I
|Lucinda Gibbs stood in the corner of the rail fence behind her cottage.
Her face was damp with perspiration, and her heavy iron-gray hair had
become disarranged and hung down her back below the skirt of her gingham
sun-bonnet. She was raking the decayed leaves and dead weeds from her
tender strawberry sprouts and mentally calculating on an abundant crop
of the luscious fruit later in the spring.
“The trouble is I won’t git to eat none of ‘em,” she sighed, as she
looked up and addressed the woman on the other side of the fence.
“You don’t mean that you are actually a-goin’ shore ‘nough, Mis’ Gibbs?”
exclaimed Betsey Lowry, as she leaned heavily on the top rail.
The widow reversed her rake and began to pull out the leaves which were
packed between the metal teeth, her face reddening gradually, as if she
were slightly irritated.
“I’d like to know ef thar’s anything strange about my goin’,” she said,
coldly. “You said you’d feed my cat an’ chickens an’ attend to the cow
fer what she’d give.”
“Oh, it ain’t because I have the least objection to keepin’ my word
about them things,” said the old maid, quickly. “Goodness knows, me an’
Joel needs the milk an’ butter bad enough, an’ it ain’t one speck o’
trouble jest to throw scraps to the cat, an’ meal-dough to the chickens,
but somehow it skeers me to think of a lone woman like you a-goin’ all
the way to New York by yorese’f.” Mrs. Gibbs leaned the rake against the
fence. The flush died out of her face, giving place to a sweet, wistful
expression.
“Betsey,” she said, tremulously, “tell me the truth. Do you think I
ought to stay at home?”
The old maid turned to look through the orchard of leafless trees to her
own house not far away. She had reddened slightly.
“Ef you push me fer a answer, Mis’ Gibbs, I ’ll have to tell you I don’t
think you ought to go away up thar all alone.”
“You feel that-a-way, Betsey, because you hain’t never had no child an’
been separated from it like I have. When Amos married up thar an’ went
to housekeepin’ it mighty nigh killed me. An’ then I begun to live on
the bare hope that he’d come South on a visit, but he hain’t done it,
an’ thar ain’t no prospect of the like. He says he cayn’t git away frum
his business without dead loss, an’ they want me to come. I’ve said many
a time that I’d never leave my home, but, Betsey, it seems to me that
I cayn’t live another week without seein’ how Amos looks. The Lord only
knows how lonely I am mighty nigh all the time. Ef Susie had lived,
she’d never ‘a’ left me, married or not, but it’s different with a man.
Sometimes I wonder why the Lord tuk ’em both frum me.”
Betsey’s kindly face softened. The intervening fence kept her from
putting a consoling arm around her neighbor.
“I hain’t been blind--nur Brother Joel hain’t nuther--to yore lonely way
o’ livin’,” she said, sympathetically. “Thar’s hardly a night that
me an’ him don’t look out ‘fore we go to bed to see ef you are still
a-sittin’ up readin’ by yore lamp. I kin always tell when you are
a-thinkin’ about Susie more ’n common; it’s always when you git back frum
‘er grave that you set up latest. I believe in layin’ on o’ flowers an’
plantin’ shrubs that ’ll keep sech a precious spot green, but when
it seems to make a body brood-like, then I think it ought not to be
indulged in to any great extent.”
“It’s raily a sort of comfort to go to the graveyard,” faltered Mrs.
Gibbs; and she raised her apron to her mouth.
“How long do you intend to stay with Amos an’ his wife?” asked Betsey,
to divert the widow’s thoughts. She looked over her shoulder, and saw
her brother Joel, a tall, strong-looking man about fifty-five years
of age, approaching from the direction of his store, down at the
cross-roads.
“Three months, I reckon,” replied the widow. “I know in reason that I
won’t want to leave Amos a bit sooner. You see, it may be a long time
before I lay eyes on ’im again. They say the baby is doin’ fine, an’ I
want to see it an’ nuss it.”
“So you are raily goin’?” cried Joel Lowry, as he leaned on the fence
beside his sister.
“Yes, I’m a-goin’ to make the trip, Joel.”
“It’s a long ways,” returned the storekeeper, “an’ I don’t see how you
are a-goin’ by yorese’f. Ef it was jest a few weeks later, now, I might
pull up an’ go along. I’ve always believed ef I went to New York to lay
in stock that I could save enough on my goods to defray my expenses thar
an’ back.”
The eyes of the widow flashed eagerly. She took a long, trembling
breath.
“I wisht to goodness you would,” she said. “I don’t know one thing about
trains, an’ I am powerful afraid I ’ll make a bobble of the whole thing
from start to finish. Ef I was to git on the wrong car--but what is
the use to cross a bridge ‘fore you git to it? Mebby I ’ll git thar all
right.”
“I hate mightily to have you try it,” replied Joel, reflectively, as he
stroked his short gray beard. “I jest wish you would think better of it.
I’m a leetle grain older ’n you, Mis’ Gibbs, an’ I’ve been about some.”
Mrs. Gibbs drew her rake after her as she turned toward her cottage.
“I don’t want to change my mind,” she said, emphatically. “I’m bent on
seein’ Amos, an’ I’m a-goin’ to do it. I’d better go in now. I’ve got a
lot o’ packin’ to do.”
Joel went back toward his store across a field of decaying corn-stubble
without looking round, and Betsey climbed over the fence and went into
the cottage with her neighbor.
“I never hated to see a body go so in all my born days,” she sighed.
Mrs. Gibbs opened the front door and preceded Betsey into the room on
the right of the little hall.
“You mustn’t mind how things looks in heer,” she apologized. “I left my
trunk open right spank in the middle of the room, so whenever I see a
thing that ought to go in I kin jest fling it at the trunk an’ put it
away when I have time.”
Betsey stood over the little hair trunk and looked down dolefully.
“What on earth is that I smell?” she asked. “Sassafras, as I’m alive!”
“Yes, I dug it yesterday. Amos likes sassafras-root tea; he used to
drink a power of it to thin his blood in the spring; he writ that he
hain’t had a taste of it sence he left heer. Shorely, it’s come to a
purty pass if a body cayn’t get sech as that in a big city like New
York.”
“Seems to me,” remarked the old maid, “that you’ve got a sight more
truck here than you ’ll have any need fer. What’s this greasy mess
wrapped up?”
“That’s mutton suet,” was the enthusiastic reply. “It’s the whitest cake
I ever laid eyes on. They ’ll need it fer chapped hands an’ lips. Amos
says it’s a sight colder up thar. That’s ginger-cake in that paper box,
an’ I’ve made him an’ Sally some wool socks an’ stockin’s.”
“Are you shore you are a-goin’ to be away three months?” asked Betsey,
with a sigh.
“Mebby longer than that,” answered the old woman. “I feel like I never
will want to leave Amos again, but I couldn’t be away from my home
always, you know. La, it ’ll seem powerful strange to wake up an’ not
look out o’ that thar window towards the mountain.”
“An’ not to heer the hens a-cacklin’, an’ the cow an’ calf a-bellowin’,”
added Betsey. Then she put her handkerchief to her eyes and plunged
hastily from the room. Mrs. Gibbs moved quickly to the window and looked
out. She saw Betsey climb over the fence and go on through the orchard,
her head hanging down.