It was over two years now since the Widow Em Cottle had left Lemuel
Perkins’ house in a rage at some last straw of household tyranny, and
then had widened the breach to a chasm by marrying his hereditary enemy
and neighbour, Deacon Caldwell. In all that time the chasm had never
been bridged by one friendly word, and never, both had declared, would
they utter a syllable to each other, if it were to save their lives.
Fortunately, human beings are rarely as bad or as foolish as their own
rash vows; and when Mrs. Emma Caldwell stepped out of the Emporium that
morning and ran into Lem Perkins, unmistakably headed for home and
dinner, she recognized a “leadin’ plain as the nose on her face,” as
she afterward explained to the deacon. And Mrs. Caldwell was far too
good a woman to disobey a “leading.”
“Mornin’, Lem,” she began boldly, casting the usual polite fly upon the
conversational waters. “Much obliged for the pears. They was as tasty
as yours always is.”
Mr. Perkins nodded.
“The little gal wanted I should send ’em,” he explained gruffly. “She’s
a great hand for neighbourin’, sissy is.”
The bull having turned his forehead in her direction, Mrs. Caldwell
promptly seized him by the horns.
“It’s her I want to talk about,” she announced. “She’s a takin’ young
one as I’ve seen in a month o’ Sundays, but blind as a bat—or an
angel,” she added softly. “Land only knows how she’s managed it, but
she’s took all sorts of a shine to her ‘dear Uncle Lemuel,’ as she
calls you—thinks you’re the salt of the earth—and good—and kind. Law
me, Lem, if you could hear her talk, you’d go home and look in the
glass, and say: ‘Mercy me, who be I, anyway?’”
“Waal,” grunted “dear Uncle Lemuel,” turning aside to hide the pleased
smile that would twitch at the corners of his mouth in spite of his
strenuous efforts, “what’s to hender, Mis’ Caldwell? Blood is thicker’n
water—ain’t it?”
“Yourn hain’t,” retorted Mrs. Caldwell promptly. “It’s hern that’s got
to provide all the thickenin’ for two. And as to what’s to hender,
you are, most likely. I’m worried to death this minute over how soon
that little gal’s heart is a-goin’ to be stove to flinders, a-findin’
out how fur you be from an’ angel dropped. She’s been up there to my
house this mornin’ slavin’ away over the cook stove a-making pies for
a surprise for you, and a-fetchin’ of ’em home so careful! Land, I
just had to laugh to see her a-carryin’ ’em home one to a time—three
trips she made of it—usin’ both hands, and a-tiptoein’ along as if
she was Undertaker Pearse a-startin’ for a funeral. And now I s’pose
she’s waitin’ there, all nerved up to see how you’ll relish ’em—not
knowin’ that you’re just about as likely to say a word o’ praise as a
rhinoceros in a circus. But if you don’t, it’ll break her little heart;
that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“Humph!” grunted Uncle Lemuel. “Well, so that’s all you got to say,
Neighbour Caldwell, I’m willin’.”
“No, ’tain’t,” retorted Mrs. Caldwell hotly. “’Tain’t by a long
shot! Another thing that blessed child’s all worked up about is that
Christmas business over to school. I sent her over on an errand to the
teacher this mornin’, and they got to talkin’ over there about how
you set down on their Christmas doin’s in the trustee meetin’. They
didn’t use your name—called you some kind of a nickname or other,
the young ones did—and she never dreamed who ’twas, but come back all
keyed up and plannin’ to git her Uncle Lem to go to the other old
what’s-his-name and fix things up. And how she’s ever goin’ to stand it
when she finds that that dear Uncle Lem of hers is the old curmudgeon
they was talkin’ about, I dunno. It’s a sin and a shame, Lem Perkins,
how that child’s cottoned to you—that’s what I call it.”
She stopped suddenly with a gulp, and wiped away a tear with the corner
of her white apron as she turned away.
Uncle Lem stepped after her.
“Em Cottle,” he said abruptly, “you’re a truthful woman, as fur as I
know—and I’ve known ye quite a spell. Do you reely b’lieve that young
one is so—so—that is——” He paused and cleared his throat. “Does she
lot on me as much as she makes out, or is she jest—doin’ it—to git my
money, mebbe?”
A blaze of anger dried the tears in Em Cottle’s eyes.
“Well,” she remarked scathingly, “blindness runs in your family, sure
enough—only with some it’s for bad and with some it’s for good—that’s
all! There ain’t no use wastin’ no more time on you; that’s sure as
preachin’.”
With a capable hitch of her green plaid shawl, she turned her plump
shoulders full upon him, and started briskly up the road.
Uncle Lemuel glanced furtively about him. The village square was empty;
not even Marthy Ann Watkins’ eye was visible at the post-office window.
“Em! Oh, Em!” he called loudly, and then, as the brisk figure in front
seemed to hesitate for a moment, he scuttled after it.
“Don’t be in such a brash, Em,” he gasped, as he caught up with her.
“We hain’t had a dish o’ talk in so long that I guess we can afford to
spend a minute or so a-doin’ it. You didn’t jest ketch my meanin’ then,
Em. I didn’t reely think that sissy, there, had plans herself, but I
didn’t know but mebbe Ellen——”
“If Ellen Rumball had had her eye on your old money bags, she wouldn’t
’a’ broke with you to go off to Injy with that missionary feller, would
she?”
Uncle Lem glowered with the remembrance of past injuries.
“Ellen Rumball pretended to like me, too,” he muttered; “and then she
deserted me in my old age for that good-for-nothin’ missionary chap.”
“Pretended?” exploded Mrs. Em; “pretended? If ’tain’t real likin’
that would make a woman swaller down all the things you said, and the
way you acted, and bring up her young ones to think you was the finest
uncle goin’, well, then it’s real grace; that’s all I’ve got to say!
And here I be, a-quarrelin’ with you the same as ever, and I’d made up
my mind butter shouldn’t melt in my mouth.”
But Uncle Lemuel was absorbed in struggling against the softening of
his grim old face.
“Ellen _has_ fetched sissy up fair to middlin’ well,” he admitted.
“She’s kind of smart for her years—handy round the house, I mean, ain’t
she, Em? And folksy—it does beat all! They couldn’t nobody around town
talk of nothin’ this mornin’ but ‘my little gal,’ as they called her.
She started out yestiddy arternoon to do her Christmas tradin’, and she
must ’a’ got acquainted with everybody in sight. She promised Marthy
Watkins some postcards from Injy. And then the minister comes along,
and she got him so interested he asked me if I’d let her speak about
missions to the Children’s Band. And Nate Waters—you know I hain’t been
in Waters’s store for a matter of a year or so, since he sold me that
busted plough—but out come Mis’ Waters this morning, to see if I’d mind
her savin’ sissy a little red chain she had there. Sissy took to it
uncommon, but she didn’t have money enough to get it, she’d bought so
much truck for other folks, and Mis’ Waters wanted to give it to her
for Christmas.”
“Well, I hope to the land you let her!” cried Mrs. Caldwell. “She
was goin’ to spend a whole fifty cents a-buyin’ you a handsome china
cup, Lem, good enough for a president. And, though Nate may be tricky
sometimes, Mis’ Waters is a real nice woman.”
Uncle Lem coughed.
“Well, here ’tis, Em,” he replied at last, producing a little packet
from his overcoat pocket. “But I guess me and my folks don’t have to be
beholden to the Waterses yet for our fixin’s. You know little Loviny
was very partial to red, too,” he added, after a moment.
They had now reached the Perkins gate, but Mrs. Caldwell suddenly
turned and laid a detaining hand on his arm.
“Why, that’s who ’tis!” she exclaimed softly. “I’ve been a-wonderin’
and a-wonderin’ who that child reminded me of. She don’t take after
Ellen Rumball exactly, nor yet Christie, as I remember him, but she’s
got the very same disposition as your little Loviny had, laughin’ all
day like a brook, and yet as serious and interested as an old woman
about things she took a notion to, and the most lovin’ little heart
that ever was. I was in the Sixth Reader when she began her A B C’s,
but she got to be friends with the whole school afore the first week
was out—and I guess there wa’n’t a dry eye to the Centre when we heard
tell about the runaway. ‘Of such is the kingdom of heaven’—that was the
text to her funeral, wa’n’t it? And I guess ’tis, too, fast enough. And
’twould come a heap sooner on earth, I’m thinkin’, if there was more
like her—wouldn’t it? Well, give my love to sissy,” she added quickly,
with kindly tact, “and tell her I’ll look for her again in the morning.”
But the old man did not heed her. Across the gulf of over forty years
he was looking once more at a gay little figure in red merino, that
danced before him, while his little daughter’s voice cried happily:
“Father, father, come kiss Loviny in her Kissmas-coloured d’ess!”