THE UNWELCOME GUEST
Abner and Esther stood for a bewildered minute, staring at the rough
unpainted boards through which this astonishing inquiry had come. I
scrambled to my feet and kicked aside the tick and blankets. Whatever
else happened, it did not seem likely that there was any more sleeping
to be done. Then the farmer strode forward and dragged one of the doors
back on its squeaking rollers. Some snow fell in upon his boots from
the ridge that had formed against it over night. Save for a vaguely
faint snow-light in the air, it was still dark.
“Yes, she's here,” said Abner, with his hand on the open door.
“Then I'd like to know—” the invisible Jee began excitedly shouting
from without.
“Sh-h! You'll wake everybody up!” the farmer interposed. “Come inside,
so that I can shut the door.”
“Never under your roof!” came back the shrill hostile voice. “I swore I
never would, and I won't!”
“You'd have to take a crowbar to get under my roof,” returned Abner,
grimly conscious of a certain humor in the thought. “What's left of it
is layin' over yonder in what used to be the cellar. So you needn't
stand on ceremony on _that_ account. I ain't got no house now, so't
your oath ain't bindin'. Besides, the Bible says, ‘Swear not at all!’”
A momentary silence ensued; then Abner rattled the door on its wheels.
“Well, what are you goin' to do?” he asked, impatiently. “I can't keep
this door open all night, freezin' everybody to death. If you won't
come in, you'll have to stay out!” and again there was an ominous
creaking of the rollers.
“I want my da'ater!” insisted Jehoiada, vehemently. “I stan' on a
father's rights.”
“A father ain't got no more right to make a fool of himself than
anybody else,” replied Abner, gravely. “What kind of a time o' night
is this, with the snow knee-deep, for a girl to be out o' doors? She's
all right here, with my women-folks, an' I'll bring her down with the
cutter in the mornin'—that is, if she wants to come. An' now, once for
all, will you step inside or not?”
Esther had taken up the lantern and advanced with it now to the
open door. “Come in, father,” she said, in tones which seemed to be
authoritative. “They've been very kind to me. Come in!”
Then, to my surprise, the lean and scrawny figure of the cooper emerged
from the darkness, and stepping high over the snow, entered the barn,
Abner sending the door to behind him with a mighty sweep of the arm.
Old Hagadorn came in grumbling under his breath, and stamping the snow
from his feet with sullen kicks. He bore a sledge-stake in one of his
mittened hands. A worsted comforter was wrapped around his neck and
ears and partially over his conical-peaked cap. He rubbed his long thin
nose against his mitten and blinked sulkily at the lantern and the girl
who held it.
“So here you be!” he said at last, in vexed tones. “An' me traipsin'
around in the snow the best part of the night lookin' for you!”
“See here, father,” said Esther, speaking in a measured, deliberate
way, “we won't talk about that at all. If a thousand times worse
things had happened to both of us than have, it still wouldn't be worth
mentioning compared with what has befallen these good people here.
They've been attacked by a mob of rowdies and loafers, and had their
house and home burned down over their heads and been driven to take
refuge here in this barn of a winter's night. They've shared their
shelter with me and been kindness itself, and now that you're here, if
you can't think of anything pleasant to say to them, if I were you I'd
say nothing at all.”
This was plain talk, but it seemed to produce a satisfactory effect
upon Jehoiada. He unwound his comforter enough to liberate his
straggling sandy beard and took off his mittens. After a moment or
two he seated himself in the chair, with a murmured “I'm jest about
tuckered out,” in apology for the action. He did, in truth, present a
woeful picture of fatigue and physical feebleness, now that we saw him
in repose. The bones seemed ready to start through the parchment-like
skin on his gaunt cheeks, and his eyes glowed with an unhealthy fire,
as he sat, breathing hard and staring at the jumbled heaps of furniture
on the floor.
Esther had put the lantern again on the box and drawn forward a
chair for Abner, but the farmer declined it with a wave of the hand
and continued to stand in the background, looking his ancient enemy
over from head to foot with a meditative gaze. Jehoiada grew visibly
nervous under this inspection; he fidgeted on his chair and then fell
to coughing—a dry, rasping cough which had an evil sound, and which he
seemed to make the worse by fumbling aimlessly at the button that held
the overcoat collar round his throat.
At last Abner walked slowly over to the shadowed masses of piled-up
household things and lifted out one of the drawers that had been taken
from the framework of the bureau and brought over with their contents.
Apparently it was not the right one, for he dragged aside a good many
objects to get at another, and rummaged about in this for several
minutes. Then he came out again into the small segment of the lantern's
radiance with a pair of long thick woolen stockings of his own in his
hand.
“You better pull off them wet boots an' draw these on,” he said,
addressing Hagadorn, but looking fixedly just over his head. “It won't
do that cough o' yours no good, settin' around with wet feet.”
The cooper looked in a puzzled way at the huge butternut-yarn stockings
held out under his nose, but he seemed too much taken aback to speak or
to offer to touch them.
“Yes, father!” said Esther, with quite an air of command. “You know
what that cough means,” and straightway Hagadorn lifted one of his feet
to his knee and started tugging at the boot-heel in a desultory way. He
desisted after a few half-hearted attempts, and began coughing again,
this time more distressingly than ever.
His daughter sprang forward to help him, but Abner pushed her aside,
put the stockings under his arm, and himself undertook the job. He did
not bend his back overmuch, but hoisted Jee's foot well in the air and
pulled.
“Brace your foot agi'n mine an' hold on to the chair!” he ordered,
sharply, for the first effect of his herculean pull had been to nearly
drag the cooper to the floor. He went at it more gently now, easing
the soaked leather up and down over the instep until the boots were
off. He looked furtively at the bottoms of these before he tossed them
aside, noting, no doubt, as I did, how old and broken and run down at
the heel they were. Jee himself peeled off the drenched stockings, and
they too were flimsy old things, darned and mended almost out of their
original color.
These facts served only to deepen my existing low opinion of Hagadorn,
but they appeared to affect Abner Beech differently. He stood by and
watched the cooper dry his feet and then draw on the warm dry hose over
his shrunken shanks, with almost a friendly interest. Then he shoved
along one of the blankets across the floor to Hagadorn's chair that he
might wrap his feet in it.
“That's it,” he said, approvingly. “They ain't no means o' building a
fire here right now, but as luck would have it we'd jest set up an old
kitchen stove in the little cow-barn to warm up gruel for the ca'aves
with, an' the first thing we'll do'll be to rig it up in here to cook
breakfast by, an' then we'll dry them boots o' yourn in no time. You go
an' pour some oats into 'em now,” Abner added, turning to me. “And you
might as well call Hurley. We've got considerable to do, an' daylight's
breakin'.”
The Irishman lay on his back where I had left him, still snoring
tempestuously. As a rule he was a light sleeper, but this time I had
to shake him again and again before he understood that it was morning.
I opened the side-door, and sure enough, the day had begun. The clouds
had cleared away. The sky was still ashen gray overhead, but the light
from the horizon, added to the whiteness of the unaccustomed snow,
rendered it quite easy to see one's way about inside. I went to the
oat-bin.
Hurley, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, regarded me and my task with
curiosity. “An' is it a stovepipe for a measure ye have?” he asked.
“No; it's one of Jee Hagadorn's boots,” I replied. “I'm filling 'em
so't they'll swell when they're dry in'.”
He slid down off the hay as if someone had pushed him. “What's that ye
say? Haggydorn? _Ould_ Haggydorn?” he demanded.
I nodded assent. “Yes, he's inside with Abner,” I explained. “An'
he's got on Abner's stockin's, an' it looks like he's goin' to stay to
breakfast.”
Hurley opened his mouth in sheer surprise and gazed at me with hanging
jaw and round eyes.
“'Tis the fever that's on ye,” he said, at last. “Ye're wandherin' in
yer mind!”
“You just go in and see for yourself,” I replied, and Hurley promptly
took me at my word.
He came back presently, turning the corner of the stanchions in a
depressed and rambling way, quite at variance with his accustomed
swinging gait. He hung his head, too, and shook it over and over again
perplexedly.
“Abner 'n' me'll be bringin' in the stove,” he said. “'Tis not fit for
you to go out wid that sickness on ye.”
“Well, anyway,” I retorted, “you see I wasn't wanderin' much in my
mind.”
Hurley shook his head again. “Well, then,” he began, lapsing into
deep brogue and speaking rapidly, “I've meself seen the woman wid the
head of a horse on her in the lake forninst the Three Castles, an'
me sister's first man, sure he broke down the ditch round-about the
Danes' fort on Dunkelly, an' a foine grand young man, small for his
strength an' wid a red cap on his head, flew out an' wint up in the
sky, an' whin he related it up comes Father Forrest to him in the
potaties, an' says he, ‘I do be suprised wid you, O'Driscoll, for to
be relatin' such loies.’ ‘I'll take me Bible oat' on 'em!’ says he.
‘'Tis your imagination!’ says the priest. ‘No imagination at all!’
says O'Driscoll; ‘sure, I saw it wid dese two eyes, as plain as I'm
lookin' at your riverence, an' a far grander sight it was too!’ An' me
own mother, faith, manny's the toime I've seen her makin' up dhrops
for the yellow sicknest wid woodlice, an' sayin' Hail Marys over 'em,
an' thim same 'ud cure annything from sore teeth to a wooden leg for
moiles round. But, saints help me! I never seen the loikes o' _this_!
Haggydorn is it? _Ould_ Haggydorn! _Huh!_”
Then the Irishman, still with a dejected air, started off across the
yard through the snow to the cow-barns, mumbling to himself as he went.
I had heard Abner's heavy tread coming along the stanchions toward me,
but now all at once it stopped. The farmer's wife had followed him
into the passage, and he had halted to speak with her.
“They ain't no two ways about it, mother,” he expostulated. “We jest
got to put the best face on it we kin, an' act civil, an' pass the time
o' day as if nothing'd ever happened atween us. He'll be goin' the
first thing after breakfast.”
“Oh! I ain't agoin' to sass him, or say anything uncivil,” M'rye broke
in, reassuringly. “What I mean is, I dont want to come into the for'ard
end of the barn at all. They ain't no need of it. I kin cook the
breakfast in back, and Janey kin fetch it for'ard for yeh, an' nobody
need say anythin', or be any the wiser.”
“Yes, I know,” argued Abner, “but there's the looks o' the thing, _I_
say, if you're goin' to do a thing, why, do it right up to the handle,
or else don't do it at all. An' then there's the girl to consider, and
_her_ feelin's.”
“Dunno't her feelin's are such a pesky sight more importance than other
folkses,” remarked M'rye, callously.
This unaccustomed recalcitrancy seemed to take Abner aback. He moved
a few steps forward, so that he became visible from where I stood,
then halted again and turned, his shoulders rounded, his hands clasped
behind his back. I could see him regarding M'rye from under his broad
hat-brim with a gaze at once dubious and severe.
“I ain't much in the habit o' hearin' you talk this way to me, mother,”
he said at last, with grave depth of tones and significant deliberation.
“Well, I can't help it, Abner!” rejoined M'rye, bursting forth in
vehement utterance, all the more excited from the necessity she felt
of keeping it out of hearing of the unwelcome guest. “I don't want to
do anything to aggravate you, or go contrary to your notions, but with
even the willin'est pack-horse there is such a thing as pilin' it on
too thick. I can stan' bein' burnt out o' house 'n' home, an' seein'
pretty nigh every rag an' stick I had in the world go kitin' up the
chimney, an' campin' out here in a barn—My Glory, yes!—an' as much
more on top o' that, but, I tell you flat-footed, I can't stomach Jee
Hagadorn, an' I _won't_!”
Abner continued to contemplate the revolted M'rye with displeased
amazement written all over his face. Once or twice I thought he was
going to speak, but nothing came of it. He only looked and looked, as
if he had the greatest difficulty in crediting what he saw.
Finally, with a deep-chested sigh, he turned again. “I s'pose this is
still more or less of a free country,” he said. “If you're sot on it, I
can't hender you,” and he began walking once more toward me.
M'rye followed him out and put a hand on his arm. “Don't go off like
that, Abner!” she adjured him. “You _know_ there ain't nothin' in this
whole wide world I wouldn't do to please you—if I _could_! But this
thing jest goes ag'in' my grain. It's the way folks are made. It's your
nater to be forgivin' an' do good to them that despitefully use you.”
“No, it ain't!” declared Abner, vigorously. “No, sirree! ‘Hold fast’ is
my nater. I stan' out ag'in' my enemies till the last cow comes home.
But when they come wadin' in through the snow, with their feet soppin'
wet, an' coughin' fit to turn themselves inside out, an' their daughter
is there, an' you've sort o' made it up with her, an' we're all campin'
out in a barn, don't you see—”
“No, I can't see it,” replied M'rye, regretful but firm. “They always
said we Ramswells had Injun blood in us somewhere. An' when I get an
Injun streak on me, right down in the marrow o' my bones, why, you
musn't blame me—or feel hard if—if I—”
“No-o,” said Abner, with reluctant conviction, “I s'pose not. I dare
say you're actin' accordin' to your lights. An' besides, he'll be goin'
the first thing after breakfast.”
“An' you ain't mad, Abner?” pleaded M'rye, almost tremulously, as if
frightened at the dimensions of the victory she had won.
“Why, bless your heart, no,” answered the farmer, with a glaring
simulation of easy-mindedness. “No—that's all right, mother!”
Then with long heavy-footed strides the farmer marched past me and out
into the cow-yard.