SOME HINGHAM CALLS.
“Phronsie,” said Joel desperately, “I can’t take Miss Loughead with us.”
“O Joey! you promised,” said Phronsie in a grieved way.
“But I can’t do it--do beg off for me some way. Why, it’s impossible
for me to look the girl in the face after what I’ve said. How I could
ever have spoken so, I don’t see,” went on Joel remorsefully.
Phronsie was about to say something; but thinking better of it, she
only smiled comfortingly.
“Do, will you, Phronsie?” begged Joel in a wheedling way.
“I think you ought to take Amy all the more because you did speak so,
Joel,” said Phronsie quietly, “so I cannot speak for you, dear.”
Joel turned off, and ground his boot into the gravel. “All right,
Phronsie,” he said, turning around.
But just here Grandpapa came around the curve in the path. “Phronsie,
you will drive me in your cart,” he said.
“Shall I, Grandpapa?”
“Yes, dear; and tell Johnson to put my bay in.”
“Yes, Grandpapa.” Phronsie looked at Joel. His black eyes said, just as
when a boy he had been delighted at anything, “Oh, goody! now I sha’n’t
have to drive that girl to Hingham.”
Phronsie answered the look by, “O Joel! now it will help to make up for
what you said; as you can take Amy Loughead over alone, and that’ll
show her you are sorry.”
Joel’s face lengthened. “Really, Phronsie?”
“I would,” said Phronsie; then she ran off to get ready.
“Miss Loughead,” said Joel awkwardly, going into the music-room where
she stood alone, turning over some of Polly’s music, “I don’t know as
you’ll go with me--I’m sure I shouldn’t, if the cases were reversed;
but I was to take my sister Phronsie and you on the driving-party to
the Glen yesterday, you know.” He paused, having come to the length of
his chain, and stared helplessly at her.
“Yes,” said Amy.
“Well, now it’s Hingham, instead; and Grandpapa wants Phronsie to go
with him, so it leaves you and me out in the cold,” he said with an
attempt at a laugh.
Amy said nothing, so he had to plunge on. “And if you’ll be willing
under the circumstances to let me drive you, why, I’ll do it,” finished
Joel desperately.
“Do you wish to, Mr. Pepper?” asked Amy, raising a pair of clear blue
eyes to his, “because do not really try to do it--to--make up--for
anything. I’d rather you didn’t,” she said earnestly.
“I do wish it,” said Joel heartily, “if you are willing--that’s the
question. Miss Loughead, I never was so sorry in all my life for
anything,” he declared; and he hung his head, wishing he were small
enough to be whipped, and be done with it.
“Don’t feel distressed about it,” said Amy. “I was a little goose, Mr.
Pepper, in the old days; and I just wasted my time, and I wouldn’t
study; and I worried Polly dreadfully.” It was now her turn to look
distressed, and Joel cried out, “Don’t look so, I beg of you.”
“And you were quite right in believing I couldn’t, or I wouldn’t, study
now,” said Amy. “I don’t blame you, Mr. Pepper.” She put out her hand,
which Joel seized remorsefully.
“Will you go?” he cried eagerly, and hanging to it,--“will you?”
“Yes, I will go,” said Amy Loughead, pulling away her hand, and smiling
brightly.
“Oh, beg pardon!” ejaculated Joel, backing off, “I was thinking it was
Phronsie.” Then in hurried Robert Bingley.
“Miss Loughead, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. May I have the
pleasure of driving you to Hingham this morning?”
“I am going with Mr. Joel Pepper,” said Amy. And Joel heard his friend
Bingley say, “Whew!” and he meant to have it out with him some time for
that.
At last they were off,--Mrs. Higby, shading her eyes with her hand,
watched them from the upper door,--all but Jasper, who went as usual
with the “little publishing bag” to town in the early train. The
children were distributed evenly throughout the party on the drag;
Polly and Grace Tupper, Ben and David were on horseback; and Grandpapa
and Phronsie led off in the dog-cart merrily; while Joel and Amy
Loughead brought up the rear, the interval being filled by a big
beach-wagon. When Robert Bingley found how it was, he clambered into
this last, without a sign on his face that he didn’t choose that place
to begin with.
“Well, really,” observed Percy, adjusting his monocle with importance,
“this road looks exactly like all country roads--don’t you know.”
Van, on the back seat with Gladys Ray, grinned. “Astonishing fact,” he
whispered to her. “It’s his monocle that does that.”
“Polly wouldn’t like it to have you make fun of your brother,” she said.
Van colored up to the roots of his light hair. “I’m glad you’re going
to be like Polly, Gladys,” he said, “and keep me straight.”
“Indeed, I’m not going to keep you straight,” she cried with spirit;
“you’ve got to keep yourself straight. But I shall say things that
I’ve heard the Peppers say, for it’s good for you to hear them.”
“Isn’t this fine,” cried David, riding up to the side of the trap--“eh,
Joe? Doesn’t it take you back to the days when we used to race barefoot
along this Hingham road?”
“That it does,” cried Joel, in huge delight, and raised back to his
self-esteem by the quiet poise of the girl beside him, who evidently
meant to take everything as it had been before his cruel and unlucky
speech. “She’s one girl in a thousand for sense and a good heart,” said
Joel to himself many times on the drive. “Nobody else but Polly and
Phronsie could have done it.”
When they reached Hingham, as they did in good time, it was an easy
matter to find Abiel Babbidge’s house. Everybody knew him, and could
tell the old yellow house, run down at the heel, as it were, set back
from the side road. All around it lay one of the New England farms,
whose principal crop seemed to be stones, which, if removed, would
leave not much else. “Good gracious me!” ejaculated old Mr. King, as
Phronsie turned the bay up the scraggly wagon-path to the door.
The whole procession came to a halt. “Phronsie,” said Grandpapa, “you’d
better ask to see Mrs. Babbidge. I’ll tackle him if he is home.”
“Shall I, Grandpapa?” asked Phronsie, getting out.
“Oh, let me!” howled Elyot, trying to spring off from the drag. “I want
to see my nice Mr. Babbidge.”
“And me too,” cried Barby; “let me too!”
King was consumed with envy, and so was Johnny Fargo, because they
had no former acquaintance to plead. “I wouldn’t,” he said, laying a
restraining hand on Elyot’s jacket.
“You let me alone,” cried Elyot crossly, and twitching himself free.
“You don’t know my Mr. Babbidge. Oh, _do_ let me get down!”
“So you shall, dear,” said Polly, riding up to the side of the drag,
“and Barby. Run along now, chickens,” as somebody lifted Barby down and
set her on the ground, “and call your Mr. Babbidge out. We all want to
see him.”
Thereupon King and Johnny screamed for permission to get down, which
being accorded, they whooped off also, and disappeared around the house
in the direction of the dilapidated barn.
Presently Abiel Babbidge appeared, shambling and shamefaced, with one
of the King children hanging to either hand,--the other boys trying to
catch on somewhere, and not succeeding very well.
Polly reined her horse up to his side. “How do you do, Mr. Babbidge?”
she said, putting out her dainty riding-glove. “I am the children’s
mother, and I want to thank you for all the kind care you gave them
yesterday.”
“O Moses and Methuselah!” exclaimed Abiel Babbidge, startled out of any
sort of manners; “ye be! Why, I can’t tech ye’re hand with this.” He
extricated one of his horny palms from Barby’s grasp, and held it up to
her.
Polly shook it warmly. “I cannot thank you, Mr. Babbidge, as I want
to. May I see your wife?” and she rode up to the old horse-block and
dismounted.
Abiel Babbidge’s face fell. “My wife is sick,” he said slowly, and
something like a tear fell from his eye. Elyot pulled away his hand,
and looked up in astonishment at him.
“I know she is not well,” said Polly gently; “but I thought perhaps you
would think she could see me and my sister,” taking Phronsie’s hand.
“But not if you do not think best, Mr. Babbidge.”
“Ye may,” said Mr. Babbidge abruptly. “I declar to gracious I sh’d be
glad to have her see ye both. ’Twould bring her right up, mebbe.”
Old Mr. King got slowly out of the dog-cart while Mr. Babbidge was
escorting Polly and Phronsie in. On the top step, Polly turned and
said softly, “Now run away, children, and don’t make a noise under the
window.”
“Oh, we’re going in!” cried Elyot, pushing with all his might to get in
first.
“Mamma says not,” said Polly; and they tumbled back quickly, and
swarmed into the dog-cart to wait with Grandpapa.
In a few minutes out came Mr. Babbidge’s head and shoulders in the
doorway. “They want ye,” he nodded to old Mr. King; who, mightily
pleased to be summoned, wended his way to the steps.
“Somebody come and sit with those youngsters,” he cried, shaking his
walking-stick at the bunch of them in the cart. So Ben got out of the
drag, and ran up just in time to save the bay from getting a smart
thwack from the whip that Johnny Fargo had captured.
“The next boy that gets hold of that whip will tumble out of this
cart,” said Ben decidedly.
Polly sat by the side of the bed in the old bedroom that opened out
of the kitchen, Phronsie stood by the foot, as Abiel Babbidge said
to Mr. King, “There’s my wife, sir,” and pointed to the bed. Under
the old patched bedquilt she lay, propped up by pillows; everything
marvellously neat, but oh, so coarse and poor! She had a smile on her
thin face; and her hand, all drawn up with rheumatism, was extended in
simple courtesy of an old-time pattern.
“Oh! how do you do, madam?” said old Mr. King much shocked, and for the
life of him not knowing what to say.
But Mrs. Babbidge knew no embarrassment. She asked her husband to get
some more chairs from the kitchen and bring in; and when he, big and
awkward, knocked down more things in the carrying out of this request
than he could pause to pick up, she passed it serenely over, and smiled
at him just the same.
Polly felt the tears in her eyes, in spite of all her efforts to keep
them out. “Dear Mrs. Babbidge,” she said gently, “you know a mother
who has had her little children restored to her as I have, and largely
through your good husband’s kindness,”--here Mrs. Babbidge sent a
proud glance over at him, at which he blushed like a girl under his
big farmer’s hat he forgot to take off,--“finds it hard to express her
thanks; and so I brought you, from my husband and from me, a little
gift.” Here Polly laid down a small parcel on the patched bedquilt, and
tucked it under one of the drawn and twisted hands.
“How about the Scrannage ladies?” asked old Mr. King, drawing Abiel off
to a corner; “they’re pretty well off, I expect.”
“They hain’t got much but pride,” said Abiel, shifting from one foot to
another, “but enough o’ that to carry this hull town.”
“Poor, are they?” asked the old gentleman.
“Poor--well I should say so; why, I guess it comes hard on ’em to keep
a cat. But then they’d rather starve themselves than to scrimp her. But
they’re monstrous ginteel.”
“Dear, dear!” said the old gentleman, with great concern.
“Ye see, they’re a-workin’ to pay off that there mortgage the old
squire left; been a-workin’ on’t for twenty year now, an’ mos’ likely
they’ll die a-workin’ on’t; but then ‘we _will_ die a-workin’ on’t,’ as
Miss Sally said to me only t’other day; and bless my buttons, so she
will,” declared Mr. Babbidge, slapping his knee.
“How much is it?” asked old Mr. King.
“Five hundred dollars,” said Abiel.
“Five hundred dollars!” repeated the old gentleman.
“Yes, ’tis, every bit; awful, ain’t it; ’cause they’re wimmen, an’
there ain’t no way for ’em to arn money, only to make jell.”
“They wouldn’t accept a little gift, you think?” asked the old
gentleman suddenly, “not if she was to give it,” pointing to Polly, “or
her sister?”
“Massy sakes--no,” cried Abiel in alarm; “they’d set the dorg on you;
that is, Miss Sally would, if she had a dorg. They wouldn’t take it
from the angel Gabrel.”
Nevertheless, when they went out of the Babbidge household, the old
gentleman had made up his mind to something; and, by the time they were
on the way homeward, he announced to the rest of the procession, “We
are going down to the Scrannage house.”
[Illustration: “There now, it’s done, Grandpapa, dear,” said Phronsie,
tucking the bit of paper under the old door.]
And down to the “Scrannage house” they went. There it stood, by the
lilac-bushes, with its flag walk between the rows of ancient box; its
blue-green blinds, and its big-knockered door--just as it had stood in
the old squire’s time, with a mortgage on it.
The whole procession drew up silently. “You all sit still,” commanded
the old gentleman. “Phronsie, you come with me.” So, Ben hopping into
the dog-cart again to hold the bay, the two passed up between the rows
of box, and halted at the blue-green door.
“Now, Phronsie, I want you to help me,” said Grandpapa, “because that
Miss Sally Scrannage is truly awful to deal with. But whether she likes
it or not, child, I’m going to lift that mortgage.”
“O Grandpapa, I’m so glad!” exclaimed Phronsie, the sunlight all in her
eyes.
“So,” said the old gentleman, “get behind the lilac-bush here, child;”
and he took out a paper from his pocket-book that proved to be a check,
filled it out, and handed it to Phronsie. “Now stick it under the door,
Phronsie; the crack’s big enough. And when they get home, and find it,
and that Miss Sally comes for me, I can tell her you did it.”
“I will do it, Grandpapa,” said Phronsie, running off happily, to tuck
the bit of paper under the old door. “There, now, it’s done, Grandpapa
dear. And I am so glad.”
“And now let us get in, and drive off like hot shot,” exclaimed the old
gentleman, hurrying down the path. “I really feel as if I heard Miss
Sally after us now.”