One morning, as she was making ready to go to the store, and taking
ready to go to the store, and taking much time at the process, she
observed at her forehead a white hair. It startled her, frightened her
for a moment; then she laughed.
"Why, I'm growing old!"
What use had she for youth? It had never been kind to her. All the
loss of it meant was that it might harm her a little at the store. She
plucked out the white thread and forgot it-nearly.
Another day there was another white hair. She removed that, too. Then
came another, and others, swiftly, till she was afraid to take any more
away.
At last there was a whole gray lock. She tucked it in and pinned it
beneath the nondescript mass of her coiffure. It would have terrified
her more if she had not been so busy. She chattered and proffered her
wares all day long. Hunger became one of her most sincere emotions.
Fatigue wore her out but strengthened her, sweetened her sleep, kept
dreams away. When she woke she must hurry, hurry to the store. The old
stupidity of her life had given way to an eternal hurry.
And now the white hairs were hurrying, too, like the snowflakes that
suddenly fill the air. But with this snow came the quickening of pulse
and glistening of eyes, the reddening of cheeks that the snow brings.
The white fell about her hair as if she stood bareheaded in a
snow-storm. There was a kind of benediction in it. She felt that it
softened something about her face, as the snow softens old rubbish-heaps
and dreary yards and bleak patches.
People began to say, "How well you look, Debby!" They began to dignify
her as "Deborah" or "Miss Larrabee." Her old contemners came to her
counter with a new meekness. Age was making it harder and harder for
them to keep the pace. Bright colors did not become them any longer.
Their petals were falling from them, the velvet was turning to plush,
and the plush losing its nap, rusting, sagging, wearing through. The
years, like moths, were gnawing, gnawing.
Debby felt so sorry for the women who had been beautiful. She could
imagine how the decay of rosehood must hurt. It is not necessary to have
been Napoleon to understand Elba.
One day a sad, heavy figure dragged along Deborah's aisle and sank upon
the mushroom stool in front of her. Deborah could hardly believe that
it was Josie Shillaber. She could hardly force back the shock that
leaped to her expression. From thin, white lips crumpled with pain came
a voice like a rustling of dead leaves in a November gust. And the
voice said, with a kind of envy in it:
"Why, Deborah, how well you look!"
"Oh, I am well!" Deborah chanted, then repressed her cheer
unconsciously. It was not tactful to be too well. "That is, I'm
tol'able. And how are you this awful weather?"
"Not well, Debby. I'm not a bit well; no, I'm never well any more.
Why, your hair is getting right white, isn't it, dear? But it's real
becoming to you. Mine is all gray, too, you see, but it's awful!"
"Indeed it's not! It's fine! Your children must love it. Don't they?"
"Oh, the children!" Josie wailed. "What do they think of me? The grown
ones are away, all flirting and getting married. They say they'll come
back, but they never do. But I don't care. I don't want them to see me
like this. And the young ones are so selfish and inconsiderate. It's
awful, getting old, isn't it, Debby? It don't seem to worry you,
though. I suppose it's because you haven't had sorrow in your life as I
have. I'm looking for something to wear, Debby. The styles aren't what
they used to be. There's not a thing fit to wear to a dog-fight in
these new colors. What are people coming to? I can't find a thing to
wear. What would you suggest? Do help me!"
Deborah emptied the shelves upon the counter, sent to the stock-room for
new shipments that had not been listed yet, ransacked the place; but
there was nothing there for the woman whose husband owned it all. The
physician's wife was sick with time, and even he could not cure her of
that. The draper's wife was turning old; he could not swaddle her from
the chill of that winter. Josie was trying to dress up a rose whose
petals had fallen, whose sepals were curled back; the husk could not
endure colors that the blossom had honored.
Josie, however, would not acknowledge the inevitable autumn; she would
not grow old with the grace of resignation. She limped from the store,
shaking her unlovely head. Could this be Josie Shillaber, who had
romped through life with beauty in and about everything she was and wore
and did?
Deborah could have moralized over her as Hamlet over Yorick's skull:
Where be your petal cheeks, your full, red lips, your concise chin, and
that long, lithe throat, and those pearly shoulders, and all that
high-breasted, spindle-hipped, lean-limbed girlishness of yours? And
where your velocity, your tireless laughter, your amorous enterprise?
Could they have ever been a part of this cumberer of the ground,
creeping almost as slowly and heavily as a vine along a cold, gray wall.
Deborah's hand went to her heart, where there was an ache of pity for
one who had never pitied her. It was Deborah now that was almost
girlish of form; she was only now filling out, taking flesh upon her
bones and rhythm into her members. And that scrawny chicken-chest of
hers was becoming worthy of that so beautiful name for so dear a place;
she was gaining a bosom. She did not know how the whimsical sultan Time
had shifted his favor to her from his other slaves.
She knew only that Josie was in disgrace with beauty and stared after
her in wet-eyed pity. Who can feel so sorry for a fallen tyrant as the
risen victim of tyranny?
A few weeks later Deborah went again to the Shillaber house, sat again
on the sofa in the dining-room. The children had all come home. Josie
was in the parlor, almost hidden in flowers. She did not rise to
receive her guests. They all filed by and looked at her and shook their
heads. She did not answer with a nod. Birdaline wept over her, looking
older and terrified. But Pamela was wonderfully pretty in black. She
sang Josie's favorite hymn, "Jesus, lover of my soul," with a quartet
accompanying her. Then the preacher said a few words and prayed.
Mr. Crankshaw was there, and so were his camp-stools. One of them had
collapsed, and the bass of the choir had been unable to open his. Some
of the young people giggled, as always. But even for them the laughter
was but the automatic whir of a released spring, and there was no mirth
in the air.
Deborah was filled with a cowering awe, as one who sees a storm rush
past and is unhurt save by the vision of its wreckage. The girl Pamela
had sung here a year or so ago that song to the rose, and had shredded
the flower and ruined it and tossed it aside. So time had sung away the
rose that had been Josie. Deborah had heard the rose cry out in its
agony of dissolution, and now it was fallen from the bush, scentless and
dead. But it had left at least other buds to replace it. That was more
than Deborah had ever done.
The store was closed the day of the funeral, and Deborah went home with
her mother. All that her mother could talk about was:
"Poor Josie! But did you see Birdaline? My, how poorly she looks! And
so kind of scared. And she used to be such a nice-looking girl! My,
how she has aged! Poor Josie! But Birdaline! What was she so scared
about?"
It was the very old triumphing over the old for meeting the same fate.
In her own summer Mrs. Larrabee had been a rose and had shriveled on the
stem.
That night Deborah thanked God that He had not lent her beauty. Its
repayment was such ruin.