white-tasselled locusts, between the sweet-scented green fields and the
blooming gardens, toward the silver poplars. They, themselves, were not
thinking of the conventionalities, nor troubling their handsome heads
about the proprieties. Doris was chatting shyly, expressing Miss Judy's
thoughts in Miss Judy's phrases with most winning quaintness, and at the
same time with an unconscious revelation now and then of her innocent
self. A gleam of sweet humor shone fitfully from her soft, dark eyes as
firelight flickers through the dusk, and in this, at least, gentle Miss
Judy had no part. Doris told, with the dimple coming and going and many
swift, shy, upward glances, of Monsieur Beauchamp's bordering the
lettuce beds with _fleur-de-lis_ because--as he said--they were the
imperial lilies of France; and of the scorn of the Empress Maria, who
pulled them up as soon as his back was turned,--so that his feelings
should not be wounded,--although she was quite determined thus to make
room for the early turnips. And then, gaining confidence from Lynn
Gordon's rapt attention, Doris went on to approach literature. She had
an instinctive feeling that Miss Judy would have advised books as a
theme for polite conversation with a stranger. She had read, so she
said, Goldsmith's poems and some of Moore's; Miss Judy thought Burns's
poetry better suited to a gentleman's than to a lady's taste, so Doris
said. She acknowledged knowing very little about novels, except _The
Children of the Abbey_ and some of Miss Jane Austen's tales. Miss Judy
thought, so Doris went on to say, that prose was less refined than
poetry and more apt to be worldly; so that she considered it best to
wait till one's ideals were well formed and firmly fixed, before reading
very many novels. Miss Judy thought a great deal of ideals; she
considered them, next to principles, the most important things in the
world, Doris said earnestly, looking gravely up in Lynn Gordon's face.
There was one novel, however, that Doris was most eager to read. It was
a very, very new one, and it was called _Vanity Fair_. Perhaps Mr.
Gordon might have heard of it--then quickly--possibly he had even read
it. She colored faintly when he said that he had read it and that he
scarcely thought her quite old enough yet to enjoy it, although it was a
great book.
"So Miss Judy thinks," sighed Doris. "Perhaps she will allow me to read
it when I am older. Anyway, she lets me read all the poetry in her
mother's dear old _Beauty Books_, and it's beautiful. The poems haven't
any names signed to them, but that doesn't matter. They go with the
pictures of the lovely, lovely ladies--all with such small waists and
such long curls, the whole picture in a wreath of little pink roses and
tiny blue forget-me-nots--those dear old _Beauty Books_ that smell so
sweet of dried rose leaves!"
XIV
MAKING PEACE
Sidney was not only out "on-the-pad" that day, but she came home later
than usual. The children and Uncle Watty were hungry and waiting
impatiently for the basket; and there were many urgent household duties
to be done before bedtime. Doris made one or two shy attempts to speak
of her dancing lesson and the incident which had occurred in connection
with it. But speaking to Sidney in the rush of her domestic affairs was
like trying the voice against the roar of a storm. So that Doris was
compelled to put off the telling till the next morning.
On the next morning, however, there was even less chance for a quiet
word than there had been on the night before. Sidney was up betimes, to
be sure, and bustling round, but it was merely in order to be ready for
an important engagement, a most important one, which brooked no delay.
It was barely nine o'clock when she set off up the big road, with her
ball of yarn held tightly under her left arm, and her knitting-needles
flying and flashing in the sunlight. Her sunbonnet was pushed as far
back on her yellow head as it could be, to stay on at all, and such was
her stress of mind that she took it off and hung it on the fence, and
let her hair down and twisted it up again, thrusting the comb back in
place with great emphasis, no less than three times, within the few
minutes during which Doris stood at the gate looking after her.
It was a hard task which lay before Sidney that day. She was the
peacemaker, as well as the funmaker, for the entire community. One fact
was as well known, too, as the other, but there was nothing like an
equal demand for the two offices; for the Oldfield people dwelt
together, as a rule, in such harmony as Sidney found, not only
monotonous, but even a little dull now and then. It is but natural to
wish to exercise a talent, and to be unwilling to hide it, when we know
ourselves to be possessed of it in no common degree. When, therefore,
some foolish joke of Kitty Mills's set the long-smouldering sense of
wrong fiercely blazing in Miss Pettus's breast, Sidney could but feel
that her longed-for opportunity had come at last. She was not in the
least daunted by the knowledge that the quarrel was an old one, newly
broken out afresh like a rekindled fire, and consequently much harder to
mend, or even to control, than if it were new. Nor had her ardor been
lessened in the slightest by finding that everything which she had said
on the previous evening had served but as oil to the flame of Miss
Pettus's burning wrath. Sidney's self-confidence and courage, being of
the first order, only rose with all these obstacles. They merely put her
all the more on her mettle, and she had rested well and confidently
through the night, satisfied to have secured Miss Pettus's promise not
to say or to do anything until the following morning. Ten hours' sleep
must cool even Miss Pettus's temper in a measure, Sidney thought, like
the real philosopher that she was, and she herself would be better
prepared with arguments after time for reflection. Miss Pettus had
flared up like gunpowder, then as always, when least expected, so that
Sidney had hardly known at the moment what to say.
And for all her reliance upon her own strength and tact, she had none
too fully realized the necessity for prompt action. It was lucky,
indeed, that she was early; for, early as she set out, she met Miss
Pettus coming down the big road "hotfoot," as Sidney said afterward,
already on the way to see Kitty Mills. It was not of the slightest use,
Miss Pettus cried,--beginning as soon as she came within speaking
distance of the peacemaker,--not of the least use in the world for
Sidney to begin again arguing about Kitty Mills's never meaning to cheat
anybody. She, Miss Pettus, was sick and tired of having things smoothed
over, and of being told and told that she was mistaken. She was not
mistaken. The facts stood for themselves: Kitty Mills had said when she
swapped the dorminica for the yellow-legged pullet and a bit to boot,
that the dorminica laid big eggs. Let Kitty Mills deny that if she
dared! Then let Sidney, or the whole of Oldfield, come and look at the
little eggs that that dorminica did lay. It was bad enough to be so
cheated in a hen trade, without having it thrown up to you almost every
day of your life, in some silly joke. What did Kitty Mills mean, except
insult, by sending her word that she couldn't expect a fat hen to lay
the same up hill and down dale. And then, as if that were not enough,
what did Kitty Mills do, but send back that same yellow-legged pullet,
and even the very same bit, offering to swap again. All this Miss Pettus
demanded breathlessly in unabated excitement.
"I give you, and anybody else, my solemn word, as a member of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, that that was the tenth time that the
identical yellow-legged pullet and the identical bit have been toted up
this hill and toted down again. Kitty Mills offers to swap back every
time she thinks of it, just to be aggravating. No, you needn't talk to
me, Sidney. Kitty Mills means to show me that she believes it's the
pullet and the bit that I care about, not the principle of the thing."
Plainly it was now become a case for diplomacy, not for further
argument. Sidney, therefore, said simply, like a wise woman, that she
would go at once and try to make Kitty Mills see how foolish she had
been.
"I told Miss Pettus," Sidney said later to Kitty Mills, when giving her
an account of this encounter with Miss Pettus, "that there was no more
satisfaction in quarrelling with you than in fighting a feather bed. But
I couldn't do much with her. Nobody can budge 'er, once her dander is
up. I left her there, planted right in the middle of the big road, with
her skirt dragging behind, and held high before, showing her pigeon-toes
turned in worse than ever, and her bonnet hung wild over her left ear,
as it always is when she's in one of her tantrums. And now I've come
after you, and I want you to stop laughing,--right off the reel,
too,--and listen to what I've got to say. I'll vow I don't know what to
make of you myself, Kitty Mills! What's this I hear about all the
Millses a-swarming down from Green River, and about you're inviting them
to dinner? It certainly does seem as if the more they pile on you the
better you like it."
Mrs. Mills, trying to stop laughing, and wiping her eyes, protested
(laughing harder than ever) that Sidney was talking nonsense. She
declared that nobody was piling anything on her. She said that she was
always delighted to have Sam's sisters come, because Sam liked to have
them, and Father Mills liked it, too.
"Well, they oughtn't to like it; they ought to be ashamed to like it.
It's nothing less than scandalous to allow it, when you've got to cook
the dinner after nursing all night, and the weather's getting real
warm," said Sidney, sharply, jerking out a knitting-needle, and slapping
the ball of yarn back under her arm.
"But you know, Sidney, neither Sam nor Father Mills have much enjoyment.
Sam's had a mighty hard time this winter, with the misery in his back,
coming on whenever he tried to do anything; and all his bad luck too."
"What bad luck?" demanded Sidney, hard-heartedly.
"Why, didn't you know about his corn? Every ear of his share of the
crop, that his tenant raised on that field of mine, rotted right in the
pen, when nobody else lost any. I declare I can't yet see how it was."
"Did Sam cover his pen as everybody else did?" asked Sidney,
relentlessly.
Kitty Mills stared, growing grave for an instant or two, being much
puzzled. She wondered what in the world the question could possibly have
to do with her husband's loss of his corn.
"No. He didn't cover the corn," she replied, much at a loss still. "He
thought the winter was going to be drier than it turned out to be. And
he doesn't often make mistakes in prophesying about the weather. He's a
mighty close, good observer of all the signs. I've known him to sit
still a whole day, without getting out of his chair, watching to see
whether the ground-hog saw its shadow."
"Yes, I lay that's all so. I reckon he would sit still long enough to
find out almost anything," responded Sidney, dryly. "There's not much
use in talking to you, Kitty Mills; you're just as unmanageable in your
way as Miss Pettus is in hers. But I know how to get round her if you'll
help me do it. You know as well as I do how good-hearted she is, in
spite of that peppery temper of hers."
Kitty Mills nodded silently, laughing again so that she could not speak.
"Well, I want you to let me ask her to come down here and take care of
the old man, while you are getting dinner for that gang of Millses--when
they swarm down from Green River. I would offer to do it myself, but I
think I can help you more by talking to the Millses while you are busy
about the cooking."
"Of course you can," assented Kitty Mills, eagerly. "And you mustn't let
me forget to fix up a basket full of the nicest things for Uncle Watty
and the children."
"Never mind about that now. Only I'll tell you that I'm not going to
pack off the cooked victuals. You've got all the work you can do. But
you may give me something raw. We won't bother now about the basket. The
main thing is to settle this everlasting old dorminica! I never was so
tired of anything in all my born days, as I am of that contrary old hen,
and there's only one way to settle her. If you'll let me ask Miss Pettus
to come, she will do it in a moment--just to make you ashamed of
yourself," Sidney said, trying not to smile, knowing that to do so would
be to start Kitty Mills laughing again.
The quarrel having been thus adjusted, Sidney went to tell Miss Judy
about it, knowing how pleased she would be to hear it, even though the
news seemed to describe a mere truce rather than to be a declaration of
peace. The little lady was just crossing the big road, returning from a
visit to Tom Watson and from a futile effort to cheer Anne. She stopped
at her own gate, feeling depressed by what she had just seen and looking
rather sad, and waited for Sidney to come up, welcoming her as one
welcomes a strong, fresh breeze on a heavy day. They sat down in the
passage, where Miss Sophia was already seated, and the two little
sisters listened to all that Sidney had to tell of the quarrel, without
the vaguest notion that they were hearing a truly humorous account of an
utterly absurd affair. Instead, they began listening with the gravest
concern, which turned gradually to the happiest relief.
Miss Judy's thoughts, however, were too full of Doris and the
dancing-lesson and the events of the previous day to talk long about
anything else. She accordingly told Sidney the whole story in minutest
detail, as soon as she could get in a word, wondering somewhat that
Sidney had not already heard it from Doris, until the circumstances were
explained. With the mention of the young man the same thought stirred,
silently and secretly, in both the women's breasts, naturally enough,
since they were both true women. It had, indeed, stirred in Miss Judy's
innocent heart while she lay dreaming with her blue eyes open in the
darkness of the preceding night. But neither Miss Judy nor Sidney spoke
of what they were feeling rather than thinking. Women rarely voice these
subtle stirrings of the purely feminine instinct, if indeed they have
any words for what they thus feel. All that Sidney said was to remark,
in a matter-of-fact tone, that she must be going, as the sun was getting
high, and she had several pressing engagements to keep before she would
be free to fulfil her promise to help Kitty Mills entertain that gang of
Millses, swarming down from Green River.
"If I can get away in time--for I'm engaged to take supper with Mrs.
Alexander, as the doctor has gone 'way out on one of his long trips to
the country--I'll drop in at old lady Gordon's and see what the old
Hessian is about."
Miss Judy shook her little curly head at Sidney's calling any one such a
hard name. She could not let such a serious matter pass without
remonstrance. Yet at the same time she smiled and looked rather
mysterious. She had secretly hit upon a nice little plan while talking
about Doris and the young gentleman, and she could hardly wait till
Sidney was out of hearing before disclosing it to Miss Sophia.
"Of course I couldn't mention it to Sidney until I knew your opinion,
sister Sophia. I am sure, though, that I am only expressing your
ideas--less well than you would express them yourself--when I say that
it is our plain duty to do something at once, to show our high regard
for Doris, something to place her in a proper social light at a single
stroke. It is all important that a girl should be properly launched;"
Miss Judy went on as though she had given long and deep consideration to
the subject, and as if she and Miss Sophia were the all-powerful social
dictators of a large and complicated circle of the highest fashion.
"Just think what a difference it might have made for us, had our dear
mother lived and Becky's too, poor child."
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with the greatest
promptness and decision.
"I thought I could not be mistaken as to your views and wishes," said
Miss Judy, truly gratified. "And you don't think, do you, that it is at
all necessary for us to do anything very elaborate or--expensive?" she
continued, as if it were solely a consideration of the finest taste. "To
my notion a tea would be most genteel, most highly refined; but you are,
of course, the one to decide. Your judgment is always more practical
than mine. I should not dare rely upon my own in so important a matter.
But as I look at it, a tea would serve as well or better than anything
else we could do to show everybody--including old lady Gordon and her
grandson, who may not, being a stranger, and seeing Sidney and Uncle
Watty, understand how Doris has been brought up--the high estimation in
which we hold the dear child."
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with positively
inflexible firmness and almost abrupt promptness, when she now began to
understand that eating was in question.
"It is really a very simple matter to arrange a tea," Miss Judy went on
eagerly, her sweet face growing rosy. "There's mother's sea-shell china,
so thin, so pink, and so refined. And there's her best tea-cloth that
she planted the flax for, and bleached and spun and wove and
hemstitched--all with her own dear hands. I am sure that the darn in the
middle of it won't show at all, if we set the cut-glass bowl over it.
And we can fill the bowl so full of maiden's blush roses that the nick
out of the side will never be seen. Mother's sea-shell china and the
blushes are about the same color. Why, I can actually see the table
now--as if it were a picture--all a delicate, lovely pink!" cried little
Miss Judy, blushing with eagerness, and all a delicate, lovely pink
herself. "And the food must be as dainty as the table. Something very
light and appetizing. Isn't that your idea, sister Sophia?"
Miss Sophia assented as usual, but not quite so promptly, nor quite so
cordially, and anybody but Miss Judy must have seen how her face fell.
She had known so many things that were light and appetizing, and so few
that were really satisfying--poor Miss Sophia!
"Delicate slices of the thinnest, pinkest cold tongue will be the only
meat necessary. Anything more would be less genteel, and I am almost
certain that Mr. Pettus would exchange the half of a beef's tongue for
the other head of early york. Don't you remember, sister Sophia, how
much he liked the other two--the ones he took in exchange for the
sugar?" Miss Judy chirruped on, with growing enthusiasm. "And Merica
could make some of her light rolls, and shape a little pat of butter
like a water-lily, and put it in the smallest tin bucket with the tight
top and let it down in the well by a string, till it got to be real cool
and firm. For dessert we've the tiny jar of pear preserves which we've
been saving so long. Nothing could be more delicate than they are, clear
as amber, with the little rose-geranium leaf at the bottom of the jar,
giving both flavor and perfume, till you can't tell whether it looks
prettiest, tastes nicest, or smells sweetest."
Miss Judy's flax-flower eyes, bright with delightful excitement, were
fixed on Miss Sophia's face, without seeing, as grosser eyes would have
seen, that Miss Sophia's mouth actually watered. There was a momentary
silence; and then an uneasy thought suddenly clouded Miss Judy's
beaming, blushing countenance.
"I had forgotten about that new-fashioned dish. Of course we must have
some of those delicately fried potatoes, some like we had at old lady
Gordon's supper; they are cut very, very thin and browned till they are
crisp and beautiful--dry and rustling, as the golden leaves of the fall.
Yes, I am afraid the tea will not be really complete, will not be quite
up to the latest fashion, unless we have a little dish of those. And we
haven't any potatoes, except the handful of peach-blows that we have
saved for planting." She sighed in perplexity, looking at her sister.
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, more promptly and more
firmly, if possible, than she had yet spoken.
Miss Judy sat for a moment in dejected silence, turning the matter over
in her mind. Miss Sophia rocked heavily, the sleepy creak of her low
chair mingling pleasantly with the contented murmur of the bees in the
honeysuckle.
"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Judy, her face illuminated by a bright inspiration.
"How dull of me not to think of it before. _Now_ I see how we can eat
the peach-blows and plant them too! We have only to pare them very thin,
being very, very careful to leave all the eyes in the peel. Then we can
plant the peel and fry the inside."
"But they won't grow," protested poor Miss Sophia, almost groaning and
quite desperate, foreseeing the long winter fast which must follow this
short summer feast.
"Oh, but they'll have to, if we plant them in the dark of the moon,"
said Miss Judy, with unabated enthusiasm.
Miss Sophia, now on the verge of tears, turned her broad face away, so
that Miss Judy should not see how overcome she was, and that eager
little lady sprang up, without suspecting, and ran to climb on a chair
in order to look in the tea-caddy. This always stood on the mantelpiece
in their room. It was drier there, Miss Judy said; it was also safer
from Merica's depredations, but Miss Judy said nothing about that. There
was a momentary dismayed silence as a single quick glance noted the
stage of its contents. She set the caddy in its place, and descended
slowly from the chair, thinking deeply.
"Sister Sophia, do you happen to know whether Mr. Pettus has been
getting any boxes of tea lately?" she asked casually, almost
indifferently, as though it were an entirely irrelevant matter of but
small consequence.
Miss Sophia, who kept better advised as to the edible side of the
general store than she did regarding most things, nodded with reviving
spirit.
"Then I really must go down there at once. It's a shame for me to have
neglected a plain duty so long. You and I both know, sister Sophia, how
much it means to Mr. Pettus to be able to tell his customers what we
think of his teas. He has certainly told us often enough that our
opinion has a considerable commercial value. For this reason--and on
account of his being so obliging about exchanging things--it isn't right
for us to be unwilling to taste any other variety than the one we like.
Mr. Pettus unfortunately is aware that we care personally for no kind
except the English breakfast. That no doubt makes him backward in asking
us to sample the other varieties. And that is not right, nor at all
neighborly, you see, sister Sophia," so Miss Judy argued, believing
every word she said, with all her honest, kind little heart.
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, as readily and
unreservedly as Miss Judy could have wished.
Forthwith Miss Judy began to get ready for going to the store. She got
out the lace shawl, which had been her mother's, and which was darned
and redarned till little of the original web was left. She took it out
of its silver paper and folded it again with dainty care, so that the
middle point would just touch the heels of her heel-less prunella
gaiters. Any crookedness in the location of that middle point would have
shocked Miss Judy like some moral obliquity. The strings of her
dove-colored bonnet of drawn silk must also be tied "just so" in a prim
little bow precisely under her pretty chin. Miss Sophia was always
anxiously consulted as to the size and the angle and the precision of
that little bow, as if she had been some sharp critic, who was most
difficult to please. And then, when Miss Judy had drawn on her picnic
gloves of black lace, she unrolled the elaborate wrapping from her
sunshade, which was hardly bigger than a doll's parasol, and turned it
up flat against its short handle. Finally, having pinned a fresh
handkerchief in a snowy triangle to the left side of her small waist so
that her left hand might be free to hold up her skirt, she took the
dainty pinch of black bombazine between her forefinger and thumb, and,
with the sunshade in the other little hand, sailed off down the big
road, smiling back at Miss Sophia.
She was always a brisk walker, and she had nearly reached the front of
the store before Mr. Pettus knew that she was coming. But Uncle Watty,
fortunately, saw her approach from his post of lookout over the whole
village, as he sat on the goods-box in the shade, whittling happily, the
pile of red cedar shavings rising high and dry through the windless,
rainless summer days. Without stirring from his comfortable place, Uncle
Watty was thus enabled, by merely putting his head in the door, to give
Mr. Pettus instant warning of Miss Judy's nearness. Even then there
hardly would have been time for Mr. Pettus to make the usual preparation
for the little lady's visit, had she not stopped to shake hands with
Uncle Watty and to inquire about the misery in his broken leg. She
lingered still a moment longer to ask, with all the deference due a
weather prophet of Uncle Watty's reputation, when he thought there would
be rain, this being indeed a matter of importance, with the
consideration of the planting of the peach-blow peel lying heavy in the
back of her mind.