UNCLE PHIL.
Feeling intuitively that it would be better for Aunt Becky to announce
her presence, Edna made some excuse for stealing upstairs, where from
the window she had her first view of Uncle Phil, as he rode into the
yard and round to the barn on Bobtail’s back. He was a short, fat man,
arrayed in a home-made suit of gray, with his trouser legs tucked in his
boots, and his round, rosy face protected by lappets of sheepskin
attached to his cap and tied under his chin. Taken as a whole, there was
nothing very prepossessing in his appearance, and nothing especially
repellent either, but Edna felt herself shaking from head to foot as she
watched him dismounting from Bobtail, the old fat sorrel horse, who
rubbed his nose against his master’s arm as if there was perfect
sympathy between them. Edna saw this action, and saw Uncle Phil, as he
gently stroked his brute friend, to whom he seemed to be talking as he
led him into the barn.
“He is kind to his horse, anyway. Maybe he will be kind to me,” Edna
thought, and then she waited breathlessly until she heard the heavy
boots, first in the back room, then in the kitchen, and then in the
south room, where Becky was giving a few last touches to the table.
The chamber door was slightly ajar, and as Uncle Phil’s voice was loud,
Edna heard him distinctly, as he said:
“Hallo, Beck, what’s all this highfallutin for. What’s up? Who’s
come,—Maude?”
Becky’s reply was inaudible, but Uncle Phil’s rejoinder was distinct and
clear:
“Umph! A poor relation, hey? Where is she? Where have you put her?”
Becky was now in the kitchen, and Edna heard her say:
“In the back chamber, in course, till I know yer mind.”
“All right. Now hurry up your victuals and trot her out. I’m hungry as a
bear.”
After overhearing this scrap of conversation, it is not strange if Edna
shrank from being “trotted out,” but, obedient to Aunt Becky’s call, she
went downstairs and into the south room, where with his back to the
fire, and his short gray coat-skirts pulled up over his hands, stood
Uncle Phil. He did not look altogether delighted, and his little round
twinkling eyes were turned upon Edna with a curious rather than a
pleased expression as she came slowly in. But when she stood before him
and he saw her face distinctly, Edna could not help feeling that a
sudden change passed over him: his eyes put on a softer look, and his
whole face seemed suddenly to light up as he took her offered hand.
“Becky tells me you are my kin, grand-niece, or grandaunt, or
grandmother. I’ll be hanged if she made it out very clear. Maybe you can
explain what you are to me?”
He held her hand tightly in his own, and kept looking at her with an
earnest, searching gaze, before which Edna dropped her eyes, as she
replied:
“I can claim no nearer relationship than your grand-niece. My mother was
Lucy Fuller.”
“Who married the parson and died from starvation?” Uncle Phil rejoined.
And with a heightened color, Edna answered quickly:
“She married my father, sir, an Episcopal clergyman, and died when I was
a few days old.”
“Yes, yes, all the same,” Uncle Phil answered, good-humoredly. “I dare
say she was half-starved most of the time; ministers’ wives mostly are,
Episcopal ones especially. I take it you are of the Episcopal
persuasion, too?”
“I am.”
And Edna spoke up as promptly as if it were her mother she was
acknowledging.
“Yes, yes,” Uncle Phil said again; and here releasing Edna’s hand, which
he had been holding all the time, he took a huge pinch of snuff, and
then passed the box to Edna, who declined at once. “What, don’t snuff?
You miss a great deal of comfort. It’s good for digestion and
nervousness, snuff is. I’ve used it this thirty years; and you are an
Episcopalian, and proud of it, I see: jest so. I’ve no great reason to
like that sect, seeing about the only one I ever knew intimately turned
out a regular hornet, a lucifer match, the very old Harry himself;
didn’t adorn the profession; was death on Unitarians, and sent the whole
caboodle of us to perdition. She’ll be surprised to find me settin’ on
the banks of the river Jordan when she comes across, paddlin’ her own
canoe, for she _will_ paddle it, I warrant you. Nobody can help her.
Yes, yes. Such is life, take it as you find it. Maude is an Episcopal,
red-hot. I like her; maybe I’ll like you; can’t tell. Yes, yes; sit by
now, and have some victuals.”
During this conversation, Becky, who had put the dinner upon the table,
was standing in respectful silence, waiting until her master was ready,
and trembling for the fall of her light snowy crusts which she had made
for her pot-pie. But her fears were groundless; the dinner was a great
success, and Uncle Phil helped Edna bountifully, and insisted upon her
taking more gravy, and ordered Becky to bring a bottle of cider from the
cellar.
“Cider was ’most as good as snuff for digestion,” he said, as he poured
Edna a glass of the beverage, which sparkled and beaded like champagne.
On old Becky’s face there was a look of great satisfaction as she saw
her master’s attentions to the young lady, and as soon as her duties
were over at the table, she stole up the back stairs to the little
forlorn room where Edna’s trunk was standing,
“I know I kin ventur so much,” she said to herself as she lifted the
trunk and carried it into the next chamber, which had a pleasanter
lookout, and was more pretentious every way, than its small dark
neighbor.
This done Becky retired to the kitchen until dinner was over, and her
master, who was something of a gormandizer, was so gorged that three or
four pinches of snuff were requisite to aid his digestion; and then like
a stuffed anaconda he coiled himself up in his huge arm-chair and slept
soundly, while Becky cleared the table and put the room to rights.
The short wintry afternoon was drawing to a close by the time Uncle
Phil’s nap was over. He had slept heavily and snored loudly, and the
last snore awoke him. Starting up, he exclaimed:
“What’s that? Yes, yes; snored, did I? Shouldn’t wonder if I got into a
doze. Ho, you, Beck!”
His call was obeyed at once by the colored woman, who came and stood
deferentially before him.
“I say, Beck, I’m ’bout used up, what with eatin’ such an all-fired
dinner on top of jouncing along on Bobtail,—might as well ride a
Virginia fence and done with it. Can’t you do the chores? Bobtail is
fed, and the cows too.”
Becky signified her readiness to do anything her master liked, and after
bringing a tall tallow candle and adding a stick to the fire, she
departed, leaving Edna alone with Uncle Phil, who was wide-awake now,
and evidently disposed to talk.
“Now tell me all about it,” he said, suddenly facing toward Edna. “Tell
me who you are in black for, and what sent you here, and what you want,
and how you happened to know of me, when I never heard of you; but
first, what is your name? I’ll be hanged if I’ve thought to inquire.”
“Edna Louise Browning was my name until I was married.”
“Married! Thunder!” and springing from his chair, Uncle Phil took the
candle, and bringing it close to Edna’s face, scrutinized it closely.
“You married? Why, you’re nothing but a child. Married? Where was your
folks, to let you do such a silly thing? and where is he?”
“My husband is dead, was killed the very day we were married,—killed in
the cars,—and I have no folks, no home, no friends, unless you will be
one to me,” Edna replied, in a choking voice which finally broke down in
a storm of tears and sobs.
Uncle Phil did not like to see a woman cry, especially a young, pretty
woman like the one before him, but he did not know at all what to say:
so he took three pinches of snuff, one after the other, sneezing as many
times, blew his nose vigorously, and then going to the door which led
into the kitchen, called out:
“Ho, Beck! come here,—I want you.”
But Beck was watering old Bobtail, and did not hear him, so he returned
to his seat by the fire; and as Edna’s tears were dried by that time, he
asked her to go on and tell him her story. Edna had determined to keep
nothing back, and she commenced with the house by the graveyard, and the
aunt, who perhaps meant to be kind, but who did not understand children,
and made her life less happy than it might otherwise have been; then she
passed on to Canandaigua and Charlie Churchill; and while telling of him
and his friends, and where they lived, she thought once Uncle Phil was
asleep, he sat so still, with his eyes shut, and one fat leg crossed
over the other, and a pinch of snuff held tightly between his thumb and
finger. But he was not asleep, and when she mentioned Leighton Place, he
started up again and went out to Becky, who by this time was moving in
the kitchen.
“I say, Beck,” he whispered in her ear, as he gave his snuff-box a tap
with his finger, “move that gal’s band-box into the north-west chamber,
d’ye hear?”
Becky did not tell him that she had already done that, but simply
answered, “Yes, sar,” while he returned to Edna, who, wholly unconscious
of her promotion or the cause of it, continued her story, which, when
she came to the marriage and the accident, was interrupted again with
her tears, which fell in showers as she went over with the dreadful
scene, the gloomy night, the terrible storm, the capsized car, and
Charlie dead under the ruins. Uncle Phil too was excited, and walked the
room hurriedly, and took no end of snuff, and blew his nose like a
trumpet, but made no comment until she mentioned Mrs. Dana, when he
stopped walking, and said:
“Poor Sue, if she’d had a different name, I believe I’d kept her for my
own, though she wan’t over clever. Dead, you say, and left five young
ones, of course; the poorer they be the more they have. Poor little
brats. I’ll remember that. And John wanted to marry you? You did better
to come here; but where was that aunt, what d’ye call her? I don’t
remember as you told me her name.”
“Aunt Jerusha Pepper,” Edna said; whereupon something dropped from Uncle
Phil’s lip which sounded very much like “the devil!”
“What, sir?” Edna asked; and he replied:
“I was swearin’ a little. Such a name as that! Jerusha Pepper! No wonder
she was hard on you. Did you go back to her at all? and what did she
say?”
He took four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, and scattered it
about so profusely, that Edna received some in her face and moved a
little further from him, as she told him the particulars of her going
back to Aunt Jerusha, and what the result had been. She intended to
speak just as kindly and cautiously of Aunt Jerry as was possible; but
it seemed as if some influence she could not resist was urging her on,
and Uncle Phil was so much interested and drew her out so adroitly,
that, though she softened everything and omitted many things, the old
man got a pretty general impression of Aunt Jerusha Pepper, and guessed
just how desolate must be the life of any one who tried to live with
her.
“Yes, yes, I see,” he said, as Edna, frightened to think how much she
had told, tried to apologize for Aunt Jerry, and take back some things
she had said. “Yes, yes, never mind taking back. I can guess what kind
of a firebrand she is. Knew a woman once, as near like her as two peas;
might have been twins; pious, ain’t this peppercorn?”
Edna did not quite like Uncle Phil’s manner of speaking of her aunt, and
she began to defend her, saying she was in the main a very good woman,
who possessed many excellent qualities.
“Don’t doubt it in the least. Dare say she’s a saint; great on the creed
and the catechism. And she is your aunt? Ho, Beck, come here; or stop,
I’ll speak to you in the kitchen,” he said, as Becky came to the door.
The woman retreated to the kitchen fireplace, where Uncle Phil joined
her, speaking again in a whisper, and saying,—
“Look here, Beck. Take that girl’s work-bag, or whatever she brought her
things in, and carry it into the north chamber.”
“Maude’s room, sar!” Becky asked, with glistening eyes.
“Yes, Maude’s room,” Uncle Phil replied, and then went back to Edna, who
had but little more to tell, except of her resolve to come to him as the
only person in the world who was likely to take her in, or on whom she
had any claim of relationship.
“I don’t wish to be an incumbrance,” she said. “I want to earn my own
living, and at the same time be getting something with which to pay my
debts. Mr. Belknap, who brought me from the depot, thought I might get
up a select school, and if I do, maybe you will let me board here. I
should feel more at home with you than with strangers. Would you let me
stay if I could get a school?”
There certainly was something the matter with Uncle Phil’s eyes just
then.
“The pesky wind made them water,” he said, as he wiped them on his
coat-sleeves and then looked down at the girl, who had taken a stool at
his feet, and was looking anxiously into his face, as she asked if she
might stay.
“Let me be, can’t you. I’ve got a bad cold. I’ve got to go out,” he
said; and rising precipitately he rushed into the kitchen, and again
summoning old Becky, began with, “I say, Beck, make a fire in the north
chamber, a good rousing one too. It’s cold as fury; and fetch down a
rose blanket from the garret, and warm the bed with the warming-pan; the
sheets must be damp; and make some cream-toast in the morning; all
cream,—girls mostly take to that, and stew some _crambries_ to-morrow,
and kill a hen.”
Having completed his list of orders Uncle Phil returned to Edna, while
Becky, who, in anticipation of some such _dénouement_ had already made a
fire in the north and best chamber in the house, went up and added fresh
fuel to the flames, which roared, and crackled, and diffused a genial
warmth through the room. Meanwhile Uncle Phil, without directly
answering Edna’s question as to whether she could stay there, said to
her:
“And it’s seven hundred dollars you owe, with interest: three to Mr.
Leighton, and four to that Peppery woman, and you expect by teaching to
earn enough to pay it, child; you never can do that, never. Schoolma’ams
don’t get great wages round here.”
“Then I’ll hire out as a servant, or go to work in the factory. I’m not
ashamed to do anything honorable, so that it gives me money with which
to pay the debt,” Edna said, and her brown eyes were almost black with
excitement, as she walked hastily across the floor to the window, where
she stood for a moment, struggling to keep back the hot tears, and
thinking she had made a great mistake in coming to a man like Uncle
Phil, who, having regaled himself with two pinches of snuff, said:
“Look here, girl. Come back to the fire and let’s have it out.”
Something in his voice gave Edna hope that after all he was not going to
desert her, and she came back, and stood with her hand on the iron
fireplace, and her eyes fixed on him, as he said:
“You spoke of Mr. Belknap. Did he inquire your name?”
“No, sir,” was the reply.
“Did anybody inquire your name down to the depot?”
“No, sir.”
“Has Beck asked it?”
“No, sir, but I think I told her.”
“Thunder you did. Why will women tell all they know, and more too; ten
chances though she didn’t understand, she’s so blunderin’. I’ll go and
see.”
And again Uncle Phil went into the kitchen, and while pretending to
drink from the gourd, casually said to the servant:
“Ho, Beck, what’s this girl’s name in t’other room; hanged if I want to
ask her.”
Becky thought a moment and then replied: “don’t jestly remember, though
I b’lieve she told me; but I was so flustified when she came. Spects,
though, it’s Overton, seein’ she’s yer kin.”
“Yes, yes, certainly;” and Uncle Phil went back to the south room with a
very satisfied look upon his face. “See here, miss,” he began. “Your
name is _Overton_,—LOUISE OVERTON. Do you understand?”
Edna looked at him too much surprised to speak, and he continued:
“You are my niece, _Miss Overton_, _Louise Overton_, not Browning, nor
Churchill, nor Pepper-pod, nor Edna, but Louise Overton. And so I shall
introduce you to the folks in Rocky Point.”
Edna saw that he meant her to take another name than her own, and she
rebelled against it at once.
“My name is not Overton,” she said, but he interrupted her with—
“It’s _Louise_ though, according to your own statement, Edna Louise.”
“I admit that, but it is not Overton, and it would be wrong for me to
take that name, and lose my identity.”
“The very thing I want you to do,” said Uncle Phil, “and here are my
reasons, or a part of them. I like you, for various things. One, you
seem to have some vim, grit, spunk, and want to pay your debts; then, I
like you because you have had such a hard time with that Pepper woman. I
don’t blame you for running away; upon my soul I don’t. Some marry to
get rid of a body, and some don’t marry and so get rid of ’em that way.
You did the first, and got your husband’s neck broke, and got into debt
yourself, and seas of trouble. And you are my great niece. And Lucy
Fuller was your mother, and Louise Overton was your grandmother, and my
twin sister. Do you hear that, my twin sister, that I loved as I did my
life, and you must have been named for her, and there’s a look like her
in your face, all the time, and that hair which you’ve got up under a
net, but which I know by the kinks is curly as a nigger’s, is hers all
over again, color and all, and just now when you walked to the window in
a kind of huff, I could have sworn it was my sister come back again from
the grave where we buried her more than thirty years ago. Yes, you are a
second Louise. I’m an old man of sixty, and never was married, and never
shall be, and when Susan was here years ago, I thought of adopting her,
but I’ll be hanged if there was snap enough to her, and then she took
the first chap that offered, and married Dana, and that ended her. There
wasn’t a great many of us, and for what I know you are all the kin I
have, and I fancy you more than any young girl I’ve seen, unless its
Maude, and she’s no kin, which makes a difference. I’ve a mind to adopt
you, to give you my name, Overton, and if you do well I’ll remember you
in my will. Mind, I don’t propose to pay your debts. I want to see you
scratch round and do it yourself, but I’ll give you a home and help you
get scholars, or if you can’t do anything at that, help you get a place
in the factory at Millville, or in somebody’s kitchen as you mentioned.”
Uncle Phil’s eyes twinkled a little as he said this last, and looked to
see what effect it had on Edna. But she never winced or showed the
slightest emotion, and he continued:
“Nobody knows that you are a Browning, or a Churchill, or a widow, and
it’s better they shouldn’t. I saw the account of that smash-up in the
newspaper, but never guessed the girl was Louise’s grandchild. Folks
round here read it too; the papers were full of it. Charlie Churchill
hunted up in my woods one season; he’s pretty well known hereabouts.”
“Charlie, my Charlie, my husband; was he ever here, and did you know
him?” Edna asked, vehemently, and Uncle Phil replied:
“Yes, I knew him when he was a boy, though he couldn’t be much more than
that when you run off with him. His brother owns the hotel in town. We
are on different roads, but ain’t neither of us such a very great ways
from Albany, you know.”
Instantly Edna’s countenance fell.
“Roy Leighton own the hotel! then he will be coming here, and I don’t
want to see him till he is paid,” she said, in some dismay, and Uncle
Phil replied:
“He don’t often bother himself to come to Rocky Point. Never was here
more than two or three times. His agent does the business for him, and
that agent is _me_. He was here once, and I believe his mother was up
the mountain at a kind of hotel where city folks sometimes stay and make
b’lieve they like it. But this Charlie stayed in town at the tavern, and
folks——”
Here Uncle Phil stopped abruptly, and Edna, after waiting a moment for
him to proceed, said:
“Folks did not fancy Charlie. He was not popular. Is that what you want
to say? If it is, don’t be afraid to say it. I have borne much harder
things than that,” and there came a sad, sorry look upon her face. She
was thinking of her lost faith in Charlie’s integrity, and Uncle Phil of
the scandalous stories there had been about the fast young man of
eighteen who had made love to the girls indiscriminately, from little
Marcia Belknap, the farmer’s daughter, to Miss Ruth Gardner, whose
father was the great man of Rocky Point, and whose influence would do
more to help or harm Edna than that of any other person in town. But
Uncle Phil could not tell Edna all this, so he merely replied, after a
little:
“No, he wan’t very popular, that’s a fact. Young men from the cities are
different, you know, and Charles was sowing his wild oats about those
days. He passed for rich, you see; called it _my hotel_, my tenants, and
all that, when it was his brother’s.”
A sound from Edna like a sob made Uncle Phil pause abruptly and mentally
curse himself for having said so much. The truth was he had never quite
forgiven Charlie for inveigling him into loaning fifty dollars with
promises of payment as soon as he could get a draft from home. The draft
never came, but Roy did, and settled his brother’s bills and took him
away while Uncle Phil was absent, and as Charlie made no mention of his
indebtedness in that direction, the debt remained uncancelled. Several
times Uncle Phil had been on the point of writing to Roy about it, but
had neglected to do so, thinking to wait until he came to Rocky Point
again, when he would speak to him about it. But after the news of
Charlie’s tragical death was received, he abandoned the idea altogether:
“Fifty dollars would not break him,” he thought, and it was not worth
while to trouble Roy Leighton any more by letting him know just what a
scamp his brother was. So he tore up Charlie’s note and threw it into
the fire, and took a great deal of snuff that day, and stayed till it
was pitch dark at the hotel where they were discussing the accident, and
commenting upon poor Charlie, whose virtues now were named before his
faults. Mention was made of him in the minister’s sermon the next
Sunday, and it was observed that Miss Ruth Gardner cried softly under
her veil, and that pretty Marcia Belknap looked a little pale, and after
that the excitement gradually died away, and people ceased to talk of
Charlie Churchill and his unfortunate end. But they would do so again,
and the whole town would be alive with wonder if it once were known that
the young girl in black at Uncle Phil Overton’s was Charlie Churchill’s
widow. Ruth Gardner’s pale-gray eyes would scan her coldly and harshly,
while even Marcia Belknap would, perhaps, draw back from one who all
unknowingly had been her rival. This Uncle Phil foresaw, and hence his
proposition that Edna should bear his name and drop that of Churchill,
which was pretty sure to betray her. And after a time he persuaded her
to do it.
“You are already Louise,” he said, as Edna questioned the right in the
matter. “And inasmuch as I adopt you for my daughter, it is right and
proper that you take my name, is it not?”
“Perhaps so,” Edna replied faintly; “but I shall have to tell Aunt
Jerry, and Mr. Heyford too. I promised him I would write as soon as I
was located in business.”
To this, Uncle Phil did not object, provided Jack Heyford kept his own
counsel, as Edna was sure he would. With regard to Miss Pepper, he made
no remonstrance. He did not seem to fear _her_, but surprised Edna with
the question,
“What sort of a looking craft is this Pepper woman?”
Edna, who felt that she might have told too much that was prejudicial to
her aunt, gladly seized the opportunity to make amends by praising her
personal appearance.
“Aunt Jerry dresses so queerly that one can hardly tell how she does
look,” she said, “but if she only wore clothes like other people, I
think she’d be real handsome for her age. She was pretty once, I’m sure,
for she has a nice, fair complexion now, and her neck and arms are
plumper and whiter than a Mrs. Fosbook’s, whom I saw barenecked and
short-sleeved at a sociable in Canandaigua. Her hair is soft and wavy,
and she has so much of it, too, but will twist it into such a hard knot
always, when she might make such a lovely waterfall.”
“Do you mean those things that hang down your back like a work-bag?”
Uncle Phil asked, laughing louder and longer than Edna thought the
occasion warranted, especially as he did not know Miss Pepper, and how
out of place a waterfall would be upon her.
“What of her eyes?” he asked, and Edna replied—“bright and black as jet
beads.”
“And snap like a snap-dragon, I’ll bet,” Uncle Phil rejoined, adding,
after a moment, “I’d really like to see this kinswoman of yours. Tell
her so when you write, and say she’s welcome to bed and board whenever
she chooses to come, and there’s an Episcopal meeting-house over to
Millville, and she can have old Bobtail every saint’s day in the
calendar.”
There was a perfect shower of snuff after this, and then Uncle Phil
questioned Edna as to what she thought she could teach, and how much she
expected to get for each scholar; then he summoned Becky and ordered
cider, and apples, and fried cakes, and butternuts, and made Edna try
them all, and told her about her grandmother Louise when she was a girl,
and then, precisely as the clock pointed to nine, called Becky again,
and bade her show _Miss Overton_ to her room.
“I breakfast sharp at half-past seven,” he said to Edna; “but if you
feel inclined, lie as long as you please, though I can’t say but I’d
like to see a fresh young face across the table. Maude generally was
up.”
“I shall be up too,” Edna said, as she stood a moment in the door
looking at her uncle; then, as she remembered all the kindness he had
shown to her, there came over her with a rush the hunger she had always
felt for something missed in childhood, and without stopping to think,
she walked boldly up to the little man, and said, “Uncle Phil, nobody
ever kissed me good-night since I can remember; none of my relatives I
mean; will you do so?”
Uncle Phil was confounded. It was more than thirty years since he had
kissed anybody, and he began to gather up his short coat skirts and
hop,—first on one foot, then on the other, and look behind him toward
the door in a kind of helpless way, as if meditating flight But Edna
stood her ground, and put up her full, red lips so temptingly, that with
a hurried “bless me, girl, bless me, I don’t know ’bout this. Yes, yes,
I feel very queer and curis,” Uncle Phil submitted, and suffered Edna’s
kiss, and as her lips touched his, he clasped both arms about her neck,
and kissed her back heartily, while with a trembling voice, he said,
“Heaven bless you, my child, my daughter, Louise Overton. I’m a rough
old fellow, but I’ll do my duty to you.”
There was a tear on Edna’s cheek, left there by Uncle Phil, and Edna
accepted it as the baptism for her new name, and felt more resigned to
“Louise Overton,” as she followed Becky upstairs to the north room,
where the bright fire was making shadows on the wall, and diffusing a
delightful feeling of warmth throughout the apartment