They were five sisters, all unmarried; they lived in the old Dutch town
that was made memorable by Barbara Frietchie's exploits. They never
hoisted a Union flag, or did any grand thing; but they deserve a place
in story just the same. Their name was Peyre, and the young people
called them "The Pears", not in derision, for the regard they inspired
was little short of veneration. Their ages ranged from sixty-five to
eighty years when I first knew them. Unlike the Hannah More quintette,
they were not literary. But no hive of busy bees was ever more
industrious than they in the line of purely feminine accomplishments.
"The Pears" were not poor, but they were frugal. They owned a
comfortable two-story brick house on a quiet street, and let their
ground floor to a small tradesman. The way to the sisters led along
a smoothly-paved side alley, all fenced in, through a little kitchen
with spotless floor and shining tins, up a narrow, crooked, snow-white
stairway, and finally through funny little chambers, up two steps, or
down three, till the workshop was reached. There they sat, clean and
fresh and busy, each in her own nook; and just there they might have
been found every day these sixty years.
The workshop had the appearance of tidy fullness. An everlasting quilt
was stretched across the end window, and here Miss Becky had laid her
chalk-lines and pricked her fingers through several generations. The
faithful fingers were brown and crooked, she said, from rheumatism; but
how could they be straight when eternally bent over the patchwork?
Surely the quilt was not always the same; yet the frames were never
empty, and the chair was never vacant.
Miss Polly was housekeeper and cook, with Miss Phoebe to run errands, do
the marketing, visit the needy, and supervise generally. Some one must
have done the mending and darning and laundry work, but I never saw any
of that.
Miss Sophie (the sisters said Suffy) was the knitter and her needles
were never still. Always a gray yarn stocking, and never any appearance
of the finished pair. Go when you would,--and the dear ladies were not
alone many hours,--the knitting was on and going on.
Miss Chrissy was the beauty. Ages ago there had been a tradition of a
lover, but nothing came of it. Perhaps they had all five lived out their
little romances--who could tell? A certain homage was paid to the
beauty. Her once brilliant auburn hair had paled to grayish sandy bands
that lay smooth under a cap which was always a little pretentious. Her
dark eyes and smiling lips made the soft white old face passing fair.
Miss Chrissy was the embroiderer and needle-work artist. Her treasures
of scallops and points and eyelets and wheels, all traced in ink upon
bits of letter-paper, were kept in a big square yellow box that was
bristling and bursting at all points.
This box was marvellous. There could never have been but one other in
the world; and that I had seen under my great-grandmother's bed, the bed
that had its dainty white frill, and its glazed calico curtains of gay
paradise birds. They were all of a piece and not easily forgotten. The
box had seen hard service among the "Pears." It was cross-stitched up
and down the corner's along the bottom and the top, and all around. It
never occurred to them to get a new one. Like their old Bible, its
places could be found.
I went, one frosty autumn day, to get a pattern for silk embroidery.
Stamping-blocks and tracing-wheels were unknown quantities to Miss
Chrissy. Her stumpy little pencil--and that, too, seemed always the
same--had to do the transfering. She liked a bit of harmless gossip,
dear soul; and the young girls of the town made a point of supplying the
lack of a newspaper with their busy tongues. So she knew at once who
I was.
"Oh," she said, with her kindly smile, "you are young Mrs. John: I
remember when your husband was a babe. I think I can find it;--yes, it
is down in this corner,"--rummaging in the yellow box; "here it is--the
pattern your aunt,--Mrs. John, selected for your husband's first short
dress. All the Hunt family were customers of ours. Mrs. John, she
they called Aunt Lou, was a great favorite. She was rich, and had no
children. Well, she came one day all in a flurry to get a pattern--a
nice wide one she said, for little John's dress. He was the first baby,
and they fairly idolized him. This is it. I recollect the wheel and the
overcasting. It was--let me see--forty years ago, come this December.
Now, this little scallop is as popular as any" and she fished up
another, all full of needle-pricks. "Some ladies don't like much
embroidery, but they want a little finish. This one trimmed a set of
linen for Mrs. Senator Jones. It took me a good while to draw it. She
don't like this turn in the corner, so I made up something else. You
know I design my own patterns."
Then resisting the temptation to give the history of the rest of her
favorites, she put the box aside and turned her attention to the quart
bottle in hand, with its strip of muslin stretched tight around it,
over a bewildering collection of grapes and leaves. This was her method,
and the admiring sisters thought it perfect.
That night I teased John's mother into hunting up the dress, and there
was the identical pattern, edging the fine white cambric now yellow with
age. She was amused at my report of Miss Chrissy.
In my annual journeyings to the old town I never neglected "The Pears."
They always looked as if I had just stepped out for an hour, and come
back. The carpet did not wear out; the stove never lacked luster; the
tiny window-panes were always just washed, and the diligent fingers went
on just the same. They had a quaint way not easy to describe. When one
talked all the rest chimed in with little whispering echoes, to support
the assertion; and yet they did not seem to interrupt. They were to me
living wonders, so perfectly unspotted from the world, so earnest in
their pigmy money-making, and so thoroughly united, I felt consumed with
curiosity as to their inner life. They must sometimes put by the
quilting and the knitting and the patterns.
"How do you interest yourselves evenings, Miss Chrissy?" I asked, half
ashamed of the question.
"Oh, we read," she said, smiling her ready smile. "Yes, read," echoed
Miss Suffy and the rest. "We read Sunday-School books, and our Bible,
of course. Sometimes we don't go to bed till ten o'clock."
"Ten o'clock--o'clock--o'clock," assented the gentle voices. It was not
silly; the smiling faces all wore the sweet, simple look of guileless
childhood.
Miss Suffy's window overlooked a time honored graveyard, where gray
slabs were tottering. Next to her beloved patterns and their varied
experiences, Miss Chrissy liked to tell of scenes and memories suggested
by these somber reminders.
"It was a very cold day, Mrs. John," (so she always called me), "when
they buried your husband's uncle out there. Poor fellow! He was shot
at Buena Vista. A cannon-ball took off both his legs, and went right
through the horse he rode. He was a gallant officer. They thought at
first he would rally. The surgeons did their work quickly, and he
suffered little or no pain, but there was no chloroform in that day, and
he died from the shock. The snow was deep on the ground, but it was a
grand funeral. They've got a fine new cemetery out on the hill, but we
never go there. Our dead are all here where we can see their graves."
"Graves," came the echo, they had all along nodded, or murmured, assent.
"One of the saddest funerals we have ever seen." Miss Chrissy went on,
"was a double funeral. Two young men, both only sons, were drowned in
the river while bathing. Their mothers were widows. It was terrible. Two
hearses and two long lines of mourners. There they lie--over there in
that enclosure. They were cousins, and were buried side by side."
"The mothers, Chrissy!" mildly prompted the whisper, when the narrator
paused.
"Yes, the mothers! one died of a broken heart, and the other lost her
mind outright. She is living yet, an old woman, who regularly goes to
the front door of the asylum every morning and takes her seat. If it is
cold weather, she sits inside. She asks every one who enters if Luther
is coming--that was her boy's name."
"Did you know the first Mrs. John Hunt, Miss Chrissy--my husband's
grandmother?" I asked, willing to change the gloomy subject.
"Just as well as I know you, Mrs. John. She was a beautiful little
woman, I was very young at the time I am thinking of. She sent at night
for an embroidered flannel I was doing. It was my first wide pattern,
and it went slow. At 10 o'clock it was finished, and my father went with
me to take it home. They were all going to Washington to the President's
ball--President Monroe, it was--and the trunk was packing. It was to go
on the big traveling-coach. When I ran up stairs and knocked,--I had
often been there before--she opened the door herself. 'Oh, it's you
Chrissy,' she said in her pleasant way; 'come in child; don't you want
to see something pretty?' And she showed me two elegant brocaded silk
gowns, very narrow and very short-waisted, but stiff enough to stand
alone.'
"She praised my work and said I was a good girl. Then she paid me the
money and tied a little blue silk handkerchief around my neck for a
keepsake. 'There,' she said, in her quick voice, 'you may go.' I did
many other patterns for the family, but poor lady! she never saw me
again. She had an illness and lost her eyesight. She was stone blind for
many years. I have the keepsake yet. It is put away in the hair-trunk."
The sisters were all in full sympathy, as usual. Thus I sat and listened
scores of times, making a pretence of wanting a pattern,--anything to
get Miss Chrissy story-telling.
In the centennial year I found "The Pears" much shaken from their even
tenor. The relic-hunters had penetrated their omnium gatherum and
offered fabulous sums for the quaint old bits they found there. One of
them declared he must and would have these wonders for the New England
Kitchen. But the sisters were outraged. Adroitly I managed to hint a
desire to see those treasures inestimable, and then for the first time I
moved from my accustomed seat, and they moved from theirs. The magnitude
of their wrongs would admit of nothing like routine or monotony. The
chairs were pushed back, and I saw five tall, slim figures standing
erect, in straight black gowns, white kerchiefs and spotless caps. They
were devout Lutherans, and their pew at the Sunday service was never
vacant; but I had never seen them outside the workshop.
We filed into the funny little chambers where were the high beds, with
their steps to be climbed. What a wilderness of feathers and patchwork!
Some of Miss Becky's work was there. The bureaus nearly to ceilings,
ornamented with round glass knobs, had their little mirrors perched
up above my head. The candle stands, with spindle legs, wore an
antediluvian look, and the chairs were just as queer. The more aspiring
ones were prim in starched antimaccassars. Even the footstools belonged
to a prehistoric age. There was nothing costly or elegant, but so very
ancient and even comical, I had never seen anything like it, anywhere.
A few oil-paintings, hung in the very border of the huge-figured paper,
were small, but evidently fine.
"These things were brought from Alsace," explained Miss Chrissy, as I
commented freely. "Elsace is the way to call it--and we can't bear to
have strangers meddling with what is sacred to us."
"Sacred to us," came from the procession behind.
At last, pausing before a huge hair trunk, they all gathered nearer, and
when the lid was raised, they vied with one another in displaying the
contents. It would take a great while to tell all that I saw, or their
curious little speeches and words and assents. There were samplers in
every style of lettering and color. The inevitable tombstone, with the
weeping-willow and mourning female, was among them. Bits of painted
velvet, huge reticules, bead purses; gay shawls, and curious lace
caps--all showed patient handiwork. Gifts and souvenirs were plentiful,
even to the blue silk keepsake of the first Mrs. John. Then came
old-fashioned silver spoons and knives and tea-pots, heir-looms, they
said, from the old country. A bit of coarse paper bore an order for
supplies for soldiers upon the Commissaire at Nice, and was signed with
the genuine autograph of the great Napoleon. Every article had its
history, and rarely, if ever, was the little work-shop so long neglected
as on that occasion. When the procession filed back, I took leave with
somewhat the feeling of having been buried in wonderland, and suddenly
resurrected.
Perhaps the shock of the dreaded vandalism was too much. Perhaps the
excitement of the hair trunk struck too deep. At all events. Miss Becky
grew to muttering over her quilt, and making long pauses. One day her
needle stuck fast in the patchwork, and her head quietly sank to rest on
the rolled frame. When I paid my next visit, they said, "You will find
it very odd at The Pears's. Miss Becky is gone."
I did find it odd. The quilt was rolled forever, and the end window was
empty. There was only the chair. Still Miss Suffy sat with her stocking,
and Miss Chrissy with her patterns, placid and patient,--they were only
waiting; yet working as they waited. Miss Polly sighed once in a while
over her pans. Miss Phoebe still went to market and distributed small
alms to the poor. Ripe in good works and in holy resignation were The
Pears.
"Our quilter is gone," said Miss Chrissy. This time there was no
whispered echo; only a gentle sighing all around. But some of the
scallops in the yellow box were not without fresh adventures; and these
I heard.
That winter, Miss Phoebe fell on the slippery little side alley. There
were no bones broken, but she, too, sank to rest in the old gray
churchyard.
It was three years before I went back. Then they said, "Miss Chrissy is
alone." Alone I found her. She was little changed. The brightness had
merely gone from her smile. I noticed that her talk was less of her
patterns, and more of the gray slabs. She no longer clung to the proud
little boast, "I design my own patterns." She was apt to tell what Suffy
said, or Polly, or Phoebe, not forgetting Becky, our quilter.
"No," she said, when I asked: "Polly was not sick. She said in the
morning, 'Chrissy, do you ever feel strange in your head?' Next morning
she did not wake up. Suffy was never as strong as the rest--her back was
bad; so when she had a sort of fit one day, it was soon over."
"You don't--you can't--stay here all alone?"
"No, Mrs. John, Henrietta is with me. You know Henrietta? She belongs to
the people down stairs. I shan't forget her kindness."
"Are you very lonely, Miss Chrissy?" I asked, choking down the tears.
"No, not lonely. The dear Lord is with me; He will stay to the end. No,
Mrs. John, not lonely."
She had always refrained, in diffidence, or humility, from religious
talk. I know it was from no lack of deep spiritual conviction. If ever
the world contained a purer, sweeter sisterhood, I have not known it.
Their work was homely, as their lives were secluded, but no one ever
saw them idle or impatient. In one straight and narrow path they walked
through earth's temptations to heaven's reward.
One of the last things she said to me was that I should take some of the
choicest patterns to my western home, notably "little John's first short
dress edge."
"You have been a helper to us in more ways than one. God will bless you,
Mrs. John."
"Is there nothing you would have me do now? Dear Miss Chrissy, do not
hesitate to speak."
She did hesitate. "I don't think of anything. My papers have long been
drawn up. Lawyer Thomas will attend to them. You know our little savings
are to go to the Home for Aged Women."
I never saw her again. Sitting one day, placid and patient, she fell
asleep over the yellow box; and when they lifted the soft white old
face, all was still.