"What if I did? Like enough I'll say it again. I will, if I feel like
it. Yes, indeed. 'He moves in a mysterious way,' you know, and I'm one
of His ways, and I've got a right to keep my own counsel about my own
work. But--speaking of work--the mail-train was in before you come up. I
wonder what's become of the bag!" She went to the window and looked down
towards the station. "I do have such trouble to get hold of that bag.
That's one of the hardest things about keeping a post-office, is the
getting hold of the bag. They don't have any sort of understanding of
what a United States Government position means, down at our station;
they kick the mail-bag around like it was a crate of hens. Once they
asked me if they couldn't have the key at the station, and open the mail
because there's always more inhabitants in the station than in the
post-office. They seemed to think that was a glory to the station, and a
reflection on me. But I don't want to have men sitting around here. I
won't have it. The only man who has any legal right to sit around me is
in heaven, and just because I'm the postmistress is no reason why I
should take chances. If you don't want men sitting around, you can
easily keep 'em from doing it by having no chairs for them to sit on. I
never have."
"Don't you want me to go down and get the mail?" suggested the young
surveyor, somewhat uneasily.
Mrs. Ray turned a severe eye his way. "Have you go down and get the
mail! Well, young man, I guess you don't know that it's a penitentiary
offence to lay hands on a mail-sack, unauthorized by the United States
Government! Yes, indeed. It is, though, and I've had such hard work
getting it into people's heads that it is, that I wouldn't authorize no
one. _No one!_ Why, when we first was a post-office, I had the most
awful time. Everybody coming this way brought the bag with 'em. It's a
penitentiary offence to touch the bag, and here Sammy Adams forgot he
had it in his buggy one night, and drove home with it. It was when Mrs.
Allen's cousin Eliza was dying, and she was so anxious, and no mail-bag
at all that night. I tell you I took a firm stand after that; I made the
rule and made it for keeps, that no matter if there wasn't but one
postal, and all the men in the station had felt the bag to see that
there wasn't, the bag must come up to me just the same. You'll find,
young man, that if you hold a United States Government position, you'll
be expected to uphold the United States Government, and if you're
building the dam and employ the men around here, you'll find that to
impress them you must keep a bold front. That's why I have my arms
folded most of the time."
The young surveyor listened with reverent attention.
"Whose business is it to bring the bag, anyway?" asked Mrs. Dunstall. "I
can't wait much longer."
"It isn't anybody's business,--that's what's the trouble. The United
States Government don't provide nothing but penalties for touching the
mail-bag. That's another hard thing about holding a government position
when your hands are as full as mine. At first I couldn't get the
mail-bag respected, in fact they used it to keep the door to the station
open windy days; and then, when I got it respected by explaining what we
was liable to if we didn't respect it, I couldn't get no one to touch it
any more. I had to wheel it up and down in the baby-carriage for a
while, and then I looked up the law and found I could delegate my
authority; so since then Mr. Hopkins has delegated for me except when he
goes to Ledge Lake, and when he does that I take it in a wheelbarrow. I
give the baby-carriage to Lucy. She had that baby, you know. Well, of
course a baby needs a carriage, so I give her ours."
"A baby's lots of trouble," said Mrs. Dunstall, thoughtfully.
"Yes, but we're here for trouble," said Mrs. Ray, cheerfully. "I've got
the post-office, Lucy's got the baby, and poor Clay Wright Benton's got
his mother and the parrot. Everybody's got something!"
"Well, I can't wait any longer," said Mrs. Dunstall; "good-bye. Come,
Pinkie."
They went out.
"Who is Pinkie?" the young man asked, when he was alone with Mrs. Ray.
"I d'n know," said Mrs. Ray, "she don't, either. They adopted her when
she weighed six pounds and named her Pinkie, and that's what come of
it."
"I see." Just then the mail-bag was brought in.