INDIAN SUMMER
TRUTH is immortal, and one truth is that there cannot be two pursuers in
the game of love.
After the night of the first revival service Uncle Ambrose, making no
further visits to the Red Farm, it was the woman who set herself to lure
him back again.
In the first place, he had by then convinced her that her mistrust had
been unjust and that she had listened to suggestion that was not
evidence. So there was but one way by which the widow felt she could
make reparation and restore peace between herself and Ambrose Thompson.
She must find out the name of Sam's father, for necessarily the boy had
to have two parents, and the mother she had known as she had come
frequently to the farm on visits to her son up to the time of her death.
The original informant mentioned in the Bible was a female: "And the
damsel ran, and told them of her mother's house these things."
Therefore after a certain period of effort the boy Sam himself drove one
afternoon into Pennyroyal bearing three perfumed notes written by the
widow which he was to carefully deliver at the post-office.
The next afternoon, along about four o'clock, three men appearing in the
village street at almost the same time were seen to start off in the
direction of the Widow Tarwater's farm. Not that they were together,
certainly not; for some little time they were even unconscious of each
other's destination. Ambrose, however, made the discovery first, since
owing to the enfeebled condition of his livery-stable horse and the
disabled state of his prehistoric gig he was compelled to be in the rear
of the procession, which was headed by the Honorable Calvin on a high
black charger and seconded by the Rev. Mr. Tupper in a neat phaeton
drawn by a fat pony.
The tall man could have vowed that the best parlour at the Red Farm had
not been changed in more than three decades, except that a criminal
looking portrait done in crayons of the Widow Tarwater's late husband,
who had been an uncommonly handsome man, hung over the mantel, for there
in the same dark corner and on the identical sofa sat Peachy, but a far
more flushed and emotional Peachy than her former admirer recalled.
For indeed the widow's cheeks were burning, her mouth tremulous like a
worried child's, and after her first greeting of her three visitors, she
continued twisting her handkerchief in and out of her fingers, trying to
speak and yet plainly not finding courage. So conspicuously was she
needing consolation that Uncle Ambrose's long arm fairly ached to
accommodate its length to her large waist, nevertheless the presence of
his rivals, who may or may not have been suffering from the same
pressure, deterred him.
"Ambrose," so much the widow did get out, turning her eyes away from the
encouragement she might have received from the ardour of two other
glances, to rest them on her older friend, "I feel it my duty, having
lately acted kind of suspicious to you, to tell you that I now know who
the boy Sam's father is, was----" And Peachy fell to sobbing now in such
earnest that she was compelled to bury her flushed face in her
handkerchief.
Two of the men stared; many hopeful things had each of them anticipated
in this hasty summons from the widow, but not this confession. However,
the third man, hopping up, began striding rather irritably about the
room.
"If his father was, then fer the land sakes, Peachy, keep it to
yourself; 'taint a mortal bit er use startin' things on a dead man."
But whether the widow belonged to the large group of females with a
passion for martyrdom or whether she was less a martyr in telling her
secret than in keeping it, who shall say? For in reply she shook her
head, removing her handkerchief, though permitting her tears to flow
faster than ever.
"My late husband was this boy Sam's father," she went on quickly, once
she had fairly started. "I might have guessed it years agone if I'd ever
thought on it; seems like I can recall now numbers of times when he
tried to tell me this himself, and as he was so often askin' me to be
kind to Sam and give him a chance I more'n half took a dislike to the
lad. Lately I've been goin' through some old papers and, well, there
ain't no more to be said 'ceptin' as I've no children of my own I'm
goin' to make this Sam my heir; I've already writ out the papers."
With the ending of this speech Uncle Ambrose enjoyed one of the most
exquisite moments of his later years. Not that he was so transfigured by
the proof of his own innocence, since the annoyance that the scandal had
caused had passed that evening in church, and most certainly not because
he enjoyed hearing the reputation of Peachy's former husband damaged,
but because the expressions on the faces of his rivals proved what his
wits had already discovered, that the two men were not after the widow
for herself, but because of the abundance and fruitfulness of her
fields.
What the widow herself saw it was impossible to tell, for almost
immediately after, with her face still buried in her handkerchief, she
left the room, and the three men could see her through the window
hurrying across the front lawn.
Left alone, the Honorable Calvin was the first to speak. Drawing out a
delicately scented white handkerchief he wiped a slight dampness from
about his lips. "I suppose the widow does not fully understand this boy
has no legal claim on her," he said thoughtfully.
The minister sighed, waving a fat hand. "A little remembrance, say a
thousand dollars or so, as a start in life would be quite sufficient."
Uncle Ambrose smiled. "I reckon you gentlemen had better talk this
matter over with Mrs. Tarwater. Women have such foolish, softhearted
ways of tryin' to save the innocent and help the guilty when they're
able; 'taint law and 'taint gospel, mebbe, but it's woman."
Then seeing that the legislator had risen to his feet with the first
understanding of his suggestion the tall man laid a firm hand on him.
"Better let Brother Elias have the first show, Mr. Jones," he drawled;
"seems no more'n proper respect to pay the gospel."
So both men waited ten minutes or more, the Honorable Calvin glowering
and fidgeting, while Uncle Ambrose, whatever his inner stirrings,
remained imperturbably calm until, seeing a stout figure returning to
unhitch his pony, with his face wearing an expression more of sorrow
than of anger, Mr. Jones waited for no further advice.
Left alone, Uncle Ambrose betrayed his real feelings. First, he looked
at himself in a small triple mirror on the mantel, carefully combing
with a little pocket comb the thin hairs well to the front of his head
over his increasing bald spot, and afterward he walked restlessly about
the great room, finally arriving at the window. It was always Calvin
Jones he had feared. "Good looks and a silver tongue! Lord, what a
combination!"
The sun was now going down at the edge of the Kentucky landscape, in the
fields the grain had been cut and stacked and golden pumpkins were lying
between the piled up mounds of hay and corn. Over the tips of the grass,
which still showed green, autumn leaves were swirling, and hovering
above, and through it all a fine, thin mist which might be the coming
blight of winter or the lingering spirit of the summer's warmth.
Crossing a meadow and moving toward a big red barn, Uncle Ambrose soon
spied Sam driving a long line of cows toward home. With a leap his long
legs carried him out the window and swiftly across the yard. "Hullo!" he
cried while still some distance away.
The boy's face reddened, but this time from sheer pleasure. "Hullo!" he
cried, all his sullenness and resentment gone. And in a few moments the
older man's lean, strong fingers held the boy's short stocky hand in a
hard clasp. "I am glad fer you clean through," he said simply.
The boy's head jerked toward the house. "Has she told you?" he asked.
"It's powerful kind of her when she ain't even liked me."
"Kind?" Uncle Ambrose frowned. "Why, boy, she's plumb magnificent!" And
here he curveted a few steps to the side. "Lord! ain't it splendid--life
so full of good things happenin' every minute!" Stopping, he gazed
steadily and curiously into the eyes of the young man near him, while
the cows wondering at the delay pressed their sweet smelling bodies
against each other and muzzled their soft noses. The boy's eyes were no
longer bloodshot nor ashamed.
"'Bout that other thing, sonnie, your girl?" Uncle Ambrose hesitated.
"Don't you tell me nothin' ef you ain't a mind to. Lord! don't I
remember how a young fellow hates bein' pried into."
"You ain't pryin'," the boy defended, "and it's comin' on great. I took
your advice. I just let myself do all the lovin' I could 'thout stewin'
over her feelin's fer me, and then all of a sudden she up and told me
she always had loved me, only she was afeard I didn't kire fer her."
Uncle Ambrose's face shone. "A'ire you worth her now, sonnie?"
"Lord, no," the boy answered; "but I kep' straight since that night and
I'll keep on. It's lovin' that done it."
Uncle Ambrose raised his rusty stovepipe hat. "Lovin', that's it," he
answered.
And then across his wrinkled face there marched a host of memories,
while keeping his eyes on the sky among whose soft clouds there might
easily have been floating any number of angels, he repeated the toast
made immortal by Kentuckians: "The ladies, God bless 'em!"
Suddenly hearing the noise of a horse's hoofs trotting away from the
neighbourhood of the farmhouse, Ambrose whirled, and before his
companion could guess what ailed him, started running back across the
lawn.
But this time Peachy was not to be so easily found. Uncle Ambrose
searched for her in the yard and in the garden, in the place where the
old summer house, now a ruin, had once stood, and then when the sun had
disappeared and only an afterglow remained, found her leaning over a
turnstile facing an orchard.
"I hope I ain't kept you waitin', Peachy," he remarked, a trifle
breathlessly.
The woman smiled and slipped her arm through his that they might both
lean together on the turnstile. "Most forty years, Ambrose," she
returned with a finer enjoyment than she could have felt in her youth.
And her sixty-year-old suitor blushed. "I know more'n I did then,
Peachy; I was frightened of your managin' ways." He was feeling a
considerable anxiety, for the woman beside him was like a piece of
fruit, no longer in her summer time, but reaching her perfection in late
autumn.
Very quietly then Peachy withdrew her arm.
"I'm managin' now, Ambrose," she confessed. "Seems like growin' old
don't lose us our faults; it kind er makes 'em set deeper. I should be
sorry to try you, but I'm some past fifty and ain't able to change."
[Illustration: "You kin manage me now all you've a mind to; I ain't
worryin'"]
However, Uncle Ambrose simply put his arm around her, drawing her
closer to him. "Lord, Peachy, ef that's all, don't you fret. You kin
manage me now all you've a mind to; I ain't worryin'. I was young and
didn't understand then that no man kin git on comfortable in this world
'thout bein' managed by a _good_ woman." And he laughed and kissed her
with an ardour that was in its way as good a thing as the springtime.
A minute later, the light dying quickly down, the autumn moon rose up
above the orchard, and with the disappearance of the day the warmth
ended so abruptly that, with a little shiver, the two middle-aged
figures moved away, the woman watching the man anxiously. "It ain't
moonlight we're needin', Ambrose Thompson," she whispered; "I'm thinkin'
it's the light of the fireside."
PART IV
HIS FOURTH WIFE
"_There are diversities of gift, but the same spirit_"
CHAPTER XIX
"'LIZABETH"
A VERY old man leaned over, touching a cane-bottomed rocking chair with
his carpet slipper. "Seems sort er more sociable like to see a little
female chair a-rockin'," he remarked to himself, for the room was
otherwise unoccupied, and even the house itself.
It was a December night and snowing hard. By and by the old man got up,
and crossing over to a side window where the blind had not yet been
pulled down, stood there for a moment frowning and saying impatiently:
"Ef that don't beat all!" for mingling with the noises outside there
sounded a faint and monotonous crying.
He was an uncommonly tall old man with a head like a highly polished
billiard ball rising above a fringe of thin white hair; he had a
straggly beard, while over his dim blue eyes the eyebrows arched like
cornices.
Finally he shuffled back toward his place by the kitchen fire, and there
getting down the family Bible commenced to read, first stuffing both
fingers in his ears, although every now and then partially removing one
to make observations. He was reading the twenty-second chapter of St.
Matthew:
"For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but are as the angels of God in heaven." However, on the third reading
he shut up his book, keeping three bunches of pressed flowers inside to
mark the place, and half humorously and half with the irritability of
old age, sighed: "I don't feel as ef I could stand it a inch longer.
What mortal use is there in me tryin' to make myself at all comfortable
this evenin' with that noise eternally pesterin' me? Seems like it has
always been my experience a man has got to give in first _an'_ last."
Then wrapped in the faded splendour of a once gorgeous silk
dressing-gown the old man disappeared into his bedroom, returning with a
shawl crossed over his shoulders and a knitted muffler tied about his
head. On opening his door he listened again for a moment, but, as the
crying had not ceased, waded across his yard through the snow in his
carpet slippers until he knocked with his big blue-veined old hand hard
against the locked back door of a cottage adjoining his.
At first there was no answer except a continuing of the sniffling,
snuffling noises which only made the visitor rap more vehemently, when
at length the door opened and there stood a woman holding a lantern
above her head.
"Uncle Ambrose Thompson, what kin you want o' me this time o' night?"
she asked; "it's goin' on nine o'clock! You ain't sick?"
Uncle Ambrose shook his head, surveying his neighbour sympathetically,
but oh, so disparagingly! She was so plainly an old-time old maid, flat
in the chest and angular, a hard and bony structure, with a face that
was equally barren save that its desert waste had lately been swept by a
storm.
"No, I ain't sick, child," Uncle Ambrose answered, "but you
are--heartsick. And what's more it seems likely I can't stand that noise
you keep on a-makin'. You come over and set by my kitchen fire a space
and kind er talk things out with me. I reckon I ain't altogether lost
my soothin' powers!"
Before his glowing fire the old host comfortably placed two rocking
chairs side by side. For the past seven years Ambrose Thompson had been
a widower for the third time and, since Peachy's death, having come back
home from the Red Farm, had lived all alone in his once rose-coloured
cottage, looked after only by his neighbours.
Picking up a crazy quilt cushion from his chair, the old man surveyed it
tenderly. "This was my Em'ly's make," he explained; "seems, 'Lizabeth
Horton, that you and me 're most like strangers, havin' lived side by
side only a little piece like seven years. Em'ly she was the second of
my three wives." And then thoughtfully passing his hand backward over
his high bald crown, Uncle Ambrose smiled in a kind of slow and puzzled
fashion.
"No, now I've done mixed things up a bit; I'm gittin' a little oncertain
these days. Em'ly wasn't never the sewin' one," he continued, "besides,
this crazy quiltin' business was most too new fashioned fer my Em'ly. I
kin recollect now bringin' that sofy cushion in from the farm, so it
must 'a' been Peachy's. Funny how I keep puttin' everything on to Em'ly
these days!"
Then seeing that his caller's red-rimmed eyes had been yearning toward
the coffee pot at the back of his stove, the old man put it down before
her with a nicked but brightly flowered cup and saucer, and afterward,
settling himself in his own place, peacefully began smoking, finding a
kind of unholy joy in the old maid's horrified glances about his untidy
but nobly littered kitchen.
"S'pose you go ahead now'n tell me just what ails you?" Uncle Ambrose
suggested after a reasonably sustaining pause.
And straightway Elizabeth returned to the slow and monotonous weeping
that had so disturbed his nerves for the past few hours. However, he let
her alone for a time, and except for moving restlessly about in his
chair and biting hard on his pipe stem made no other signs until at last
he placed a trembling hand on her bowed shoulder. "'Lizabeth Horton,
there is some women that just nachurally runs away to tears, but I
wouldn't waste myself _en_tirely ef I was you. Seems like when a female
has cried 's long as you have, she must need something to fill up the
places that has gone dry on the inside; so you take another cup of
coffee; it may be bitter but it's liquid. I ain't sayin' I ain't used to
women's weepin', but I'm gittin' older an'----"
Elizabeth at this gulped down her second dose. "I hadn't ought to cry so
much, Uncle Ambrose," she apologized, "but you must know I'm havin' to
give up my little home and it most breaks my heart."
Uncle Ambrose looked meditatively about his ancient and patched
fourteen-foot-square kitchen, and his dim eyes shone with the never
failing pride of possession. "These cottages ain't so bad," he said
defensively. "I been living in mine off'n on fer most seventy years, and
I kin remember when yours and old Mrs. Barrows', now deceased, was built
like it. Still I am obleeged to say there may be finer places; more'n
likely now this nephew's house is stylisher where you're bein' took in
to live. Seems like I've done heard it's in a su-burb and sets up on a
hill. Kind er onnecessary Pennyrile's havin' a su-burb, but mebbe
you're thinkin' the young folks won't be good to you when you go up
there to dwell."
Now that her crying had ceased the old maid's face looked gray.
"It ain't that I ain't goin' to a good home, Uncle Ambrose," she
explained, "and I suppose they'll be as good to me as they can to a
piece of furniture that don't fit in and ain't nowheres needed in their
house. I can't expect a man to understand, but when a woman don't never
marry and hasn't a husband or children of her own, seems like all she
has to set store by is just _things_, havin' a _home_ of her own. I done
my best to keep mine since mother died and her pension stopped, by
picklin' and preservin', but somehow I can't manage it." And now the
woman's voice held the quiet acceptance of defeat which is sadder than
any protest of tears.
She was looking into her lap at her knotted, hardworking and yet
unsuccessful hands as she spoke, or else she would have seen the light
of the understanding she denied in the old face opposite hers, which had
not, I think, failed any woman in nearly threescore years.
"I've done smelt your efforts, 'Lizabeth," Uncle Ambrose murmured
kindly. "They've often come right through the boards of my side wall. I
wisht I knowed some way to help you out, but I can't somehow see it."
Nevertheless when Elizabeth had made her old neighbour as comfortable
for the night as she knew how by putting fresh coals on his fire and by
fastening down his windows, and had said good night, still he continued
sitting in the same place, wearing a look of uncomfortable gravity,
until by and by hobbling once more into his bedroom he returned with a
small daguerreotype in his hand and for a long while kept studying it,
with his lips moving silently, and then suddenly said aloud: "Whatever
on this earth am I goin' to do 'bout that old maid, Em'ly honey? She's
poor and lonesome and she's scaired, and, moreover, she's powerful
homely." And then just for an instant piercing the mists over his old
eyes the immortal light of laughter flickered.
"I reckon you think I've done earned a trifle of repose from worryin' on
females, don't you, honey?" he inquired as he made his solitary way
toward bed.
CHAPTER XX
"GIVING IN MARRIAGE"
IN A similar cottage on one side of old Ambrose Thompson, as has already
been explained, there now dwelt the single departing spinster, Elizabeth
Horton, whom Uncle Ambrose regarded as a newcomer, her occupancy lying
somewhat within the period of twenty years, while on the other side
there still remained his youthful enemy, Susan Barrows. Not Mrs. Susan
Barrows, Sr., because of course some years before that old lady had been
translated to that country where we hope all human curiosity may be
satisfied, but her daughter, Susan Jr.; a little prying, spiteful girl
she would always remain to Ambrose, although now a married woman past
middle age, with grown-up children of her own.
And among her other inheritances she claimed an interfering interest in
the old man's mode of life.
Now a set of signals having been arranged between them in case of urgent
need on his part, at about six o'clock the next morning Susan was
aroused by a violent knocking on his wall on the side of the house next
hers, and hurrying over she found the old man lying half dressed on his
bed and groaning with pain.
"Seems like I can't turn over or move or draw long breath, Susan Jr.,"
he gasped. "'Course I know I got my feet wet; 'tain't no use of you
startin' in on that. I've got the lumbago, but bein's as I feel I mayn't
be able to git up fer a right smart spell you'd better step next door
and tell that old maid 'Lizabeth to come over here and look after me.
She ain't no kith and kin to keep her busy like you."
Susan eyed her old neighbour narrowly; she never had and never would be
able wholly to trust him, but now his fine old wrinkled face seemed to
be twisting with pain and his nose and lips twitching.
"'Lizabeth can't come, you know it well as I do, Ambrose Thompson," she
replied. "I've just got to do the best fer you I kin, though it ain't
noways convenient to me. This comes from you tryin' to live alone
'cause Aunt Ca'line and the others who used to see to you is passed.
'Lizabeth Horton is movin' within a few hours, bein' turned out of her
house, bag and baggage," and there was such richness of superiority in
Susan Jr.'s voice, the kind of superiority which the prosperous always
feel in the presence of the unprosperous, that the old man longed to
shake her.
But instead he only remarked with suspicious meekness: "'Lizabeth's
furniture is bein' moved, Susan Jr., but not necessar'ly 'Lizabeth;
leastways I don't believe she is engaged to go off in the movin' van
settin' on top her best dresser like a hen, though it's what a lot of
women would like, they're so bound up in things mortal." And then Uncle
Ambrose fixing his gaze on a far spot in the ceiling shivered and
groaned until his audience hurried away, when he was able to relax into
greater comfort.
Thus it was that 'Lizabeth took up the business of caring for Uncle
Ambrose Thompson until such time as the lumbago should depart from his
back.
[Illustration: "Thus it was that 'Lizabeth took up the business of
caring for Uncle Ambrose Thompson"]
From the first the old man could see that the spinster was enjoying
herself thoroughly; true, his cottage was small, but then it was exactly
like her own save that he had let his grow truly magnificent in its dirt
and disorder, being not of the type of male with perverted feminine
instincts, while Elizabeth never had had but one womanly passion
gratified and that was her love of putting a house to rights.
So for some little time Uncle Ambrose rather found pleasure in staying
in bed with the hateful burden of solitariness removed from him; he
loved listening to the familiar homely sounds of sweeping and the moving
about of furniture; it brought back--ah well, perhaps at seventy-six it
is something to have many things to remember.
And then, lying alone, he used to talk very often to his picture of
Emily, which still hung on its nail by the old pine bureau, for this
habit, begun after her death and only practised in secret during his
marriage to Peachy, had grown on him in these last seven years of
failing body and mind.
"She's a real good woman, Em'ly," he said several times, "and you'll be
glad to know she's makin' me more comfortable than I been in some time.
I was gittin' pretty tired. Seems like I might as well let this old
spinster stay on here and keep house fer me; she plumb likes it and I
reckon it's just one little thing more I kin do fer the sex. I ain't
much good at lonin' it, and 'tain't like I had old Miner now fer the in
betweens." And then he would laugh silently until the wrinkles in his
old face seemed little channels for merriment: "I been married so
frequent and got broke in to so many different sets of housekeepin'
ways, seems like I ain't troubled to form no ways of my own."
And in between dozing and talking to himself and the neighbours, who ran
in to inquire for his health, Uncle Ambrose used to spend some time in
reading his Bible. One afternoon when Elizabeth had been sitting by his
bedside sewing and thinking him asleep, he suddenly rose up in bed as
though completely ignoring the pain in his back and drawing his old
Bible across the coverlid opened it again at the place of the pressed
flowers.
"'Lizabeth," he asked after a moment of uncommon gravity in which his
hand frequently glided over his bald crown, "are you a good Bible
woman? I mean are you a good interpreter of the Scriptures? Seems like I
didn't used to look to others fer the meanin' in things, but I'm gittin'
a leetle mite older and folks is pretty apt to confuse wishes with
facts----"
But Elizabeth's austere face, with its rigid regard for set duties, was
reddening. "I read my chapter every night and I try to live accordin',"
she answered.
Then into Uncle Ambrose's old voice there crept such an eagerness it
might have held the warm desire of youth: "Mebbe you kin tell me
then--the meanin' of this here Bible text. I ain't never regarded it for
seventy years, but I been worryin' over it consider'ble of late, and now
I'd like to get a woman's views on it." And with his trembling
forefinger following the lines he had read to himself on the evening
before Elizabeth's installation he said: "It is what Jesus remarked to
the Sadducees: 'For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given
in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.'" And here Uncle
Ambrose's eyes travelled wistfully toward the faded daguerreotype on his
side wall.
Naturally his listener was puzzled, but afterward laughed a laugh with a
touch of new humour in it. "Lord! Uncle Ambrose, I _am_ sorry," she
apologized, "but I ain't had cause to worry over that text same as you
have; bein's as I'm turned fifty now and ain't had so much as _one_
husband on this earth, I'm kind of expectin' to carry my same single
blessedness along with me on the t'other side."
Uncle Ambrose's eyes twinkled appreciatively, but a moment later he
looked uncomfortable again. "Well, I reckon that's reasonable of you,
'Lizabeth," he agreed. "Folks can't understand things fer other folks;
there's plenty can't comprehend me marryin' so often and now worryin'
over arrangements for the future. But it's like this, child: a man may
git a lot of _help_mates in this world, but he don't find his _real_
mate but once. And I want to know which one of my three wives is goin'
to claim me in heaven, 'cause it looks like that combination's got to be
eternal. To tell you the truth, I was so worried lately I sent fer the
latest Baptist preacher and put this question up to him, and all he did
was to read this selfsame verse out of St. Matthew as though I hadn't
read and studied over it more'n a hundred times. The new brother seemed
to think we'd have to travel alone up in heaven 'thout playin' favrits,
but I can't come to agree with him. To tell you the truth,
'Lizabeth"--and here Uncle Ambrose's words sunk to a hoarse whisper--"ef
the facts be known I want my Em'ly. I done my best without her, but it
wasn't _whole_ livin' 'cept when I had her, and I ain't meanin' nothin'
in disfavour of no one else. Of course ef it's true that the Lord don't
believe in marriages in the next world, with me such a marrier in this,
then that text'll be a whole lot of assistance to me in gittin' things
fixed. For when my three wives come a-floatin' up to me as the angels
are, I'll be more'n pleased to see 'em _all_, but I got to speak up
pretty positive: 'I want my Em'ly, and there ain't no marriages nor
givin' in marriage in heaven.' For you see I marries little Sarah first
and that might give her the first claim, and Peachy last, so it's likely
she might think a last tie would bind. Seems like it wouldn't look
regular to have the three of 'em to once." And at this the speaker
smiled with a kind of appreciative vision of things to come, while at
the same time wiping his brow, which was gleaming with perspiration.
A day or so after this, having suddenly found his confinement
unendurable, Uncle Ambrose demanded to be taken outdoors, and so
wrapping him carefully in blankets Elizabeth set him out on the back
stoop to look over his little snow-covered yard, leaving the door open
that she might hear if he called to her.
And the woman was so happy now that she sang as she went about her work,
for in moving him out the old man had asked her to stay and keep house
for him so long as he should live.
Uncle Ambrose did not observe Susan Jr.'s birdlike black eyes peer
slantingly at him through her partially closed blind, for two lady
sparrows who had chosen to perch on the same twig were keeping up such a
violent discussion of their territorial rights that they held his amused
attention, so that Susan was able quietly to slip out through her front
door and into his by a surreptitious move that outflanked her enemy. But
pretty soon the old man caught the notes of her ever meddlesome voice
and then a little later the sound of monotonous weeping. He had heard
Elizabeth Horton crying one evening for two mortal hours and so was not
apt to mistake her particular sniff. At first he squirmed restlessly in
his chair, attempting to rise, but both the blankets and his reputation
as an invalid enveloped him so that finally he called sharply: "Susan
Jr., Susan, don't pretend you don't hear me. Come right out here on my
stoop, I got to speak to you alone."
And Susan crept stealthily out. She had grown up to be a thin, small
woman with a meddlesome soul out of all proportion to her body, and now
she wore a wheedling smile such as one might employ with a fretful baby.
"You are lookin' right smart better, Uncle Ambrose," she began, "and
'Lizabeth Horton tells me you'll soon be yourself again."
"Susan," the old man interrupted, "you are in that kitchen hatching up
trouble fer me sure as sin. I heard you tellin' 'Lizabeth that she
oughtn't to be stayin' much longer with me. What did you do that fer?"
And Uncle Ambrose's eyes, which could be like points of steel in
righteous anger, now emitted certain fiery sparks. "'Lizabeth is happy
and is makin' me comfortable after seven more lonesome years, and you've
always been preachin' I ought to git some one to take kire of me. Susan
Jr., the Lord gives and the Lord taketh away, but don't you try comin'
around here playin' the part of the Lord. You let this spinster be."
Again Susan Jr. smiled with an air of superior virtue. "It ain't _me_
that's talkin', Uncle Ambrose; I ain't seein' anything so wrong in your
present relations, but I must say folks in Pennyrile is beginnin' to
speculate some, bein's as 'Lizabeth is just turned fifty and you with
such a reckernized taste fer female folks, why, though things ain't to
say scanderlous, there is some that thinks 'em a little pe-cul-iar."
"Go, Susan," and though Uncle Ambrose spoke with restraint his long
finger pointed toward the intervening space which lay between his house
and hers. "Go, afore I'm able to tell you what I think of you, 'cause
I've known you from a child and you ain't changed none--fer the better.
To think of you sneakin' over here fer the supreme pleasure of worryin'
one poor homely old maid with your gossip and suggestin's." And Uncle
Ambrose's face worked with the annoyance of frustrated old age. "Ef only
'Lizabeth had had one or two husbands she wouldn't be payin' no
attention to this, but bein's as she's never had none, well, I kin see
that I'm goin' to have my hands pretty nigh full. Seems like I'd rather
turn a child out'n the world than this poor unrequited female."
Late that evening Elizabeth gave Uncle Ambrose his supper as usual,
although her eyes were so nearly closed from weeping that she was unable
to catch the worried gleam in his. However, before going to bed she told
him that she would have to leave him and go to her nephew's as soon as
he was well enough to be about again.
CHAPTER XXI
"I SHALL WANT MY EM'LY."
ON THAT same night Uncle Ambrose suffered a relapse and remained in bed
for another week; however, he had already got sufficiently rested from
his previous laying up and, besides, even at seventy-six he had not yet
come to evading an issue. He was merely taking time to think.
One evening just as the lamps in his room were being lighted he called
Elizabeth to his bed. "I'm goin' to git up to-morrow, 'Lizabeth, and
stay up; I'm 'bout as well now as I'm ever goin' to be, seein' as I'm
gittin' older each day 'stid of younger," he said with the gentle
firmness that had always come to him in big moments.
With a nervous trembling Elizabeth smoothed the old man's pillows,
tucking his blankets in more closely about him. "I'm reel glad fer you,
Uncle Ambrose; then you won't be needin' me much longer."
But the old man shook his head. "Set down, 'Lizabeth, I want to talk to
you; I don't want my supper, leastways not yet."
But when Elizabeth had seated herself by the side of his bed for a time
he continued silent while his glance wandered from the spot where his
daguerreotype hung alongside the wall to the figure of the elderly
worried spinster, and once catching a reflection of himself in the
looking glass with a night cap tied under his chin and then a vision of
Elizabeth, suddenly his blue eyes under their overhanging brows brimmed
over.
"'Lizabeth," he inquired at length, "did I ever show you the picture of
my Em'ly?"
"You ain't exactly showed it to me," she replied kindly, "but I been
seein' it every day when I come in here to clean; she's got a kind of
different face; it's a pity she had to leave you."
Uncle Ambrose only cleared his throat a trifle more huskily. "You're a
good woman, too, 'Lizabeth, and so was little Sarah and Peachy Tarwater,
and you're makin' my declinin' days peacefuller, givin' me a chance to
relish things that is past, and to hope fer things to come. Not that I
kin say you're one mortal bit like Em'ly, cause you ain't, but all
women 'a' got different ways, fer which the Lord be praised. I been
lyin' here thinkin' a darn sight lately; ain't had much else to do." But
if Uncle Ambrose expected a look of understanding in his companion's
face at this he was disappointed. "I know I got to vacate this earthly
tenement pretty soon, and though I've had good times and sorry in the
building I ain't objectin' to quit. Seems like a new dwellin' house'll
give us more light and space. It's many times I've wondered ef mebbe the
spirits of them that love us ain't always hoverin' close, ef only we had
the right kind of windows to look out at 'em with. Why, child, there's
certainly been times when I've felt my Em'ly's arms a-holdin' me up and
her wings brushin' my face. She's done been helpin' me about you lately;
'cause you see I know she'd always want me to do anything that'd make me
comfortable and----"
But Elizabeth was not listening to the old man's soliloquy. She was
thinking of herself, trying to tear out the tendrils that had grown so
close about Uncle Ambrose's house, which had lately come to seem so like
her own. So finally when she could bear the pain no longer she rose and
started stumbling from the room.
Uncle Ambrose called out after her. "Don't go, 'Lizabeth, and don't try
to stop cryin'. Tears is nachural to some women and you sure are one of
'em. I ought to be used to 'em by now. 'Lizabeth, I don't want you to
leave me; I want you to stay by me till my trumpet sounds." Elizabeth
shook her head.
"Think you got to go 'cause of what Susan Jr. said?" Uncle Ambrose's
long nose twitched between amusement and scorn. "Good Lord! why is it
the good women that is so afeard of talk?" he muttered to himself. "But
thinkin' it all out kireful, 'Lizabeth, I ain't able to let you go. I
can't stan' livin' 'thout female aid, and there ain't no use me tryin'.
So now you listen to me. When I'm out o' this bed, and it'll be
to-morrow, do you think you could bring yourself to marry me?" Uncle
Ambrose laughed. "Don't git scaired, child; ef you ain't heard them
words before it ain't the first time I've said 'em. But don't you answer
me too quick; think it over and when you come back after fixin' my
supper's time enough, for I ain't yet told you all I been steddyin'
over, believin' the rest'd come in better later on."
Then while Elizabeth was away this lover of many women lay with his dim
old eyes still steadfast upon the picture of her who after all was "the
only woman." "You feel I'm doin' what's best, don't you, honey?" he said
with the completeness of a perfect union. "She's poor and lonesome and
homely, but I've worked it out so it'll be all right."
Afterward, when Uncle Ambrose discovered that his supper tray held all
the dishes he most liked, he did not let his expression betray him, but
ate his well-cooked meal peaceably and enjoyably until Elizabeth came to
take away his tray, when his feeble hand caught hold of her hard one,
trying to give it the rightful pressure.
"I can't," the old maid answered sorrowfully; "it's only because you are
sorry for me."
And Uncle Ambrose hesitated. To tell any woman he did not love her, here
at the end of his seventy-six years! "I'm growin' powerful fond of you,
'Lizabeth Horton," he hedged, "but ef I'm sorry too, what's the odds? I
reckon I'm sorry fer myself and been sorry fer most everybody I've
knowed in this world one time or another. But mebbe you kin see things
better like this. I'm more'n anxious fer you to look after me till I die
and keep me from gittin' too darned lonesome and, moreover, I want to
leave you this here cottage when I go away. See here, 'Lizabeth, I've
done had some experience with women and I've been thinkin' a lot on what
you said to me that evenin' you come over here to dry your tears. I kin
see there are some women who kin live 'thout husbands and some that's
just got to live 'thout children, but there's some women that ain't able
to live 'thout homes of their own. Why, you poor old 'Lizabeth, you'd
just pine away and die ef the time ever come when you didn't have a
house to keep: it would be worse'n food starvin', 'cause it would last
longer. I ain't no children of my own"--and even now Uncle Ambrose
winced at saying it--"and what with selling my interest in the store
when Miner went and a remembrance from Peachy I got a tidy sum of money
in the bank. So I've got no special call to leave my money to nobody,
but I know Pennyrile, and she sure would make it warm fer you ef I
willed you my property 'thout makin' you my wife. Give me my answer,
'Lizabeth; I ain't tryin' to bribe you, though I want you to stay by me,
but I'm gittin' kind er tired and I ain't said all I've got to say yet."
And here Uncle Ambrose turned his eyes for another time toward Emily's
picture with their familiar appeal for light in dark places.
"There is one more request I'm bound to make, but it ain't goin' to hurt
you or any female to be sensible."
"Uncle Ambrose," the old maid faltered, her yellow cheeks flushing
palely, "ef you're sure you want to marry me I shall be plumb glad. I
like to stay here and take care of you, and I don't want to leave you or
this house. I'll try my best to do my part."
"Then you listen to me," said the old man, speaking like a grown-up
person to a confused child, "and you remember I don't want to hurt your
feelin's, but whatsomever cometh I've got to git this out of me."
"What is it, Uncle Ambrose?" Elizabeth inquired anxiously. "I told you I
was hopeful to do my part."
Before replying the old face set into beautiful lines of dignity and
untarnished faith. "Do you recollect, 'Lizabeth, I told you once that
when I died and crossed over the Jerden I was hopin' to spend the life
eternal with Em'ly. T'ain't nothin' against little Sarah or Peachy, but
you see I married Sarah 'fore I'd met up with Em'ly, and then Peachy
she'd kind er staked out an original claim. It won't matter nothin' to
Em'ly, but ef the truth be known I ain't no ways easy in my mind 'bout
that Bible text I was a-repeatin' over to you. It may be I ain't got the
Lord's meanin' exactly clear, whether the marriages made on this earth
are goin' to hold good in heaven, so you kin surely see, 'Lizabeth, that
there ain't no use in me addin' complications to the future at my time
of life."
And here reaching under his pillow Uncle Ambrose drew forth a crumpled
sheet of paper torn from a book which deeded his cottage to Elizabeth
Horton and five thousand dollars in bank in the event of her becoming
his wife.
"I know this document ain't legal," he explained, "but I'll have it writ
out fair and square by a lawyer and sign it soon as ever I can ef
you'll only give me a little slip of paper in return with a few easy
words written on it."
The woman waited a moment puzzled. "I don't quite understand you, Uncle
Ambrose," she returned.
"No, of course you don't, child. I just want to know ef you feel willin'
to write down these here words: 'I, Elizabeth Horton, bein' fourth wife
to Ambrose Thompson, do hereby relinquish all claim to him come the time
when I shall meet him in heaven.' You see how 'tis, 'Lizabeth," Uncle
Ambrose argued wistfully. "I wisht I'd thought to make some such plan
with Peachy 'fore she died; not that I'm at all certain she'd 'a' done
it," he added truthfully, "but it would 'a' eased my mind consid'ble in
these last childish days ef I only had little gentle Sarah to explain
things to on the other side. I don't want there should be any argufyin'
or confusion just when Em'ly and me are tryin' to git off quiet to
ourselves and talk things over."
Elizabeth did not answer at once, for her vision did not naturally
travel beyond the confines of this world, but other women before this
old maid had travelled far in this now old man's leading. So she did
not feel his request to be either childish or unreasonable, only she too
wanted time to think. For after a while with her eyes resting
affectionately upon the old face now lying so quiet on the pillow, and
at the still beautiful and once so strong hands clasped together outside
the counterpane, she leaned over toward him and whispered.
"I'll give you that paper you want, Uncle Ambrose, and I'll write on it
same as you wish me to, for I shall have the home, and somehow I feel it
will be only right that you and Em'ly should have each other."
"Amen!" whispered Uncle Ambrose.
THE END
[Illustration]
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 168, "sympathic" changed to "sympathetic" (sympathetic sounds of)
Page 217, "Sadduces" changed to "Sadducees" (remarked to the Saducees)
End of Project Gutenberg's The Loves of Ambrose, by Margaret Vandercook