It was the month of June; the trees were in full foliage; there was no
longer any look of spring in the landscape, and the air and sky
belonged to midsummer. Mrs. Israel Haydon had been dead nearly two
months.
On a Sunday afternoon the father and son sat in two old
splint-bottomed chairs just inside the wood-house, in the shade. The
wide doors were always thrown back at that time of the year, and there
was a fine view across the country. William Haydon could see his own
farm spread out like a green map; he was scanning the boundaries of
the orderly fences and fields and the stretches of woodland and
pasture. He looked away at them from time to time, or else bent over
and poked among the wood-house dust and fine chips with his
walking-stick. "There's an old buckle that I lost one day ever so many
years ago," he exclaimed suddenly, and reached down to pick it up.
William was beginning to look stout and middle-aged. He held out the
rusty buckle to his father, but Israel Haydon sat stiffly upright, and
hardly gave a glance at the useless object.
"I thought Elder Wall preached an excellent discourse this morning."
William made further attempt to engage his father's interest and
attention, but without avail.
"I wish you'd tell me what's the matter with you, sir," said the
troubled son, turning squarely, and with honest kindness in his look.
"It hurts my feelings, father. If I've put you out, I want to make
amends. Marilla's worried to death for fear it's on her account. We
both set everything by you, but you hold us off; and I feel, when I
try to be company for you, as if you thought I belonged in jail, and
hadn't no rights of any kind. Can't you talk right out with me, sir?
Ain't you well?"
"There! don't run on, boy," said the old man sadly. "I do the best I
can; you've got to give me time. I'm dreadful hard pushed losin' of
your mother. I've lost my home; you ain't got the least idea what it
is, William."
His old face quivered, and William rose hastily and went a step or two
forward, making believe that he was looking after his horse. "Stand
still, there!" he shouted to the placid creature, and then came back
and reached out his hand to his father.
Israel took hold of it, but looked up, a little puzzled. "You ain't
going yet?" he asked. "Why, you've only just come."
"I want you to ride over with me to supper to-night. I want you to see
how well that piece o' late corn looks, after all your saying I
might's well lay it down to turnips. Come, father; the horse's right
here, and 't will make a change for you. Ain't you about got through
with them pies aunt Martin left you when she went away? Come; we're
goin' to have a hearty supper, and I want ye."
"I don't know but I will," said Israel Haydon slowly. "We've got on
pretty well--no, we ain't, neither. I ain't comfortable, and I can't
make nothin' o' that poor shoat of a boy. I'm buying o' the baker an'
frying a pan o' pork the whole time, trying to fill him up. I never
was so near out o' pork this time o' year, not since I went to
housekeepin'."
"I heard he'd been tellin' round the neighborhood that he was about
starved," said William plainly. "Our folks always had the name o'
being good providers."
"How'd your mother use to wash up the cups an' things to make 'em look
decent?" asked Mr. Haydon suddenly; there was the humility of broken
pride in his tone. "I can't seem to find nothin' to do with, anywhere
about the house. I s'posed I knew where everything was. I expect I've
got out all poor mother's best things, without knowin' the difference.
Except there ain't nothin' nowhere that looks right to me," he added.
William stooped to pick something out of the chips. "You'll have to
ask Marilla," he said. "It mortifies me to have you go on in such a
way. Now, father, you wouldn't hear to anybody that was named to you,
but if you go on this way much longer you'll find that any
housekeeper's better than none."
"Why, I've only been waiting to hear of a proper person," said Israel
Haydon, turning an innocent and aggrieved countenance upon his son.
"My house is in a terrible state, now I can tell you."
William looked away and tried to keep his face steady.
"What do you find to laugh at?" asked the poor father, in the tone of
a schoolmaster.
"Don't you know I spoke of somebody to you? I believe 't was the very
day after the funeral," said William persuasively. "Her name is Maria
Durrant."
"I remember the person well; an excellent, sensible woman, no
flummery, and did remarkable well in case of sickness at your house,"
said Mr. Haydon, with enthusiasm, stepping briskly toward the wagon
after he had shut and fastened the wood-house doors and put the
padlock key in his pocket. "What of her? You said there was no chance
of getting her, didn't you?"
"I was afraid so; but she's left her brother's folks now, and come to
stop a little while with Marilla. She's at the house this minute; came
last night. You know, Marilla's very fond of having her cousins come
to stop with her," apologized the son, in fear lest his simple plot
should be discovered and resented. "You can see if she's such a person
as you want. I have been thinking all day that she might do for a
time, anyway."
"Anybody'll do," said Mr. Haydon suddenly. "I tell ye, William, I'm
drove to the wall. I feel to covet a good supper; an' I'm ashamed to
own it, a man o' my property! I'll observe this Miss Durrant, an'
speak with her after tea; perhaps she'd have the sense to come right
over to-morrow. You an' Marilla can tell her how I've been situated. I
wa'n't going to have no such persons in my house as were recommended,"
he grumbled on cheerfully. "I don't keep a town-farm for the
incapable, nor do I want an old grenadier set over me like that old
maid Smith. I ain't going to be turned out of my own house."
They drove along the road slowly, and presently the ever-interesting
subject of crops engaged their further attention. When they turned
into William Haydon's side yard a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman,
in a neat black dress and a big clean white apron, sat on the piazza
with Marilla and the children. Israel Haydon's heart felt lighter than
it had for many a week. He went and shook hands with Maria Durrant,
with more than interest and approval; there was even a touch of
something like gallantry in his manner. William Haydon glanced at his
wife and gave an unconscious sigh of relief.
The next morning Miss Durrant helped with the early work, talking with
William's wife as she went to and fro busily in the large kitchen, and
listening to all that could be said of the desperate state of affairs
at the old farm. The two women so doubled their diligence by working
together that it was still early in the day when Maria, blushing
noticeably, said that she thought there was no use in waiting until
afternoon, as old Mr. Haydon had directed. There must be plenty to do;
and the sooner the house was put to rights and some cooking got under
way the better. She had her old calico dress all on, and she deemed it
best to go over and go right to work.
"There! I don't know what to say, Maria," said Marilla Haydon
doubtfully. "Father Haydon's such a set person."
"So be I," rejoined Maria. "And who knows how bad those rooms need
airing! I've thought of twenty things that ought to be done right off,
before night. Or I could work a spell in the gardin if he don't seem
to want me in the house. Now, wa'n't it affectin' to hear him let on
that he'd gone an' made poor Mis' Haydon's flower gardin same's he'd
always done? It showed real feelin', didn't it? I am goin' to take
holt over there as if 't was for her as well as for him. That time I
was here so long, when you was so sick, I did just admire Mis' Haydon.
She was a beautiful-looking woman, and so pretty-behaved; quiet, but
observin'. I never saw a man age as William's father has; it made my
heart ache when I first caught sight of him driving into the yard last
night."
"He revived up conversin' with you an' makin' such a good hearty tea,"
suggested Marilla, disappearing in the pantry. "I ain't never felt
free with father Haydon, but I do respect him," she added presently.
"Well, now, go right over, Maria, if you feel moved to. I don't know
but what you're wise. P'r'aps William an' I'll walk over, after
supper's put away. I guess you've got a busy day before you."
She stood at the open door and watched Maria Durrant go away, a few
minutes later, with a plump bundle under one arm.
"I should think you were going to seek your fortune," she called
merrily, as the good woman turned into the road; but Maria wagged her
head with a cheerful nod, and did not deign to look back. "I ought to
have given her some bread to tuck under the other arm, like the
picture of Benjamin Franklin. I dare say they do need bread; I ought
to have thought of it," said Marilla anxiously, as she returned to the
pantry.
"But there! Father Haydon's got as far along in housekeeping as
stopping the baker; an' he was put out because I sent things too soon,
before aunt Martin's provisions were gone. I'll risk cousin Maria to
get along."
The new housekeeper trod the little footpath at the road edge with a
firm step. She was as eager and delighted as if she were bent on a
day's pleasuring. A truly sympathetic, unselfish heart beat in her
breast; she fairly longed to make the lonely, obstinate old man
comfortable. Presently she found herself going up the long Haydon lane
in the shade of the apple-trees. The great walnut-trees at the other
side of the house were huge and heavy with leaves; there was a general
floweriness and pleasantness over all growing things; but the tall
thin spruce that towered before the front door looked black and
solitary, and bore a likeness to old Mr. Haydon himself. Such was the
force of this comparison that Miss Durrant stopped and looked at it
with compassion.
Then her eyes fell upon the poor flower bed overgrown with weeds,
through which the bachelor's-buttons and London-pride were pushing
their way into bloom. "I guess I'll set a vine to grow up that tree;
't would get sun enough, an' look real live and pretty," she decided,
surveying the situation; then she moved on, with perhaps less
eagerness in her gait, and boldly entered the side door of the house.
She could hear the sound of an axe in the shed, as if some one were
chopping up kindlings. When she caught sight of the empty kitchen she
dropped her bundle into the nearest chair, and held up her hands in
what was no affectation of an appearance of despair.