One day in May, about a year from the time that Martha Haydon died,
Maria Durrant was sitting by the western window of the kitchen,
mending Mr. Haydon's second-best black coat, when she looked down the
lane and saw old Polly Norris approaching the house. Polly was an
improvident mother of improvident children, not always quite sound in
either wits or behavior, but she had always been gently dealt with by
the Haydons, and, as it happened, was also an old acquaintance of
Maria Durrant's own. Maria gave a little groan at the sight of her:
she did not feel just then like listening to long tales or responding
to troublesome demands. She nodded kindly to the foolish old creature,
who presently came wheezing and lamenting into the clean sunshiny
kitchen, and dropped herself like an armful of old clothes into the
nearest chair.
Maria rose and put by her work; she was half glad, after all, to have
company; and Polly Norris was not without certain powers of
good-fellowship and entertaining speech.
"I expect this may be the last time I can get so fur," she announced.
"'T is just 'bout a year sence we was all to Mis' Haydon's funeral. I
didn't know but that was the last time. Well, I do' know but it's so I
can accept that piece o' pie. I've come fur, an' my strength's but
small. How's William's folks?"
"They're smart," answered Maria, seating herself to her work again,
after the expedition to the pantry.
"I tell ye this is beautiful pie," said the guest, looking up, after a
brief and busy silence; "a real comfortable help o' pie, after such a
walk, feeble as I be. I've failed a sight sence you see me before, now
ain't I?"
"I don't know's I see any change to speak of," said Maria, bending
over the coat.
"Lord bless you, an' Heaven too! I ain't eat no such pie as this sence
I was a girl. Your rule, was it, or poor Mis' Haydon's?"
"I've always made my pies that same way," said Maria soberly. "I'm
pleased you should enjoy it."
"I expect my walk give me an extry appetite. I can walk like a bird,
now, I tell ye; last summer I went eleven miles, an' ag'in nine miles.
You just ought to see me on the road, an' here I be, goin' on
seventy-seven year old. There ain't so many places to go to as there
used to be. I've known a sight o' nice kind folks that's all gone.
It's re'lly sad how folks is goin'. There's all Mis' Nash's folks
passed away; the old doctor, an' the little grandgirl, an' Mis' Nash
that was like a mother to me, an' always had some thin' to give me;
an' down to Glover's Corner they're all gone"--
"Yes, anybody feels such changes," replied Maria compassionately.
"You've seen trouble, ain't you?"
"I've seen all kinds of trouble," said the withered little creature,
mournfully.
"How is your daughter to South Atfield gettin' along?" asked the
hostess kindly, after a pause, while Polly worked away at the pie.
"Lord bless you! this pie is so heartenin', somehow or 'nother, after
such a walk. Susan Louisa is doin' pretty well; she's a sight improved
from what she was. Folks is very considerate to Susan Louisa. She goes
to the Orthodox church, an' sence she was sick there's been a
committee to see to her. They met, fifteen in number. One on 'em give
her two quarts o' milk a day. Mr. Dean, Susan Louisa's husband, died
the eighth day o' last March."
"Yes, I heard he was gone, rather sudden," said Maria, showing more
interest.
"Yes, but he was 'twixt eighty an' ninety year old. Susan Louisa was
but fifty-one in February last."
"He'd have done better for you, wouldn't he, Mis' Norris?" suggested
Maria, by way of pleasantry, but there was a long and doubtful pause.
"I had rather be excused," said Polly at last, with great emphasis.
"Miss Maria Durrant, ain't you got a calico dress you could spare, or
an apron, or a pair o' rubbers, anyways? I be extra needy, now, I tell
you! There; I ain't inquired for William's folks; how be they?"
"All smart," said Maria, for the second time; but she happened to look
up just in time to catch a strange gleam in her visitor's eyes.
"Mis' William don't come here, I expect?" she asked mysteriously.
"She never was no great of a visitor. Yes, she comes sometimes,"
answered Maria Durrant.
"I understood William had forbid her till you'd got away, if she was
your own cousin."
"We're havin' no trouble together. What do you mean?" Maria demanded.
"Well, my hearing ain't good." Polly tried to get herself into safe
shelter of generalities. "Old folks kind o' dreams things; you must
excuse me, Maria. But I certain have heard a sight o' talk about your
stoppin' here so long with Mr. Haydon, and that William thought you
was overdoin', an' would have spoke, only you was his wife's cousin.
There's plenty stands up for you; I should always be one of 'em my
self; you needn't think but I'm a friend, Maria. I heard somebody
a-remarking that you was goin' to stay till you got him; an' others
said Mr. Israel Haydon was one to know his own mind, and he never
would want to put nobody in his wife's place, they set so by one
another. An' I spoke a good word for ye. I says, 'Now look here! 't
ain't 's if Mari' Durrant was a girl o' twenty-five; she's a smart
capable creatur',' says I, 'an''"--
"I guess I've got an old dress I can let you have."
Maria Durrant, with crimson cheeks and a beating heart, rose suddenly
and escaped to the back stairway. She left old Polly sitting in the
kitchen so long that she fell into a comfortable drowse, from which
she was recalled by Maria's reappearance with a bundle of discarded
garments, but there was something stern and inhospitable in these last
moments of the visit, and Polly soon shuffled off down the lane,
mumbling and muttering and hugging the bundle with great delight. She
always enjoyed her visits to the Haydon farm. But she had left Miss
Durrant crying by the western window; the bitter tears were falling on
Israel Haydon's old black coat. It seemed very hard that a woman who
had spent all her life working for others should be treated as the
enemy of kindred and acquaintance; this was almost the first time in
all her history that she had managed to gather and hold a little peace
and happiness. There was nothing to do now but to go back to her
brother's noisy shiftless house; to work against wind and tide of
laziness and improvidence. She must slave for the three boarders, so
that her brother's wife could go to New York State to waste her time
with a sister just as worthless, though not so penniless, as herself.
And there was young Johnny, her nephew, working with Mr. Haydon on the
farm, and doing so well, he must go back too, and be put into the
factory. Maria looked out of the window; through the tears that stood
in her eyes the smooth green fields were magnified and transfigured.
The door opened, and Mr. Haydon entered with deliberate step and a
pleasant reassuring look. He almost never smiled, but he happened to
be smiling then. "I observed you had company just now; I saw old Polly
Norris going down the lane when I was coming up from the field," he
said, and then stopped suddenly, and took a step nearer to Maria; he
had never seen his cheerful housemate in tears. He did not ask the
reason; they both felt embarrassed, and yet each was glad of the
other's presence. Mr. Haydon did not speak, but Maria brushed her
tears away, and tried to go on sewing. She was mending the lining of
the second-best black coat with most touching care.
"I expect I shall have to take that co't for every day now, an' get me
a new one for best," he announced at last, because somebody had to say
something. "I've about finished with this. Spring work is hard on an
old co't."
"Your best one is gettin' a little mite threadbare in the back," said
Maria, but it was hard for her to control her voice. "I'll put all
your clothes in as good repair as I can before I go, sir. I've come to
the conclusion that I ought to go back to my brother's folks, his wife
wants to go off on a visit"--
"Don't you, Maria," exclaimed the distressed old man. "Don't talk that
way; it's onreasonable. William has informed me about your brother's
folks; what else may affect you I don't know, but I've made up my
mind. I don't know why 't was, but I was just comin' to speak about
it. I may say 't was for your interest as well as mine, an' with
William's approval. I never thought to change my situation till
lately. Such a loss as I've met ain't to be forgotten, an' it ain't
forgotten. I'm gettin' along in years, an' I never was a great talker.
I expect you know what I want to say, Miss Durrant. I'll provide well
for you, an' make such a settlement as you an' William approve. He's
well off, an' he spoke to me about us; that we was comfortable
together, an' he never wanted to see me left alone, as I was last
year. How do you feel yourself? You feel that 't would be good
judgment, now don't ye?"
Maria never had heard Mr. Israel Haydon say so much at any one time.
There he stood, a man of sixty-eight, without pretense of having
fallen in love, but kind and just, and almost ministerial in his
respectability. She had always followed a faint but steady star of
romance, which shone still for her in the lowering sky of her life; it
seemed to shine before her eyes now; it dazzled her through fresh
tears. Yet, after all, she felt that this was really her home, and
with a sudden great beat of her heart, she knew that she should say
"Yes" to Mr. Haydon. The sharp sting in the thought of going away had
been that she must leave him to the ignorant devotion or neglect of
somebody else--some other woman was going to have the dear delight of
making him comfortable.
So she looked up full in his face, unmindful of the bleakness of his
love-making, and was touched to see that he bore the aspect of a truly
anxious and even affectionate man. Without further words they both
knew that the great question was settled. The star of romance
presently turned itself into the bright kitchen lamp that stood
between them as Maria sewed her long winter seam and looked up
contentedly to see Mr. Haydon sitting opposite with his weekly
newspaper.