Some of the old builders,--not the _very_ old ones, for they built
nothing but rope-walks down behind the hill,--but some of those who
began to go northwest from the State House to live, made a pleasant
group of streets down there on the level stretching away to the
river, and called them by fresh, fragrant, country-suggesting
names. Names of trees and fields and gardens, fruits and blossoms;
and they built houses with gardens around them. In between the
blocks were deep, shady places; and the smell of flowers was tossed
back and forth by summer winds between the walls. Some nice old
people stayed on there, and a few of their descendants stay on there
still, though they are built in closely now, for the most part, and
coarse, common things have much intruded, and Summit Street
overshadows them with its palaces.
Here and there a wooden house, set back a little, like this of the
Ripwinkleys in Aspen Street, gives you a feeling of Boston in the
far back times, as you go by; and here and there, if you could get
into the life of the neighborhood, you might perhaps find a
household keeping itself almost untouched with change, though there
has been such a rush and surge for years up and over into the newer
and prouder places.
At any rate, Titus Oldways lived here in Greenley Street; and he
owned the Aspen Street house, and another over in Meadow Place, and
another in Field Court. He meant to stretch his control over them as
long as he could, and keep them for families; therefore he valued
them at such rates as they would bring for dwellings; he would not
sell or lease them for any kind of "improvements;" he would not have
their little door-yards choked up, or their larger garden spaces
destroyed, while he could help it.
Round in Orchard Street lived Miss Craydocke. She was away again,
now, staying a little while with the Josselyns in New York. Uncle
Titus told Mrs. Ripwinkley that when Miss Craydocke came back it
would be a neighborhood, and they could go round; now it was only
back and forth between them and him and Rachel Froke. There were
other people, too, but they would be longer finding them out.
"You'll know Miss Craydocke as soon as you see her; she is one of
those you always seem to have seen before."
Now Uncle Titus would not have said this to everybody; not even if
everybody had been his niece, and had come to live beside him.
Orchard Street is wide and sunny and pleasant; the river air comes
over it and makes it sweet; and Miss Craydocke's is a big, generous
house, of which she only uses a very little part herself, because
she lets the rest to nice people who want pleasant rooms and can't
afford to pay much rent; an old gentleman who has had a hard time in
the world, but has kept himself a gentleman through it all, and his
little cheery old lady-wife who puts her round glasses on and
stitches away at fine women's under-garments and flannel
embroideries, to keep things even, have the two very best rooms; and
a clergyman's widow, who copies for lawyers, and writes little
stories for children, has another; and two orphan sisters who keep
school have another; and Miss Craydocke calls her house the Beehive,
and buzzes up and down in it, and out and in, on little "seeing-to"
errands of care and kindness all day long, as never any queen-bee
did in any beehive before, but in a way that makes her more truly
queen than any sitting in the middle cell of state to be fed on
royal jelly. Behind the Beehive, is a garden, as there should be;
great patches of lily-of-the valley grow there that Miss Craydocke
ties up bunches from in the spring and gives away to little
children, and carries into all the sick rooms she knows of, and the
poor places. I always think of those lilies of the valley when I
think of Miss Craydocke. It seems somehow as if they were blooming
about her all the year through; and so they are, perhaps, invisibly.
The other flowers come in their season; the crocuses have been done
with first of all; the gay tulips and the snowballs have made the
children glad when they stopped at the gate and got them, going to
school. Miss Craydocke is always out in her garden at school-time.
By and by there are the tall white lilies, standing cool and serene
in the July heats; then Miss Craydocke is away at the mountains,
pressing ferns and drying grasses for winter parlors; but there is
somebody on duty at the garden dispensary always, and there are
flower-pensioners who know they may come in and take the gracious
toll.
Late in the autumn, the nasturtiums and verbenas and marigolds are
bright; and the asters quill themselves into the biggest globes they
can, of white and purple and rose, as if it were to make the last
glory the best, and to do the very utmost of the year. Then the
chrysanthemums go into the house and bloom there for Christmas-time.
There is nothing else like Miss Craydocke's house and garden, I do
believe, in all the city of the Three Hills. It is none too big for
her, left alone with it, the last of her family; the world is none
too big for her; she is glad to know it is all there. She has a use
for everything as fast as it comes, and a work to do for everybody,
as fast as she finds them out. And everybody,--almost,--catches it
as she goes along, and around her there is always springing up a
busy and a spreading crystallizing of shining and blessed elements.
The world is none too big for her, or for any such, of course,
because,--it has been told why better than I can tell it,--because
"ten times one is always ten."
It was a gray, gusty morning. It had not set in to rain
continuously; but the wind wrung handfuls of drops suddenly from the
clouds, and flung them against the panes and into the wayfarers'
faces.
Over in the house opposite the Ripwinkley's, at the second story
windows, sat two busy young persons. Hazel, sitting at her window,
in "mother's room," where each had a corner, could see across; and
had got into the way of innocent watching. Up in Homesworth, she had
used to watch the robins in the elm-trees; here, there was human
life, in little human nests, all about her.
"It's the same thing, mother," she would say, "isn't it, now? Don't
you remember in that book of the 'New England Housekeeper,' that you
used to have, what the woman said about the human nature of the
beans? It's in beans, and birds, and bird's nests; and folks, and
folks' nests. It don't make much difference. It's just snugness, and
getting along. And it's so nice to see!"
Hazel put her elbows up on the window-sill, and looked straight over
into that opposite room, undisguisedly.
The young man, in one window, said to his sister in the other, at
the same moment,--
"Our company's come! There's that bright little girl again!"
And the sister said, "Well, it's pretty much all the company we can
take in! She brings her own seat and her own window; and she doesn't
interrupt. It's just the kind for us, Kentie!"
"She's writing,--copying something,--music, it looks like; see it
there, set up against the shutter. She always goes out with a music
roll in her hand. I wonder whether she gives or takes?" said Diana,
stopping on her way to her own seat to look out over Hazel's
shoulder.
"Both, I guess," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "Most people do. Why don't
you put your flowers in the window, Hazel?"
"Why, so I will!"
They were a great bunch of snowy white and deep crimson asters, with
green ivy leaves, in a tall gray glass vase. Rachel Froke had just
brought them in from Miss Craydocke's garden.
"They're looking, mother! Only I do think it's half too bad! That
girl seems as if she would almost reach across after them. Perhaps
they came from the country, and haven't had any flowers."
"Thee might take them over some," said Mrs. Froke, simply.
"O, I shouldn't dare! There are other people in the house, and I
don't know their names, or anything. I wish I could, though."
"I can," said Rachel Froke. "Thee'll grow tall enough to step over
pebbles one of these days. Never mind; I'll fetch thee more
to-morrow; and thee'll let the vase go for a while? Likely they've
nothing better than a tumbler."
Rachel Froke went down the stairs, and out along the paved walk,
into the street. She stopped an instant on the curb-stone before she
crossed, and looked up at those second story windows. Hazel watched
her. She held up the vase slightly with one hand, nodding her little
gray bonnet kindly, and beckoned with the other.
The young girl started from her seat.
In another minute Hazel saw them together in the doorway.
There was a blush and a smile, and an eager brightness in the face,
and a quick speaking thanks, that one could read without hearing,
from the parted lips, on the one side, and the quiet, unflutterable
gray bonnet calmly horizontal on the other; and then the door was
shut, and Rachel Froke was crossing the damp pavement again.
"I'm so glad Aspen Street is narrow!" said Hazel. "I should hate to
be way off out of sight of people. What did you say to her, Mrs.
Froke?" she asked, as the Friend reentered. Hazel could by no means
take the awful liberty of "Rachel."
"I said the young girl, Hazel Ripwinkley, being from the country,
knew how good flowers were to strangers in the town, and that she
thought they might be strange, and might like some."
Hazel flushed all up. At that same instant, a gentle nod and smile
came across from window to window, and she flushed more, till the
tears sprung with the shy, glad excitement, as she returned it and
then shrunk away.
"And she said, 'Thank her, with Dorris Kincaid's love,'" proceeded
Rachel Froke.
"O, _mother_!" exclaimed Hazel. "And you did it all, right off so,
Mrs. Froke. I don't see how grown up people dare, and know how!"
Up the stairs ran quick feet in little clattering heeled boots.
Desire Ledwith, with a purple waterproof on, came in.
"I couldn't stay at home to-day," she said, "I wanted to be where
it was all-togetherish. It never is at our house. Now it's set up,
they don't do anything with it."
"That's because it '_looks_'--so elegant," said Hazel, catching
herself up in dismay.
"It's because it's the crust, I think," said Desire. "Puff paste,
like an oyster patty; and they haven't got anything cooked yet for
the middle. I wonder when they will. I had a call yesterday, all to
myself," she went on, with a sudden change of tone and topic.
"Agatha was hopping and I wouldn't tell her what I said, or how I
behaved. That new parlor girl of ours thinks we're all or any of us
'Miss Ledwith,' mamma included, and so she let him in. He had on
lavender pantaloons and a waxed moustache."
"The rain is just pouring down!" said Diana, at the garden window.
"Yes; I'm caught. That's what I meant," said Desire. "You've got to
keep me all day, now. How will you get home, Mrs. Froke? Or won't
you have to stay, too?"
"Thee may call me Rachel, Desire Ledwith, if thee pleases. I like it
better. I am no mistress. And for getting home, it is but just round
the corner. But there is no need yet. I came for an hour, to sit
here with friend Frances. And my hour is not yet up."
"I'm glad of that, for there is something I want you to tell me. I
haven't quite got at it myself, yet; so as to ask, I mean. Wait a
minute!" And she put her elbows up on her knees, and held her thumbs
against her ears, and her fingers across her forehead; sitting
squarely opposite the window to which she had drawn up her chair
beside Diane, and looking intently at the driving streams that
rushed and ran down against the glass.
"I was sitting in the bay-window at home, when it began this
morning; that made me think. All the world dripping wet, and I just
put there dry and safe in the middle of the storm, shut up behind
those great clear panes and tight sashes. How they did have to
contrive, and work, before there were such places made for people!
What if they had got into their first scratchy little houses, and
sat behind the logs as we do behind glass windows and thought, as I
was thinking, how nice it was just to be covered up from the rain?
Is it all finished now? Hasn't anybody got to contrive anything
more? And who's going to do it--and everything. And what are we good
for,--just _we_,--to come and expect it all, modern-improved! I
don't think much of our place among things, do you, Mrs.
Froke?--There, I believe that's it, as near as I can!'"
"Why does thee ask me, Desire?"
"I don't know. I don't know any whys or what fors. 'Behold we know
not anything,'--Tennyson and I! But you seem so--pacified--I suppose
I thought you must have settled most things in your mind."
"Every builder--every little joiner--did his piece,--thought his
thought out, I think likely. There's no little groove or moulding or
fitting or finish, but is a bit of somebody's living; and life
grows, going on. We've all got our piece to do," said Rachel.
"I asked Mrs. Mig," Desire pursued, "and she said some people's part
was to buy and employ and encourage; and that spending money helps
all the world; and then she put another cushion to her back, and
went on tatting."
"Perhaps it does--in spite of the world," said Rachel Froke,
quietly.
"But I guess nobody is to sit by and _only_ encourage; God has
given out no such portion as that, I do believe. We can encourage
each other, and every one do his own piece too."
"I didn't really suppose Mrs. Mig knew," said Desire, demurely. "She
never began at the bottom of anything. She only finishes off. She
buys pattern worsted work, and fills it in. That's what she's doing
now, when she don't tat; a great bunch of white lilies, grounding it
with olive. It's lovely; but I'd rather have made the lilies. She'll
give it to mother, and then Glossy will come and spend the winter
with us. Mrs. Mig is going to Nassau with a sick friend; she's
awfully useful--for little overseeings and general touchings up,
after all the hard part is done. Mrs. Mig's sick friends always have
nurses and waiting maids--Mrs. F---- Rachel! Do you know, I haven't
got any piece!"
"No, I don't know; nor does thee either, yet," said Rachel Froke.
* * * * *
"It's all such bosh!" said Kenneth Kincaid, flinging down a handful
of papers. "I've no right, I solemnly think, to help such stuff out
into the world! A man can't take hold anywhere, it seems, without
smutting his fingers!"
Kenneth Kincaid was correcting proof for a publisher. What he had to
work on this morning was the first chapters of a flimsy novel.
"It isn't even confectionery," said he. "It's terra alba and
cochineal. And when it comes to the sensation, it will be benzine
for whiskey. Real things are bad enough, for the most part, in this
world; but when it comes to sham fictions and adulterated poisons,
Dorris, I'd rather help bake bread, if it were an honest loaf, or
make strong shoes for laboring men!"
"You don't always get things like that," said Dorris. "And you know
you're not responsible. Why will you torment yourself so?"
"I was so determined not to do anything but genuine work; work that
the world wanted; and to have it come down to this!"
"Only for a time, while you are waiting."
"Yes; people must eat while they are waiting; that's the--devil of
it! I'm not swearing, Dorris, dear; it came truly into my head, that
minute, about the Temptation in the Wilderness." Kenneth's voice was
reverent, saying this; and there was an earnest thought in his face.
"You'll never like anything heartily but your Sunday work."
"That's what keeps me here. My week-day work might be wanted
somewhere else. And perhaps I ought to go. There's Sunday work
everywhere."
"If you've found one half, hold on to it;" said Dorris. "The other
can't be far off."
"I suppose there are a score or two of young architects in this
city, waiting for a name or a chance to make one, as I am. If it
isn't here for all of them, somebody has got to quit."
"And somebody has got to hold on," repeated Dorris. "You are morbid,
Kent, about this 'work of the world.'"
"It's overdone, everywhere. Fifth wheels trying to hitch on to every
coach. I'd rather be the one wheel of a barrow."
"The Lord is Wheelwright, and Builder," said Dorris, very simply.
"You _are_ a wheel, and He has made you; He'll find an axle for you
and put you on; and you shall go about his business, so that you
shall wonder to remember that you were ever leaning up against a
wall. Do you know, Kentie, life seems to me like the game we used
to play at home in the twilight. When we shut our eyes and let each
other lead us, until we did not know where we were going, or in what
place we should come out. I should not care to walk up a broad path
with my eyes wide open, now. I'd rather feel the leading. To-morrow
always makes a turn. It's beautiful! People don't know, who _never_
shut their eyes!"
Kenneth had taken up a newspaper.
"The pretenses at doing! The dodges and go-betweens that make a sham
work between every two real ones! There's hardly a true business
carried on, and if there is, you don't know where or which. Look at
the advertisements. Why, they cheat with their very tops and faces!
See this man who puts in big capitals: 'Lost! $5,000! $1,000
reward!' and then tells you, in small type, that five thousand
dollars are lost every year by breaking glass and china, that his
cement will mend! What business has he to cry 'Wolf!' to the
hindrance of the next man who may have a real wolf to catch? And
what business has the printer, whom the next man will pay to
advertise his loss, to help on a lie like this beforehand? I'm only
twenty-six years old, Dorris, and I'm getting ashamed of the world!"
"Don't grow hard, Kenneth. 'The Son of Man came not to condemn the
world, but to save it.' Let's each try to save our little piece!"
We are listening across the street, you see; between the windows in
the rain; it is strange what chords one catches that do not catch
each other, and were never planned to be played together,--by the
_players_.
Kenneth Kincaid's father Robert had been a ship-builder. When
shipping went down in the whirlpool of 1857, Robert Kincaid's
building had gone; and afterward he had died leaving his children
little beside their education, which he thanked God was secured, and
a good repute that belonged to their name, but was easily forgotten
in the crowd of young and forward ones, and in the strife and
scramble of a new business growth.
Between college and technical studies Kenneth had been to the war.
After that he had a chance to make a fortune in Wall Street. His
father's brother, James, offered to take him in with him to buy and
sell stocks and gold, to watch the market, to touch little unseen
springs, to put the difference into his own pocket every time the
tide of value shifted, or could be made to seem to shift. He might
have been one of James R. Kincaid and Company. He would have none of
it. He told his uncle plainly that he wanted real work; that he had
not come back from fighting to--well, there he stopped, for he could
not fling the truth in his uncle's face; he said there were things
he meant to finish learning, and would try to do; and if nobody
wanted them of him he would learn something else that was needed. So
with what was left to his share from his father's little remnant of
property, he had two years at the Technological School, and here he
was in Boston waiting. You can see what he meant by real work, and
how deep his theories and distinctions lay. You can see that it
might be a hard thing for one young man, here or there, to take up
the world on these terms now, in this year of our Lord eighteen
hundred and sixty-nine.
Over the way Desire Ledwith was beginning again, after a pause in
which we have made our little chassée.
"I know a girl," she said, "who has got a studio. And she talks
about art, and she knows styles, and who has done what, and she runs
about to see pictures, and she copies things, and she has little
plaster legs and toes and things hanging round everywhere. She
thinks it is something great; but it's only Mig, after all.
Everything is. Florence Migs into music. And I won't Mig, if I never
do anything. I'm come here this morning to darn stockings." And she
pulled out of her big waterproof pocket a bundle of stockings and a
great white ball of darning cotton and a wooden egg.
"There is always one thing that is real," said Mrs. Ripwinkley,
gently, "and that shows the way surely to all the rest."
"I know what you mean," said Desire, "of course; but they've mixed
that all up too, like everything else, so that you don't know where
it is. Glossy Megilp has a velvet prayer-book, and she blacks her
eyelashes and goes to church. We've all been baptized, and we've
learned the Lord's Prayer, and we're all Christians. What is there
more about it? I wish, sometimes, they had let it all alone. I think
they vaccinated us with religion, Aunt Frank, for fear we should
take it the natural way."
"Thee is restless," said Rachel Froke, tying on her gray cloak. "And
to make us so is oftentimes the first thing the Lord does for us. It
was the first thing He did for the world. Then He said, 'Let there
be light!' In the meantime, thee is right; just darn thy stockings."
And Rachel went.
They had a nice morning, after that, "leaving frets alone," as Diana
said. Diana Ripwinkley was happy in things just as they were. If the
sun shone, she rejoiced in the glory; if the rain fell, it shut her
in sweetly to the heart of home, and the outside world grew fragrant
for her breathing. There was never anything in her day that she
could spare out of it, and there were no holes in the hours either.
"Whether she was most bird or bee, it was hard to tell," her mother
said of her; from the time she used to sweep and dust her garret
baby-house along the big beams in the old house at Homesworth, and
make little cheeses, and set them to press in wooden pill-boxes from
which she had punched the bottoms out, till now, that she began to
take upon herself the daily freshening of the new parlors in Aspen
Street, and had long lessons of geometry to learn, whose dry
demonstrations she set to odd little improvised recitatives of
music, and chanted over while she ran up and down putting away clean
linen for her mother, that Luclarion brought up from the wash.
As for Hazel, she was only another variation upon the same sweet
nature. There was more of outgo and enterprise with her. Diana made
the thing or the place pleasant that she was in or doing. Hazel
sought out new and blessed inventions. "There was always something
coming to the child that wouldn't ever have come to no one else,"
Luclarion said. "And besides that, she was a real 'Witch Hazel;' she
could tell where the springs were, and what's more, where they
warn't."
Luclarion Grapp would never have pleaded guilty to "dropping into
poetry" in any light whatsoever; but what she meant by this was not
exactly according to the letter, as one may easily see.