taking up a large clean sheet of brown paper, he quickly divided it into
six squares with the speed and skill of long practice. These squares he
then hastily laid at regular spaces along the counter. Reaching round
for his scoop, he ladled out a generous quantity of tea, all of a kind.
He had but one chest of tea, yet when the contents of the scoop was
distributed in six separate heaps, it looked quite as different as he
meant it to look, and as Miss Judy believed it to be.
She came in, radiant with smiles, fanning herself almost coquettishly
with her sunshade, and congratulating Mr. Pettus on the growth of his
business, as her beaming gaze fell upon the array of teas. To think that
he should find demand for half a dozen varieties! And, by the way, that
was the very thing which she had come expressly to see him about. Then
followed the usual long and polite conversation. Mr. Pettus again
apologized for asking Miss Judy to sample so many kinds of tea, knowing
that she really liked but one kind. Miss Judy, never to be outdone in
politeness, protested on her side that it was not the slightest trouble
to herself or Miss Sophia, whose judgment was more reliable than her
own, to test the six varieties, and, indeed, as many more as might be
necessary. She really would feel hurt, so she said, if Mr. Pettus ever
again thought of hesitating to send them every variety in his stock. She
admitted that she should never have been so thoughtless as to let him
find out that her sister and herself had a preference for one kind above
another. But she begged him to believe that it was mere thoughtlessness,
not any wish to be disobliging. The upshot of it all was, that the six
heaps of tea were made into a parcel too large for Miss Judy to carry,
and Uncle Watty, who had been an interested listener from his seat on
the goods-box, kindly offered to bring it with him and leave it at Miss
Judy's door on his way home that evening.
Miss Judy thought Uncle Watty's offer most kind, so very kind, indeed,
that she straightway began to be troubled about inviting him to the
tea-party. She, herself, did not mind his leg at all; it only made her
more sorry for him, and she knew that the same was true of Miss Sophia.
It was not his fault, poor soul, that his leg had been set east and
west, instead of north and south, as Sidney said. Maybe young Mr. Gordon
would not mind either; he certainly seemed to be kind-hearted. But there
was his grandmother, who was such a game-maker. Old lady Gordon did not
mean any harm, perhaps; Miss Judy never believed that any one meant any
harm. Still, Doris might be mortified if she thought Uncle Watty was
being criticised--which would be the cruelest thing that Miss Judy could
imagine, and the furthest from the secret object of the entertainment.
She was frightened, and ready for the moment to give up the tea-party.
Then, brightening, she began to hope that something would occur to spare
Uncle Watty's feelings--and yet keep him away from the tea-party. Thus
she thought as she went home, and thus she continued thinking aloud
after she fancied that she was consulting Miss Sophia.
"For of course we can't give the tea without inviting old lady Gordon.
Her social position makes it essential that she shall be invited if
Doris is to be properly launched," Miss Judy said just as though she
were some artful, calculating schemer, dealing with some keen and
suspicious stranger who was likely to raise objections. "And I am sure
that I merely express your views, when I say that we could not be so
discourteous as to invite old lady Gordon without also inviting her
grandson, when he is a guest at her house."
And Miss Sophia answered all this artfulness firmly, even sternly, as if
she were an able abetter, standing ready to carry out the dark, deeply
laid plot.
XV
SIDNEY DOES HER DUTY
These pleasant plans were entirely unsuspected by Sidney. She felt,
however, the need of something of the kind, and--with characteristic
energy--entered forthwith into the making and the carrying out of some
of her own, of a different kind, though leading in the same direction.
The call upon old lady Gordon, a first step, turned out a good deal of a
disappointment. Lynn Gordon was, to be sure, in attendance upon his
grandmother when Sidney appeared, and she thus secured a glimpse of him,
but nothing more satisfactory, nothing nearly approaching acquaintance.
As ill luck would have it, old lady Gordon, who rarely left home,
chanced to be just starting to "make a broad," as the Oldfield people
described visiting beyond the village. The ancient family carriage, with
its fat pair of old grays, already waited at the front gate in the shade
of the cypress tree. On the back of the coach was a trunk-rack, put
there, doubtless, at the building of the vehicle in the days when the
country gentry travelled far in their own coaches, and had need of their
wardrobes on the road. Under the reign of the present mistress, who had
not for years gone farther than a single day's journey from home, the
trunk-rack had been turned to other than its original uses, and on that
particular morning it bore a large hamper of food. This was so full and
heavy that it had been all that Enoch and Eunice could do to carry it
between them; and, now when it was securely strapped in its place and
Enoch was seated upon the box of the coach, Eunice stood leaning over
the fence, with her arms rolled in her apron, giving Enoch final
directions for the serving of the luncheon, so that there might be no
trouble with the mistress.
Old lady Gordon was coming down the front walk of mossy, greening
bricks, leading from the door to the gate; and she looked a handsome,
stately figure in her flowing white dress, notwithstanding her age and
her weight. But Sidney's gaze and Sidney's interest were not for old
lady Gordon; they were for the tall young man on whose arm she leaned,
as if she liked to lean on it, not as if she needed its support. It was
the first time that Sidney had seen him nearer than across the
meeting-house. When she now observed how like his grandmother he was,
she suddenly stopped quite still and, laying her knitting on the
gate-post, took off her bonnet and let her hair down and twisted it up
again, very, very tight indeed.
"Good morning, Sidney. You know my grandson," old lady Gordon said
carelessly, going straight on to the carriage.
She liked Sidney as she liked everybody who never bored her, but it did
not occur to her to allow Sidney's--or anybody's--coming to interfere
with her "making a broad" or doing anything that she wished to do.
Accordingly she now ascended the folding steps of the coach, which were
already unfolded for her convenience, and with her grandson's assistance
deliberately settled herself in perfect comfort by unhasting degrees.
Her bag, which a little negro boy presently came running to bring, was
then hung inside the carriage close to her hand.
"Now!" said old lady Gordon. "Jump in, Sidney, and I'll take you home.
It will not be at all out of my way, and you can tell me the news as we
go along."
Sidney, surprised, stood hesitating. She had been looking on, taking
notes for future conversational uses. It was not every day that she
could gather such good materials; and she had not lost a detail of this
starting of old lady Gordon to "make a broad." And, while busily laying
these matters away in the rich storehouse of her memory, Sidney had, at
the same time, been calculating with certainty upon the fine opportunity
for making the young man's acquaintance which old lady Gordon's going
would give her. It is the first instinct of a wise mother to learn all
that she can,--advantageous or otherwise--of any man who may look toward
her young daughter. It is the last instinct of the wise mother to learn
anything to the disadvantage of any man at whom her daughter may look.
Sidney, wise enough in her blunt, straightforward way, was far from
being a designing woman; she was merely trying, in her blundering
manner, to do what she believed to be her duty by Doris. Naturally,
then, she hesitated, unwilling to lose this good chance of making Lynn
Gordon's acquaintance, the best that she was ever likely to have.
Old lady Gordon glanced at her impatiently, as she would have done at
any hindrance. She had not the faintest inkling of what was passing
through Sidney's mind. She had never thought it as well worth while to
try to understand Sidney, as Sidney had always found it useful and easy
to understand her. Old lady Gordon simply wished to take Sidney along in
order that she might hear the news, as she would have taken the morning
paper,--had Oldfield had one,--to toss it aside after turning it inside
out. She saw plainly enough that for some reason Sidney was unwilling to
come with her, but she did not care about people's unwillingness if they
did what she wished. Old lady Gordon never made any mystery of her
selfishness. She was too scornful of the opinion of others to care what
anybody else felt or thought, or said or did, so long as she got what
she wanted. All this was well known to Sidney; it was also perfectly
plain to her that, if she did not take the seat in the carriage, old
lady Gordon would make Lynn take it and go at least part of the way.
Like the philosopher that she was, Sidney accordingly took the seat. One
of the wide folding steps was then shut up, and on the remaining step
the little negro perched himself,--just as Lady Castlewood's page used
to perch on hers. No reason for his going was apparent then, or ever.
But a little negro boy always had ridden on the step of old lady
Gordon's coach, and the fact that a thing always had been done, has
always been a good and sufficient reason for many singular things in
this Pennyroyal Region--as already remarked ere this. And thus,
everything now being settled to old lady Gordon's entire satisfaction,
the ancient coach rumbled heavily away through the dust.
However, the heavy wheels had hardly made a dozen revolutions before
they were at the Watson homestead, which was the place nearest to old
lady Gordon's. There Sidney called to Enoch Cotton to put her down; and
get down she would and did, in spite of old lady Gordon's impatient
protest that there had been no time for the telling of news; regardless
even of her hasty, half-contemptuous offer to send Uncle Watty and the
children a bag of flour. Sidney had her own ideas of dignity and
self-respect; moreover, she held to them more firmly than prouder
people, having finer ones, often hold to theirs. Yet she was always
good-natured, no matter how firm, and she now merely laughed, as old
lady Gordon drove away as angry as she ever thought it worth while to be
over anything save some interference with the regularity and the
perfection of her meals.
Sidney took off her sunbonnet and hung it on the fence, and let her hair
loose and twisted it up again, while having her laugh out before going
in the house. There was not a grain of malice in her frank shrewdness.
Adversity's sweet milk had been her daily drink, ever since she could
remember. Old lady Gordon herself would have been amused at the
good-humored account of her own starting to "make a broad," could she
have heard Sidney telling Tom and Anne Watson about it. For that
handsome old pagan had a wholesome sense of humor. But Tom Watson
apparently did not hear; his miserable, restless eyes never turned
toward Sidney, never for a moment ceased their fruitless quest of the
empty big road. Only a pale shadow of a smile flitted over Anne's white,
tense face. And Sidney, seeing that her efforts were wholly wasted, soon
arose to go on her way, and Anne went with her to the gate--as far as
she ever went from her hopeless post, except for the breaking of bread
on the Sundays when there was preaching at her own church; and for an
hour now and then, on prayer-meeting nights, when she felt that her own
supplications alone were not strong enough. She held Sidney's large,
firm, rough, capable hand longer than usual, as if she instinctively
sought strength and courage in clinging to it. Her clear eyes, too, were
full of a silent, unconscious appeal, and Sidney said, in answer to the
look, that she would come again the next day and every day, if her
coming could help in the least. Anne simply bowed her head; she did not
attempt to speak, and in truth there was nothing to be said. She made no
mention of any inducement to Sidney to come; she did not think of it,
nor indeed did Sidney. Yet, when Anne did think of it, later in the day,
she was glad to send a large basket, and Sidney was more than glad to
have it sent.
That night Sidney dreamt of Tom,--as a good many people did after seeing
him,--and the thought of him so weighed upon her on awakening at dawn,
that she hurried through with her housework in order that she might go
to Anne. But she had only the earliest morning hours for domestic
duties, the rest of her time being always fully occupied with her
professional rounds; and she found much to do every morning before
starting out. On this particular morning there were unusual affairs of
rather a pressing nature. Uncle Watty had discovered a bumblebee's nest
under the mossy roof close to his bed. It was never the way of Uncle
Watty to submit to any discomfort which he could avoid by complaining,
and he was not unnaturally anxious to have this removed without
unnecessary delay. Sidney, ready and resourceful, quieted his fears. She
knew--so she declared--just how to get the bumblebee's nest down without
the least trouble or hurting any one. As soon, therefore, as the kitchen
was in order, she bustled into the room where Doris sat sewing behind
the white curtain. Sidney put the broom on end in its accustomed place,
and began rolling down her sleeves, getting ready to move upon the
citadel of the bumblebees. When a thing--large or small--must be done,
Sidney was not one to let the grass grow under her feet. She had reached
the door of the passage, meaning to climb to the loft and to awaken
Uncle Watty as a mere matter of precaution before beginning operations,
when Doris's voice caused her to pause.
"I haven't had a chance, mother, to tell you that Mr. Gordon was here
yesterday in the cool of the evening, before you came home. He didn't
come in. He only went into the garden," Doris said, simply.
Sidney stopped and stood still, silently gazing at her daughter.
"He came to see the pretty-by-nights. He said he had never seen them
open with the falling of the dew," the girl went on, like a child.
"Anybody's welcome to look at the pretty-by-nights," responded Sidney,
with cautious non-committal indifference.
"I told him I knew you wouldn't care," said Doris, more confidently.
"And then he asked if he might come early this morning to look at the
morning-glories. He thought they must be lovely--such big ones, red,
white, and blue--all over that side of the house."
"They're well enough in their place," said Sidney, off-hand. And then,
carelessly, after an instant's pause, "What did you say?"
"He said he was coming--before I could say anything." Doris thus placed
the responsibility where it belonged, made timid again by her mother's
manner, which she did not understand. "He may be here now, at any
moment."
"Well, it won't hurt the morning-glories a mite to be looked at," said
Sidney.
She stood still a moment longer, turning this unexpected announcement in
her mind. Then, without another word, she went back to the kitchen and
took up the plate containing Uncle Watty's breakfast, which she had left
on the stove to keep warm. He could eat it cold for once, she resolved,
as she passed through the room. Doris, humming over her sewing, and
looking now and then down the big road, did not see what her mother was
doing. Strong, active, Sidney swiftly gained the loft, making as little
noise as possible. Uncle Watty's bedchamber was a corner of the loft cut
off from the rest by a rough partition, and she approached the door of
it with noiseless caution. Uncle Watty never thought of locking or even
of shutting it, but Sidney, after setting the breakfast on the floor,
inside the door, now closed it softly and turned the key. There was an
old chest sitting near by, and this she managed to drag across the door
without much noise. Then she listened for a space, with her ear against
the door, to make sure that Uncle Watty was still fast asleep, and to
consider the security of the barricade. Satisfied now that all was
secure, that he could not get out, however hard he might try, she went
downstairs, feeling that she had done her utmost for Uncle Watty as well
as for Doris. She was faithful in her service to her husband's brother;
she had accepted him as a sacred legacy when her burden was already
heavy enough. She had never allowed the fact that he would not do
anything for his own support to affect her regard for him, nor to lessen
her efforts to provide for him; she had never minded his whittling, nor
his mis-set leg, except to be sorry for him. And yet, notwithstanding
all this, she, with her shrewd common sense, saw no good that it could
do him, or Doris, or anybody, for him to come bumping and stumbling down
the ladder just at the time when the young gentleman from Boston was
likely to be calling upon Doris. Recalling the likeness to his
game-making grandmother, which had struck her as so marked on the
previous day--which had indeed impressed her as being of "the very same
cut of the jib," as Sidney phrased it to herself--she made up her mind,
then and there, that he should see no reason to laugh at Doris or
Doris's kin, if she could help his seeing Uncle Watty.
Coming now into the room where Doris still sat quietly sewing, in the
dull brown dress, Sidney was tempted to tell her to put on the blue
gingham which Mrs. Alexander had given her; but on second thought did
not. Secretly she doubted whether any other color would reveal the soft,
pure whiteness of Doris's skin so perfectly as the faded brown. She
accordingly left the girl to her own devices, and contented herself with
seeing, with even more than the usual care, that the rising sun of red
and yellow calico was precisely in the middle of the bed, that the
trundle-bed was quite out of sight under the big bed; that the snowy
scarf over the chest of drawers fell perfectly straight at the fringed
ends; and that the best side of the rag rug, the sole covering of the
rough, well-scoured floor, was turned up. Finally, she hurried into the
garden and gathered a great, tall bunch of blue larkspur, and put it in
her best white pitcher, and set it on the chest of drawers. She gazed at
it with her head critically on one side, after setting it down; and,
indeed, the vivid coloring of the homely flowers against the whitewashed
logs was a pleasing sight, which might have gratified a more exacting
taste than hers.
An uneasy remembrance of Kate and Billy suddenly flashing into her quiet
mind, disturbed it, and sent her seeking them in haste. It was unlucky
that the day chanced to be Saturday, otherwise they might at once have
been despatched to school, and so kept out of the way without Doris's
knowing anything about it. Sidney was not clear as to why she did not
wish Doris to know that she meant to keep them out of the way. Her
daughter's sensibilities, refined by nature, and super-refined by Miss
Judy's training, were a long way beyond Sidney's primitive
comprehension. She had, however, a general idea that all very young
girls were what she called skittish, and most of them, consequently,
greatly lacking in sound common sense. So that it seemed to her, on the
whole, best to do her own duty as she saw it, saying nothing one way or
another, and leaving Doris alone. Sidney had no doubt concerning her own
duty. In the circle in which she had been reared, the young man who
failed to find a clear and open field the first time he came to see a
girl was sure not to come again. He understood as a matter of course,
and as he was intended to understand--when he found any of the family
near by--that he was not expected or desired to come again. It was
consequently a perfectly plain and simple case from Sidney's plain and
simple point of view. She did not know what Doris thought of the young
man; she did not care what the young man thought of Doris. She had no
distinct ultimate object. No mother was ever farther from any arbitrary
purpose, or even the remotest wish, to take the shaping of her
daughter's future in her own hands. Sidney, honest, strenuous soul,
meant simply and solely to give Doris a chance, without hindrance, to
shape it for herself.
Thus, as single-minded as it is ever permitted any woman to be, Sidney
took the broom from its resting-place behind the door, and fared forth
to mount guard over Billy and Kate. The children were peacefully at play
in the back yard under the cherry tree. They had been forbidden to touch
the cherries, which were to be exchanged for shoes at the store, and
they only glanced wistfully up at the reddening branches now and then,
as they went on with their harmless game of mumble-peg. Sidney turned an
empty tub upside down and seated herself upon it, between the children
and the house, with the broom across her knees. It was a sight which
they had never seen before, this amazing spectacle of their mother thus
sitting silent and idle on a week-day. But children do not marvel over
the unusual as grown people do, and after a glance or two of surprise,
these two played on peacefully until they heard the click of the gate
latch. Then they made a dash for the front yard to see who was coming,
as they were accustomed to do, and as Sidney was fully prepared for
their doing now. Keenly alert, she was instantly on her feet, and,
rushing between them and the gate, she waved them back with the broom,
flourishing it and using it as a baton of command. The children halted,
staring open-mouthed, too much astounded at first to make a sound. And
then, frightened by their mother's strange behavior, they huddled
together against the cherry tree and broke into loud, terrified wails.
Sidney, disconcerted and quickly changing her tactics, did what she
could to silence them by gentle means. She tried to soothe them in
whispers, and failing, finally offered to bribe them to be quiet. If
they were perfectly quiet till the company went away, she would give
them, so she whispered, one of Miss Pettus's cherry pies.
"The one with the--cross-barred--top," sobbed Billy, intentionally
raising his piercing voice several keys as he made this stipulation.