MEADOW-GRASS

TALES OF NEW ENGLAND LIFE

BY ALICE BROWN

1895

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

NUMBER FIVE

FARMER ELI'S VACATION

AFTER ALL

TOLD IN THE POORHOUSE

HEMAN'S MA

HEARTSEASE

MIS' WADLEIGH'S GUEST

A RIGHTEOUS BARGAIN

JOINT OWNERS IN SPAIN

AT SUDLEIGH FAIR

BANKRUPT

NANCY BOYD'S LAST SERMON

STROLLERS IN TIVERTON

TO M. G. R. 

LOVER OF WOODS AND FIELD AND SEA. 

NUMBER FIVE. 

We who are Tiverton born, though false ambition may have ridden us tomarket, or the world's voice incited us to kindred clamoring, have away of shutting our eyes, now and then, to present changes, and seeingthings as they were once, as they are still, in a certain sleepy yetaltogether individual corner of country life. And especially do wedelight in one bit of fine mental tracery, etched carelessly, yet forall time, so far as our own' short span is concerned, by the unerringstylus of youth: the outline of a little red schoolhouse, distinguishedfrom the other similar structures within Tiverton bounds by "DistrictNo. V. , " painted on a shingle, in primitive black letters, and nailedaloft over the door. Up to the very hollow which made its playgroundand weedy garden, the road was elm-bordered and lined with fairmeadows, skirted in the background by shadowy pines, so soft they didnot even wave; they only seemed to breathe. The treasures of the road!On either side, the way was plumed and paved with beauties so rare thatnow, disheartened dwellers in city streets, we covetously con over inmemory that roaming walk to school and home again. We know it now forwhat it was, a daily progress of delight. We see again the oldwatering-trough, decayed into the mellow loveliness of gray lichen andgreenest moss. Here beside the ditch whence the water flowed, grew thepale forget-me-not and sticky star-blossomed cleavers. A step farther, beyond the nook where the spring bubbled first, were the riches of thecommon roadway; and over the gray, lichen-bearded fence, the growth ofstubbly upland pasture. Everywhere, in road and pasture too, throngedmilkweed, odorous haunt of the bee and those frailest butterflies ofthe year, born of one family with drifting blossoms; and straightlytall, the solitary mullein, dust-covered but crowned with a gold softerand more to be desired than the pride of kings. Perhaps the carriagefolk from the outer world, who sometimes penetrate Tiverton's leafyquiet, may wonder at the queer little enclosures of sticks and pebbleson many a bare, tree-shaded slope along the road. "Left there from somegame!" they say to one another, and drive on, satisfied. But these areno mere discarded playthings, dear ignorant travellers! They are tokensof the mimic earnest with which child-life is ever seeking to soberitself, and rushing unsummoned into the workaday fields of an aimlesslyfrantic world. They are houses, and the stone boundaries are walls. This tree stump is an armchair, this board a velvet sofa. Not moretruly is "this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog. "

Across the road, at easy running distance from the schoolhouse atnoontime or recess, crawled the little river, with its inevitable"hole, " which each mother's son was warned to avoid in swimming, lesthe be seized with cramp there where the pool was bottomless. What eeriewonders lurked within the mirror of those shallow brown waters! Longblack hairs cleaved and clung in their limpid flowing. To this day, Iknow not whether they were horse-hairs, far from home, or swayingwillow roots; the boys said they were "truly" hairs of the kinddestined to become snakes in their last estate; and the girls, listening, shivered with all Mother Eve's premonitory thrill along thebackbone. Wish-bugs, too, were here, skimming and darting. Thepeculiarity of a wish-bug is that he will bestow upon you your heart'sdesire, if only you hold him in the hand and wish. But the impossiblepremise defeats the conclusion. You never do hold him long enough, simply because you can't catch him in the first place. Yet thefascinating possibility is like a taste for drink, or the glamour ofcards. Does the committee-man drive past to Sudleigh market, suggestingthe prospect of a leisurely return that afternoon, and consequentdropping in to hear the geography class? Then do the laziest and mostoptimistic boys betake them hastily from their dinner-pails to theriver, and spend their precious nooning in quest of the potent bug, through whose spell the unwelcome visit may be averted. The time sosquandered in riotous gaming might have, fixed the afternoon's "NorthPoles and Equators" triumphantly in mind, to the everlasting defianceof all alien questioning; but no! for human delight lies ever in theunattainable. The committee-man comes like Nemesis, _aequo pede_, thelesson is unlearned, and the stern-fibred little teacher orders out therack known as staying after school. But what durance beyond hours inthe indescribably desolate schoolroom ever taught mortal boy to shunthe delusive insect created for his special undoing? So long as theheart has woes of its own breeding, so long also will it dodge thediscipline of labor, and grasp at the flicker of an easy success. 

On either side the little bridge (over which horses pounded with anominous thunder and a rain of dust on the head of him who lingeredbeneath the sleepers, in a fearsome joy), the meadows were pranked withpurple iris and whispering rushes, mingling each its sweetness with thegood, rank smell of mud below. Here were the treasures of thewater-course, close hidden, or blowing in the light of day. The pale, golden-hearted arrow-head neighbored the homespun pickerel-weed, and--oh, mysterious glory from an oozy bed!--luscious, sun-goldencow-lilies rose sturdily triumphant, dripping with color, glowing insheen. The button-bush hung out her balls, and white alder painted theair with faint perfume; willow-herb built her bowery arches, and theflags were ever glancing like swords of roistering knights. Theseflags, be it known to such as have grown up in grievous ignorance ofthe lore inseparable from "deestrick school, " hold the most practicalsignificance in the mind of boy and girl; for they bring forth (I knowwe thought for our delight alone!) a delicacy known as flag-buds, everlastingly dear to the childish palate. These were devoured by thewholesale in their season, and little mouths grew oozy-green as thoseof happy beasties in June, from much champing and chewing. Did we loseour appetite for the delectable dinner-pail through such literal goingto pasture? I think not. Tastes were elastic, in those days; andNature, so bullied, durst seldom revolt. 

On one side, the nearest neighbor to the school lived at least a mileaway; but on the other, the first house of all owned treasures manifoldfor the little squad who, though the day were wet or dry, fair orfrowning, trotted thither at noon. Here were trees under which lay, inhappy season, over-ripe Bartlett pears; here, too, was onemulberry-tree, whereof the suggestion was strange and wonderful, andthe fruit less appealing to taste than to a mystical fancy. But outsidethe bank wall grew the balm-of-Gileads, in a stately, benevolentrow, --trees of healing, of fragrance and romantic charm. No child eversought the old home to beg pears and mulberries, or to fill theschool-house pail at its dark-bosomed well, without bearing away a fewof the leaves in a covetous grasp. Sweet treasure-trove these, to bepressed to fresh young faces, and held and patted in hot little palms, till they grew flabby but evermore fragrant, still diffusing over thedusty schoolroom that warm odor, whispering to those who read no cornerbut their own New England, of the myrrh and balsams of the East. 

We knew everything in those days, we aimless knights-errant withdinner-pail and slate; the dry, frosty hollow where gentians bloom whenthe pride of the field is over, the woody slopes of the hepatica'sawakening, under coverlet of withered leaves, and the sunny banks whereviolets love to live with their good gossip, the trembling anemone. Atnoon, we roved abroad into solitudes so deep that even our unsuspectinghearts sometimes quaked with fear of dark and lonesomeness; and then wecame trooping back at the sound of the bell, untamed, happy littlesavages, ready to settle, with a long breath, to the afternoon's drowsyroutine. Arrant nonsense that! the boundary of British America and theconjugation of the verb _to be_! Who that might loll away the hoursupon a bank in silken ease, needed aught even of computation or thetongues? He alone had inherited the earth. 

All the little figures flitting through those tranquil early dramas areso sharply drawn, so brightly colored still! I meet Melissa Cranesometimes nowadays, a prosperous matron with space enough on her broadback for the very largest plaid ever woven; but her present identity ishazy and unreal. I see instead, with a sudden throb of memory, thelittle Melissa, who, one recess, accepted a sugared doughnut from me, and said, with a quaint imitation of old folks' manner, --

"I think your mother will be a real good cook, if she lives!"

I hear of Susie Marden, who went out West, married, and grew up withthe country in great magnificence; but to me she is and ever will bethe little girl who made seventy pies, one Thanksgiving time, therebyearning the somewhat stinted admiration of those among us who could notcook. Many a great deed, tacitly promised in that springtime, nevercame to pass; many a brilliant career ingloriously ended. There was SamMarshall. He could do sums to the admiration of class and teacher, and, Cuvier-like, evolve an entire flock from Colburn's two geese and ahalf. His memory was prodigious. He could name the Presidents, boundthe States and Territories, and rattle off the list of prepositions sofast that you could almost see the spark-shower from his rushing wheelsof thought. It was an understood thing among us, when Sam was in histeens, that he should at least enter the Senate; perhaps he would evenbe President, and scatter offices, like halfpence, among his scamperingtownsmen. But to-day he patiently does his haying--by hand! and "goessleddin'" in the winter. The Senate is as far from him as the PolarStar, and I question whether he could even bear the crucial test of twogeese and a half. Yet I still look upon him with a thrill of awe, asthe man selected by the popular vote to represent us in fame'sValhalla, and mysteriously defeated by some unexpected move of the"unseen hand at a game. "

There were a couple of boys such good comrades as never to be happysave when together. They cared only for the games made for two; alltheir goods were tacitly held in common, and a tradition still livesthat David, when a new teacher asked his exact age, claimed hiscomrade's birthday, and then wondered why everybody laughed. They had away of wandering off together to the woods, on Saturday. Mornings, whenthe routine of chores could be hurried through, and always they borewith them a store of eggs, apples, or sweet corn, to be cooked in happyseclusion. All this raw material was stolen from the respectivehaylofts and gardens at home, though, as the fathers owned, with anappreciative grin, the boys might have taken it openly for the asking. That, however, would so have alloyed the charm of gypsying that it wasnot to be thought of for a moment; and they crept about on theirforaging expeditions with all the caution of a hostile tribe. Blessedfathers and mothers to wink at the escapade, and happy boys, wisechiefly in their longing to be free! We had a theory that Jonathan andDavid would go into business together. Perhaps we thought of them inthe same country store, their chairs tilted on either side of theair-tight stove, telling stories, in the intervals of custom, as theyapparently did in their earlier estate. For, shy as they were ingeneral company, they chatted together with an intense earnestness allday long; and it was one of the stock questions in our neighborhood, when the social light burned low, --

"What under the sun do you s'pose Dave and Jont find to talk about?"

Alas! again the world had builded foolishly; for with early manhood, they fell in love with the same round-cheeked school-teacher. Jonathanmarried her, after what wrench of feeling I know not; and the otherfled to the town, whence he never returned save for the briefest visitat Thanksgiving or Christmas time. The stay-at-home lad is a warmfarmer, and the little school-teacher a mother whose unlined face showsthe record of a placid life; but David cannot know even this, save byhearsay, for he never sees them. He is a moneyed man, and not a yearago, gave the town a new library. But is he happy? Or does the oldwound still show a ragged edge? For that may be, they tell us, even"when you come to forty year. "

Then, clad in brighter vestments of memory, there was the lad whoearned unto himself much renown, even among his disapproving relatives, by running away from home, in quest of gold and glory. True, he wasbrought back at the end of three days, footsore and muddy, and withnoble appetite for the griddle-cakes his mother cooked him in lieu ofthe traditional veal, --but all undaunted. He never tried it again, yetpeople say he has thrown away all his chances of a thrifty living byperpetual wandering in the woods with gun and fishing-rod, and that heis cursed with a deplorable indifference to the state of his fences andpotato-patch. No one could call him an admirable citizen, but I am notsure that he has chosen the worser part; for who is so jovial andsympathetic on a winter evening, when the apples are passed, and eventhe shining cat purrs content before the blaze, or in the woodsolitudes, familiar to him as his own house door?

"Pa'tridges' nests?" he said, one spring, with a cock of his eyecalculated to show at once a humorous recognition of his genius and hisdelinquencies. "Sartain! I wish I was as sure where I keep my scythesned!"

He has learned all the lore of the woods, the ways of "wild critters, "and the most efficacious means both to woo and kill them. Primspinsters eye him acridly, as a man given over to "shif'less" ways, andwives set him up, like a lurid guidepost, before husbands prone tolapse from domestic thrift; but the dogs smile at him, and children, for whom he is ever ready to make kite or dory, though all his hayshould mildew, or to string thimbleberries on a grass spear whilesupper cools within, tumble merrily at his heels. Such as he shouldnever assume domestic relations, to be fettered with requirements oftime and place. Let them rather claim maintenance from a gratefulpublic, and live, like troubadours of old, ministrant to the generaljoy. 

Not all the memories of that early day are quite unspotted by remorse. Although we wore the mask of jocund faces and straightforward glance, we little people repeatedly proclaimed ourselves the victims of Adam'sfall. Even then we needed to pray for deliverance from those passionswhich have since pursued us. There was the little bound girl who livedwith a "selec'man's" wife, a woman with children of her own, but a hardtaskmistress to the stranger within her gates. Poor little Polly! herclothes, made over from those of her mistress, were of dark, roughflannel, often in uncouth plaids and appalling stripes. Her petticoatswere dyed of a sickly hue known as cudbar, and she wore heavy woollenstockings of the same shade. Polly got up early, to milk and drive thecows; she set the table, washed milkpans, and ran hither and thither onher sturdy cudbar legs, always willing, sometimes singing, and oftenwith a mute, questioning look on her little freckled face, as if shehad already begun to wonder why it has pleased God to set so manyboundary lines over which the feeble may not pass. The selec'man'sson--a heavy-faced, greedy boy--was a bully, and Polly became his butt;she did his tasks, hectored by him in private, and with a child'sstrange reticence, she never told even us how unbearable he made herlife. We could see it, however; for not much remains hidden in thatcommunistic atmosphere of the country neighborhood. But sometimes Pollyrevolted; her temper blazed up, a harmless flash in the pan, and then, it was said, Mis' Jeremiah took her to the shed-chamber and, trouncedher soundly. I myself have seen her sitting at the little low window, when I trotted by, in the pride of young life, to "borry someemptin's, " or the recipe for a new cake. Often she waved a timid handto me; and I am glad to remember a certain sunny morning, illuminatednow because I tossed her up a bright hollyhock in return. It was littleto give out of a full and happy day; but Polly had nothing. Once shecame near great good fortune, --and missed it! For a lady, who boarded afew weeks in the neighborhood, took a fancy to Polly, and was stirredto outspoken wrath by our tales of the severity of her life. She gaveher a pretty pink cambric dress, and Polly wore it on "last day, " atthe end of the summer term. She was evidently absorbed in love of it, and sat, smoothing its shiny surface with her little cracked hand, sooblivious to the requirements of the occasion that she only looked updazed when the teacher told her to describe the Amazon River, andunregretfully let the question pass. The lady meant to take Polly awaywith, her, but she fell sick with erysipelas in the face, and washurried off to the city to be nursed, "a sight to behold, " as everybodysaid. And whether she died, or whether she got well and forgot Polly, none of us ever heard. We only knew she did not return, bringing theodor of violets and the rustle of starched petticoats into our placidlives. 

But all these thoughts of Polly would be less wearing, when they comein the night-time knocking at the heart, if I could only remember heras glowing under the sympathy and loving-kindness of her little mates. Alas! it was not so. We were senseless little brutes, who, never havinglearned the taste of misery ourselves, had no pity for the misfortunesof others. She was, indeed, ill-treated; but what were we, to translatethe phrase? She was an under dog, and we had no mercy on her. We"plagued" her, God forgive us! And what the word means, in its fullhorror, only a child can compass. We laughed at her cudbar petticoats, her little "chopped hands;" and when she stumbled over the arithmeticlesson, because she had been up at four o'clock every morning since thefirst bluebirds came, we laughed at that. Life in general seems to havetreated Polly in somewhat the same way. I hear that she did not marrywell, and that her children had begun to "turn out bad, " when she died, prematurely bent and old, not many weeks ago. But when I think of whatwe might have given and what we did withhold, when I realize that onedrop of water from each of us would have filled her little cup tooverflowing, there is one compensating thought, and I murmur, conscience-smitten, "I'm glad she had the pink dress!"

And now the little school is ever present with us, ours still forcounsel or reproof. Its long-closed sessions are open, by day andnight; and I suppose, as time goes on, and we drop into the estate ofthose who sit by the fireside, oblivious to present scenes, yet acutelyawake to such as

 "Flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude, "

it will grow more and more lifelike and more near. Beside it, live allthe joys of memory and many a long-past pain. For we who have walked incountry ways, walk in them always, and with no divided love, eventhough brick pavements have been our chosen road this many a year. Wefollow the market, we buy and sell, and even run across the sea, to fitus with new armor for the soul, to guard it from the hurts of years;but ever do we keep the calendar of this one spring of life. Someunheard angelus summons us to days of feast and mourning; it may be thejoy of the fresh-springing willow, or the nameless pain responsive tothe croaking of frogs, in the month when twilights are misty, and wavesof world-sorrow flood in upon the heart, we know not why. All thosetrembling half-thoughts of the sleep of the year and its awakening, --wehave not escaped them by leaving the routine that brought them forth. We know when the first violets are blowing in the woods, and we paintfor ourselves the tasselling of the alder and the red of maple-buds. Wetaste still the sting of checkerberry and woodsy flavor of the fragrantbirch. When fields of corn are shimmering in the sun, we know exactlyhow it would seem to run through those dusty aisles, swept by thatsilken drapery, and counselled in whispers from the plumy tops so farabove our heads. The ground-sparrow's nest is not strange to us; no, nor the partridge's hidden treasure within the wood. We can makepudding-bags of live-forever, dolls' bonnets, "trimmed up to thenines, " out of the velvet mullein leaf, and from the ox-eyed daisies, round, cap-begirt faces, smiling as the sun. All the homely secrets ofrural life are ours: the taste of pie, cinnamon-flavored, from thedinner-pails at noon; the smell of "pears a-b'ilin', " at that happiesthour when, in the early dusk, we tumble into the kitchen, to find thetable set and the stove redolent of warmth and savor. "What you got forsupper?" we cry, --question to be paralleled in the summer days by"What'd you have for dinner?" as, famished little bears, we rush to thedairy-wheel, to feed ravenously on the cold, delicious fragments of themeal eaten without us. 

If time ever stood still, if we were condemned to the blank solitude ofhospital nights or becalmed, mid-ocean days, and had hours forfruitless dreaming, I wonder what viands we should choose, in settingforth a banquet from that ambrosial past! Foods unknown to poetry andsong: "cold b'iled dish, " pan-dowdy, or rye drop-cakes dripping withbutter! For these do we taste, in moments of retrospect; and perhaps wedwell the more on their homely savor because we dare not think whathands prepared them for our use, or, when the board was set, what facessmiled. We are too wise, with the cunning prudence of the years, topenetrate over-far beyond the rosy boundary of youth, lest we find alsothat bitter pool which is not Lethe, but the waters of a vain regret. 

FARMER ELI'S VACATION

"It don't seem as if we'd really got round to it, does it, father?"asked Mrs. Pike. 

The west was paling, and the August insects stirred the air with theircrooning chirp. Eli and his wife sat together on the washing-benchoutside the back door, waiting for the milk to cool before it should bestrained. She was a large, comfortable woman, with an unlined face, andsmooth, fine auburn hair; he was spare and somewhat bent, with curlyiron-gray locks, growing thin, and crow's-feet about his deep-set grayeyes. He had been smoking the pipe of twilight contentment, but now hetook it out and laid it on the bench beside him, uncrossing his legsand straightening himself, with the air of a man to whom it falls, after long pondering, to take some decisive step. 

"No; it don't seem as if 'twas goin' to happen, " he owned. "It lookedpretty dark to me, all last week. It's a good deal of an undertakin', come to think it all over. I dunno's I care about goin'. "

"Why, father! After you've thought about it so many years, an' Sereno'sgot the tents strapped up, an' all! You must be crazy!"

"Well, " said the farmer, gently, as he rose and went to carry themilk-pails into the pantry, calling coaxingly, as he did so, "Kitty!kitty! You had your milk? Don't you joggle, now!" For one eager tabbyrose on her hind legs, in purring haste, and hit her nose against thefoaming saucer. 

Mrs. Pike came ponderously to her feet, and followed, with the heavy, swaying motion of one grown fleshy and rheumatic. She was not in theleast concerned about Eli's change of mood. He was a gentle soul, andshe had always been able to guide him in paths of her own choosing. Moreover, the present undertaking was one involving his own goodfortune, and she meant to tolerate no foolish scruples which mightinterfere with its result. For Eli, though he had lived all his lifewithin easy driving distance of the ocean, had never seen it, and eversince his boyhood he had cherished one darling plan, --some day he wouldgo to the shore, and camp out there for a week. This, in his starvedimagination, was like a dream of the Acropolis to an artist strickenblind, or as mountain outlines to the dweller in a lonely plain. Butthe years had flitted past, and the dream never seemed nearercompletion. There were always planting, haying, and harvesting to beconsidered; and though he was fairly prosperous, excursions wereforeign to his simple habit of life. But at last, his wife had steppedinto the van, and organized an expedition, with all the valor of aFrancis Drake. 

"Now, don't you say one word, father, " she had said. "We're goin' downto the beach, Sereno, an' Hattie, an' you an' me, an' we're goin' tocamp out. It'll do us all good. "

For days before the date of the excursion, Eli had been solemn andtremulous, as with joy; but now, on the eve of the great event, heshrank back from it, with an undefined notion that it was like death, and that he was not prepared. Next morning, however, when they all roseand took their early breakfast, preparatory to starting at five, heshowed no sign of indecision, and even went about his outdoor taskswith an alacrity calculated, as his wife approvingly remarked, to"for'ard the v'y'ge. " He had at last begun to see his way clear, and helooked well satisfied when his daughter Hattie and Sereno, her husband, drove into the yard, in a wagon cheerfully suggestive of a wanderinglife. The tents and a small hair-trunk were stored in the back, and thehorse's pail swung below. 

"Well, father, " called Hattie, her rosy face like a flower under thelarge shade-hat she had trimmed for the occasion, "guess we're goin' tohave a good day!"

He nodded from the window, where he was patiently holding his head highand undergoing strangulation, while his wife, breathing huskily withhaste and importance, put on his stock. 

"You come in, Hattie, an' help pack the doughnuts into that lard-pailon the table, " she called. "I guess you'll have to take two pails. Theyain't very big. "

At length, the two teams were ready, and Eli mounted to his place, where he looked very slender beside his towering mate. The hired manstood leaning on the pump, chewing a bit of straw, and the cats rubbedagainst his legs, with tails like banners; they were all impressed by asense of the unusual. 

"Well, good-by, Luke, " Mrs. Pike called, over her shoulder; and Eligave the man a solemn nod, gathered up the reins, and drove out of theyard. Just outside the gate, he pulled up. 

"Whoa!" he called, and Luke lounged forward. "Don't you forgit themcats! Git up, Doll!" And this time, they were gone. 

For the first ten miles of the way, familiar in being the road tomarket, Eli was placidly cheerful. The sense that he was going to dosome strange deed, to step into an unknown country, dropped away fromhim, and he chatted, in his intermittent, serious fashion, of the cropsand the lay of the land. 

"Pretty bad job up along here, ain't it, father?" called Sereno, asthey passed a sterile pasture where two plodding men and a yoke of oxenwere redeeming the soil from its rocky fetters. 

"There's a good deal o' pastur', in some places, that ain't fit fornothin' but to hold the world together, " returned Eli; and then he wassilent, his eyes fixed on Doll's eloquent ears, his mouth working alittle. For this progress through a less desirable stratum of lifecaused him to cast a backward glance over his own smooth, middle-agedroad. 

"We've prospered, 'ain't we, Maria?" he said, at last; and his wife, unconsciously following his thoughts, in the manner of those who havelived long together, stroked her black silk _visite_, and answered, with a well-satisfied nod:

"I guess we 'ain't got no cause to complain. "

The roadside was parched under an August sun; tansy was dust-covered, and ferns had grown ragged and gray. The jogging horses left behindtheir lazy feet a suffocating cloud. 

"My land!" cried Mrs. Pike, "if that ain't goldenrod! I do b'lieve itcomes earlier every year, or else the seasons are changin'. See themelderberries! Ain't they purple! You jest remember that bush, an' whenwe go back, we'll fill some pails. I dunno when I've made elderberrywine. "

Like her husband, she was vaguely excited; she began to feel as if lifewould be all holidays. At noon, they stopped under the shadow of anelm-tree which, from its foothold in a field, completely arched theroad; and there they ate a lunch of pie and doughnuts, while thehorses, freed from their headstalls, placidly munched a generous feedof oats, near by. Hattie and her mother accepted this picnicking withan air of apologetic amusement; and when one or two passers-by lookedat them, they smiled a little at vacancy, with the air of wishing itunderstood that they were by no means accustomed to suchirregularities. 

"I guess they think we're gypsies, " said Hattie, as one carriage rolledpast. 

"Well, they needn't trouble themselves, " returned her mother, risingwith difficulty to brush the crumbs from her capacious lap. "I guessI've got as good an extension-table to home as any on 'em. "

But Eli ate sparingly, and with a preoccupied and solemn look. 

"Land, father!" exclaimed his wife, "you 'ain't eat no more'n a bird!

"I guess I'll go over to that well, " said he, "an' git a drink o'water. I drink more'n I eat, if I ain't workin'. " But when he cameback, carefully bearing a tin pail brimming with cool, clear water, hisface expressed strong disapprobation, and he smacked his lipsscornfully. 

"Terrible flat water!" he announced. "Tastes as if it come out o' thecistern. " But the others could find no fault with it, and Serenodrained the pail. 

"Pretty good, I call it, " he said; and Mrs. Pike rejoined, --

"You always was pretty particular about water, father. "

But Eli still shook his head, and ejaculated, "Brackish, brackish!" ashe began to put the bit in Doll's patient mouth. He was thinking, witha passion of loyalty, of the clear, ice-cold water at home, which hadnever been shut out, by a pump, from the purifying airs of heaven, butlay where the splashing bucket and chain broke, every day, the image ofmoss and fern. His throat grew parched and dry with longing. 

When they were within three miles of the sea, it seemed to them thatthey could taste the saltness of the incoming breeze; the road wasankle-deep in dust; the garden flowers were glaring in theirbrightness. It was a new world. And when at last they emerged from themarsh-bordered road upon a ridge of sand, and turned a sudden corner, Mrs. Pike faced her husband in triumph. 

"There, father!" she cried. "There 'tis!"

But Eli's eyes were fixed on the dashboard in front of him. He lookedpale. 

"Why, father, " said she, impatiently, "ain't you goin' to look? It'sthe sea!"

"Yes, yes, " said Eli, quietly; "byme-by. I'm goin' to put the horses upfust. "

"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Pike; and as they drew up on the sandy tractwhere Sereno had previously arranged a place for their tents, sheadded, almost fretfully, turning to Hattie, "I dunno what's come overyour father. There's the water, an' he won't even cast his eyes at it. "

But Hattie understood her father, by some intuition of love, though notof likeness. 

"Don't you bother him, ma, " she said. "He'll make up his mind to itpretty soon. Here, le's lift out these little things, while they'reunharnessin', and then they can get at the tents. "

Mrs. Pike's mind was diverted by the exigencies of labor, and she saidno more; but after the horses had been put up at a neighboring house, and Sereno, red-faced with exertion, had superintended thetent-raising, Hattie slipped her arm through her father's, and led himaway. 

"Come, pa, " she said, in a whisper; "le's you and me climb over on themrocks. "

Eli went; and when they had picked their way over sand and pools to aheadland where the water thundered below, and salt spray dashed up inmist to their feet, he turned and looked at the sea. He faced it as asoul might face Almighty Greatness, only to be stricken blindthereafter; for his eyes filled painfully with slow, hot tears. Hattiedid not look at him, but after a while she shouted in his ear, abovethe outcry of the surf, --

"Here, pa, take my handkerchief. I don't know how 'tis about you, butthis spray gets in my eyes. "

Eli took it obediently, but he did not speak; he only looked at thesea. The two sat there, chilled and quite content, until six o'clock, when Mrs. Pike came calling to them from the beach, with dramaticshouts, emphasized by the waving of her ample apron, --

"Supper's ready! Sereno's built a bum-fire, an' I've made some tea!"

Then they slowly made their way back to the tents, and sat down to theevening meal. Sereno seemed content, and Mrs. Pike was bustling andtriumphant; the familiar act of preparing food had given her thefeeling of home. 

"Well, father, what think?" she asked, smiling exuberantly, as shepassed him his mug of tea. "Does it come up to what you expected?"

Eli turned upon her his mild, dazed eyes. 

"I guess it does, " he said, gently. 

That night, they sat upon the shore while the moon rose and laid in thewater her majestic pathway of light. Eli was the last to leave therocks, and he lay down on his hard couch in the tent, without speaking. 

"I wouldn't say much to father, " whispered Hattie to her mother, asthey parted for the night. "He feels it more 'n we do. "

"Well, I s'pose he is some tired, " said Mrs. Pike, acquiescing, after abrief look of surprise. "It's a good deal of a jaunt, but I dunno but Ifeel paid a'ready. Should you take out your hair-pins, Hattie?"

She slept soundly and vocally, but her husband did not close his eyes. He looked, though he could see nothing, through the opening in thetent, in the direction where lay the sea, solemnly clamorous, eternallyresponsive to some infinite whisper from without his world. The tensionof the hour was almost more than he could bear; he longed for morning, in sharp suspense, with a faint hope that the light might bring relief. Just as the stars faded, and one luminous line pencilled the east, herose, smoothed his hair, and stepped softly out upon the beach. Therehe saw two shadowy figures, Sereno and Hattie. She hurried forward tomeet him. 

"You goin' to see the sunrise, too, father?"she asked. "I made Sereno come. He's awful mad at bein' waked up. "

Eli grasped her arm. 

"Hattie, " he said, in a whisper, "don't you tell. I jest come out tosee how 'twas here, before I go. I'm goin' home, --I'm goin' _now_. "

"Why, father!" said Hattie; but she peered more closely into his face, and her tone changed. "All right, " she added, cheerfully. "Sereno'll goand harness up. "

"No; I'm goin' to walk. "

"But, father--"

"I don't mean to breakup your stayin' here, nor your mother's. You tellher how 'twas. I'm goin' to walk. "

Hattie turned and whispered to her husband for a moment. Then she tookher father's hand. 

"I'll slip into the tent and put you up somethin' for your breakfastand luncheon, " she said. "Sereno's gone to harness; for, pa, you musttake one horse, and you can send Luke back with it Friday, so's we canget the things home. What do we want of two horses down here, at twoand ninepence a day? I guess I know!"

So Eli yielded; but before his wife appeared, he had turned his back onthe sea, where the rose of dawn was fast unfolding. As he joggedhomeward, the dusty roadsides bloomed with flowers of paradise, and theinsects' dry chirp thrilled like the song of angels. He drove into theyard just at the turning of the day, when the fragrant smoke of many acrackling fire curls cheerily upward, in promise of the evening meal. 

"What's busted?" asked Luke, swinging himself down from his load offodder-corn, and beginning to unharness Doll. 

"Oh, nothin', " said Eli, leaping, from the wagon as if twenty years hadbeen taken from his bones. "I guess I'm too old for such jaunts. I hopeyou didn't forgit them cats. "

AFTER ALL. 

"The land o' gracious!" said Mrs. Lothrop Wilson, laying down her"drawing-in hook" on the rug stretched between two chairs in the middleof the kitchen, and getting up to look from the window. "If there ain'tLucindy comin' out o' the Pitmans' without a thing on her head, an' allthem little curls a-flyin'! An' the old Judge ain't cold in his grave!"

"I guess the Judge won't be troubled with cold, any to speak of, arterthis, " said her husband from the window, where he sat eating hisforenoon lunch of apple-pie and cheese. He was a cooper, and perhapsthe pleasantest moment in his day was that when he slipped out of hisshop, leaving a bit of paper tacked on the door to say he was "onerrands, " and walked soberly home for his bite and sup. "If he ain'tgood an' warm about now, then the Scriptur's ain't no more to bedepended on than a last year's almanac. "

"Late Wilson, I'm ashamed of you, " retorted his wife, looking at himwith such reproof that, albeit she had no flesh to spare, she madeherself a double chin. "An' he your own uncle, too! Well, he _was_nigh, I'll say that for him; an' if he'd had his way, the sun'd ha' rizan' set when he said the word. But Lucindy's his only darter, an' ifshe don't so much as pretend to be a mourner, I guess there ain'tnobody that will. There! don't you say no more! She's comin' in here!"

A light step sounded on the side piazza, and Lucindy came in, with alittle delicate, swaying motion peculiar to her walk. She was a veryslender woman, far past middle life, with a thin, smiling face, lightblue eyes, shining with an eager brightness, and fine hair, whichescaped from its tight twist in little spiral curls about the face. 

"How do, Jane?" she said, in an even voice, stirred by a pleasant, reedy thrill. "How do, Lote?"

Lothrop pushed forward a chair, looking at her with an air of greatkindliness. There was some slight resemblance between them, but themasculine type seemed entirely lacking in that bright alertness soapparent in her. Mrs. Wilson nodded, and went back to her drawing-in. She was making a very red rose with a pink middle. 

"I dunno's I can say I'm surprised to see you, Lucindy, " she began, with the duteous aspect of one forced to speak her disapproval, "for Iketched you comin' out o' the Pitmans' yard. "

"Yes, " said Lucindy, smiling, and plaiting her skirt between hernervous fingers. "Yes, I went in to see if they'd let me take OldBuckskin a spell to-morrow. "

"What under the sun--" began Mrs. Wilson; but her husband looked ather, and she stopped. He had become so used to constituting himselfLucindy's champion in the old Judge's day, now just ended, that he keptan unremitting watch on any one who might threaten her peace. ButLucindy evidently guessed at the unspoken question. 

"I should have come here, if I'd expected to drive, " she said. "But Ithought maybe your horse wa'n't much used to women, and I kind o'dreaded to be the first one to try him with a saddle. "

Mrs. Wilson put down her hook again, and leaned back in her chair. Shelooked from her husband to Lucindy, without speaking. But Lucindy wenton, with the innocent simplicity of a happy child. 

"You know I was always possessed to ride horseback, " she said, addressing herself to Lothrop, "and father never would let me. And nowhe ain't here, I mean to try it, and see if 'tain't full as nice as Ithought. "

"Lucindy!" burst forth Mrs. Wilson, explosively, "ain't you goin' topay no respect to your father's memory?"

Lucindy turned to her, smiling still, but with a hint of quizzicalshrewdness about her mouth. 

"I guess I ain't called on to put myself out, " she said, simply, yetnot irreverently. "Father had his way in pretty much everything whilehe was alive. I always made up my mind if I should outlive him, I'dhave all the things I wanted then, when young folks want the most. Andyou know then I couldn't get 'em. "

"Well!" said Mrs. Wilson. Her tone spoke volumes of conflictingcommentary. 

"You got a saddle?" asked Lucindy, turning to her cousin. "I thought Iremembered you had one laid away, up attic. I suppose you'd just assoon I'd take it?"

He was neither shocked nor amused. He had been looking at her verysadly, as one who read in every word the entire tragedy of a repressedand lonely life. 

"Yes, we have, Lucindy, " he said, gently, quieting his wife by a motionof the hand, "but 'tain't what you think. It's a man's saddle. You'dhave to set straddle. 

"Oh!" said Lucindy, a faint shade of disappointment clouding her face. "Well, no matter! I guess they've got one down to the Mardens'. Jane, should you just as soon come round this afternoon, and look over somebunnit trimmin's with me? I took two kinds of flowers home from MissWest's, and I can't for my life tell which to have. "

"Ain't you goin' to wear black?" Mrs. Wilson spoke now in doubleitalics. 

"Oh, no! I don't feel called on to do that. I always liked brightcolors, and I don't know's 'twould be real honest in me to put onmournin' when I didn't feel it. "

"'Honor thy father'--" began Jane, in spite of her husband's warninghand; but Lucindy interrupted her, with some perplexity. 

"I have, Jane, I have! I honored father all my life, just as much asever I could. I done everything he ever told me, little and big! No, though, there's one thing I never fell in with. I did cheat him once. Idon't know but I'm sorry for that, now it's all past and gone!"

Her cousin had been drumming absently on the window-sill, but he lookedup with awakened interest. Mrs. Wilson, too, felt a wholesalecuriosity, and she, at least, saw no reason for curbing it. 

"What was it, Lucindy?" she asked. "The old hunks!" she repeated toherself, like an anathema. 

Lucindy began her confession, with eyes down-dropped and a falteringvoice. 

"Father wanted I should have my hair done up tight and firm. So Ipretended I done the best I could with it. I told him these curls roundmy face and down in my neck was too short, and I couldn't pin 'em up. But they wa'n't curls, and they wouldn't ha' been short if I hadn't cut'em. For every night, and sometimes twice a day, I curled 'em on apipe-stem. "

"Ain't them curls nat'ral, Lucindy?" cried Mrs. Wilson. "Have you beenfixin' 'em to blow round your face that way, all these years?"

"I begun when I was a little girl, " said Lucindy, guiltily. "It didseem kind o' wrong, but I took real pleasure in it!"

Lothrop could bear no more. He wanted to wipe his eyes, but he choseinstead to walk straight out of the room and down to his shop. His wifecould only express a part of her amazement by demanding, in a futilesort of way, --

"Where'd you get the pipe?"

"I stole the first one from a hired man we had, " said Lucindy, hercheeks growing pink. "Sometimes I had to use slate-pencils. "

There was no one else to administer judgment, and Mrs. Wilson felt thenecessity. 

"Well, " she began, "an' you can set there, tellin' that an' smilin'--"

"My smilin' don't mean any more'n some other folks' cryin', I guess, "said Lucindy, smiling still more broadly. "I begun that more'n thirtyyears ago. I looked into the glass one day, and I see the corners of mymouth were goin' down. Sharper 'n, vinegar, I was! So I says to myself, 'I can smile, whether or no. Nobody can't help that!' And I did, andnow I guess I don't know when I do it. "

"Well!"

Lucindy rose suddenly and brushed her lap, as if she dusted awayimaginary cares. 

"There!" she exclaimed, "I've said more this mornin' than I have forforty year! Don't you lead me on to talk about what's past and gone!The only thing is, I mean to have a good time now, what there is leftof it. Some things you can't get back, and some you can. Well, you stepround this afternoon, won't you?"

"I dunno's I can. John's goin' to bring Claribel up, to spend thearternoon an' stay to supper. "

"Why, dear heart! that needn't make no difference. I should admire tohave her, too. I'll show her some shells and coral I found thismornin', up attic. "

Lucindy had almost reached the street when she turned, as with a suddenresolution, and retraced her steps. 

"Jane, " she called, looking in at the kitchen window. "It's a realbright day, pretty as any 't ever I see. Don't you worry for fear o' mydisturbin' them that's gone, if I do try to ketch at somethin'pleasant. If they're wiser now, I guess they'll be glad I had senseenough left to do it!"

That afternoon, Mrs. Wilson, in her best gingham and checked sunbonnet, took her way along the village street to the old Judge Wilson house. Itwas a colonial mansion, sitting austerely back in a square yard. Inspite of its prosperity, everything about it wore a dreary air, as ifit were tired of being too well kept; for houses are like people, andcarry their own indefinable atmosphere with them. Mrs. Wilson herselflived on a narrower and more secluded street, though it was said thather husband, if he had not defied the old Judge in some crucial matter, might have studied law with him, and possibly shared his speculationsin wool. Then he, too, might have risen to be one of the first men inthe county, instead of working, in his moderate fashion, for littlemore than day's wages. Claribel, a pale, dark-eyed child, also dressedin her best gingham, walked seriously by her grandmother's side. Lucindy was waiting for them at the door. 

"I declare!" she called, delightedly. "I was 'most afraid you'd forgotto come! Well, Claribel, if you 'ain't grown! They'll have to put abrick on your head, or you'll be taller'n grandma. "

Claribel submitted to be kissed, and they entered the large, coolsitting-room, where they took off their things. 

"You make yourself at home, Jane, " said Lucindy, fluttering about, inpleasant excitement. "I ain't goin' to pay you a mite of attention tillI see Claribel fixed. Now, Claribel, remember! you can go anywheresyou're a mind to. And you can touch anything there is. You won't find athing a little girl can hurt. Here, you come here where I be, and lookacross the entry. See that big lamp on the table? Well, if you unhookthem danglin' things and peek through 'em, you'll find the brightestcolors! My, how pretty they be! I've been lookin' through 'em thismornin'. I used to creep in and do it when I was little, " shecontinued, in an aside to Mrs. Wilson. "Once I lost one. " A strangelook settled on her face; she was recalling a bitter experience. "There!" she said, releasing Claribel with a little hug, "now runalong! If you look on the lower shelf of the what-not, you'll see someshells and coral I put there for just such a little girl. "

Claribel walked soberly away to her playing. 

"Don't you hurt nothin'!" called Mrs. Wilson; and Claribel respondedproperly, --

"No, 'm. "

"There!" said Lucindy, watching the precise little back across thehall, "Now le's talk a mite about vanity. You reach me that green boxbehind your chair. Here's the best flowers Miss West had for what Iwanted. Here's my bunnit, too. You see what you think. "

She set the untrimmed bonnet on her curls, and laid first a bunch ofbright chrysanthemums against it, and then some strange lavender roses. The roses turned her complexion to an ivory whiteness, and her anxious, intent expression combined strangely with that undesirable effect. 

"My soul, Lucindy!" cried Mrs. Wilson, startled into a more robustfrankness than usual, "you do look like the Old Nick!"

A shade came over Miss Lucindy's honest face. It seemed, for a moment, as if she were going to cry. 

"Don't you like 'em, Jane?" she asked, appealingly. "Won't neither of'em do?"

Mrs. Wilson was not incapable of compunction, but she felt also thedemands of the family honor. 

"Well, Lucindy, " she began, soothingly, "now 'tain't any use, is it, for us to say we ain't gettin' on in years? We be! You 're my age, an'--Why, look at Claribel in there! What should you say, if you see mesettin' out to meetin' with red flowers on my bunnit? I should benothin' but a laughin'-stock!"

Lucindy laid the flowers back in their box, with as much tenderness asif they held the living fragrance of a dream. 

"Well!" she said, wistfully. Then she tried to smile. 

"Here!" interposed Mrs. Wilson, not over-pleased with the part she feltcalled upon to play, "you give me your bunnit. Don't I see your oldsheaf o'wheat in the box? Let me pin it on for you. There, now, don'tthat look more suitable?"

By the time she had laid it on, in conventional flatness, and held itup for inspection, every trace of rebellion had apparently beenbanished from Lucindy's mind. 

"Here, " said the victim of social rigor, "you hand me the box, and I'llset it away. "

They had a cosey, old-fashioned chat, touching upon nothing in theleast revolutionary, and Mrs. Wilson was glad to think Lucindy hadforgotten all about the side-saddle. This last incident of the bonnet, she reflected, showed how much real influence she had over Lucindy. Shemust take care to exert it kindly but seriously now that the old Judgewas gone. 

"You goin' to keep your same help?" she asked, continuing theconversation. 

"Oh, yes! I wouldn't part with Ann Toby for a good deal. She's goin' tohave her younger sister come to live with us now. We shall be a passelo' women, sha'n't we?"

"I guess it's well for you Ann Toby's what she is, or she'd cheat youout o' your eye-teeth!"

"Well, " answered Lucindy, easily, "I ain't goin' to worry about myeye-teeth. If I be cheated out of 'em, I guess I can get a new set. "

At five o'clock, they had some cookies, ostensibly for Claribel, sinceMrs. Wilson could not stay to tea; and then, when the little maid hadtaken hers out to the front steps, Lucindy broached a daring plan, thatmoment conceived. 

"Say, Jane, " she whispered, with great pretence of secrecy, "what doyou think just come into my head? Do you s'pose Mattie would be putout, if I should give Claribel a hat?"

"Mercy sakes, no! all in the family so! But what set you out on that?She's got a good last year's one now, an' the ribbin's all pressed outan' turned, complete. "

"I'll tell you, " Said Lucindy, leaning nearer, and speaking as if shefeared the very corners might hear. "You know I never was allowed towear bright colors. And to this day, I see the hats the other girlshad, blue on 'em, and pink. And if I could stand by and let a littlegirl pick out a hat for herself, without a word said to stop her, 'twould be real agreeable to me. " Lucindy was shrewd enough to expressherself somewhat moderately. She knew by experience how plainly Janeconsidered it a duty to discourage any overmastering emotion. But JaneWilson was, at the same instant, feeling very keenly that Lucindy, faded and old as she was, needed to be indulged in all her riotousfancies. She repressed the temptation, however, at its birth. 

"Why, I dunno's there's anything in the way of it, " she said, soberly. 

"Then, if you must go, I'll walk right along now. Claribel and I'll godown to Miss West's, and see what she's got. Nothin''s to be gained bywaitin'!"

When they walked out through the hall together, Lucindy cast a quickand eager glance into the parlor. She almost hoped Claribel hadunhooked the glass prisms from the lamp, and left them scattered on thefloor, or that she had broken the precious shells, more than half acentury old. She wanted to put her arms round her, and say fondly, "Never mind!" But the room was in perfect order, and little Claribelwaited for them, conscious of a propriety unstained by guilt. 

"Lucindy, " said Mrs. Wilson, who also had used her eyes, "where's yourfather's canes? They al'ays stood right here in this corner. "

Lucindy flushed. 

"Jane, " she whispered, "don't you tell, but I--I buried 'em! I feltsomehow as if I couldn't--do the things I wanted to, if they set therejust the same. "

Jane could only look at her in silence. 

"Well, " she said, at length, "it takes all kinds o' people to make aworld!"

That, at least, was non-committal. 

She left the shoppers at her own gate, and they walked on together. Lucindy was the more excited of the two. 

"Now, Claribel, " she was saying, "you remember you can choose any hatyou see, and have it trimmed just the way you like. What color do youset by most?"

"I don't know, " said Claribel. "Blue, I guess. "

"Well, there's a hat there all trimmed with it. I see it this mornin'. Real bright, pretty blue! I believe there was some little noddin'yellow flowers on it, too. But mind you don't take it unless you likeit. "

Miss West's shop occupied the front room of her house, a small yellowone on a side street. The upper part of the door was of glass, and itrang a bell as it opened. Lucindy had had very few occasions for goingthere, and she entered with some importance. The bell clanged; and MissWest, a portly woman, came in from the back room, whisking off herapron in haste. 

"Oh, that you, Miss Lucindy?" she called. "I've just been fryin' someriz doughnuts. Well, how'd the flowers suit?"

"I haven't quite made up my mind, " said Lucindy, trying to speak withthe dignity befitting her quest. "I just come in with little Claribelhere. She's goin' to have a new hat, and her grandma said she mightcome down with me to pick it out. You've got some all trimmed, Ibelieve?"

Miss West opened a drawer in an old-fashioned bureau. 

"Yes, " she said, "I've got two my niece trimmed for me before she wentto make her visit to Sudleigh. One's blue. I guess you've seen that. Then there's a nice white one. The 'Weekly' says white's all the go, this year. "

She took out two little hats, and balanced them on either hand. Theblue one was strongly accented. The ribbon was very broad and verybright, and its nodding cowslips gleamed in cheerful yellow. 

"Ain't that a beauty?" whispered Lucindy close to the little girl'sear. "But there! Don't you have it unless you'd rather. There's lots ofother colors, you know; pink, and all sorts. ". 

Claribel put out one little brown hand, and timidly touched the otherhat. 

"This one, " she said. 

It was very plain, and very pretty; yet there were no flowers, and themodest white ribbon lay smoothly about the crown. Miss Lucindy gave alittle cry, as if some one had hurt her. 

"O!" she exclaimed, "O Claribel! you sure?" Claribel was sure. 

"She's got real good taste, " put in Miss West. "Shall I wrop it up?"

"Yes, " answered Lucindy, drearily. "We'll take it. But I suppose if sheshould change, her mind before she wore it--" she added, with someslight accession of hope. 

"Oh, yes, bring it right back. I'll give her another choice. "

But Claribel was not likely to change her mind. On the way home, shewalked sedately, and carried her hat with the utmost care. At hergrandmother's gate, she looked up shyly, and spoke of her own accord, --

"Thank you, ever so much!"

Then she fled up the path, her bundle waving before her. That, atleast, looked like spontaneous joy, and the sight of it soothed Lucindyinto a temporary resignation; yet she was very much disappointed. 

The next afternoon, Tiverton saw a strange and wondrous sight. TheCrane boy led Old Buckskin, under an ancient saddle, into MissLucindy's yard, and waited there before her door. The Crane boy hadtold all his mates, and they had told their fathers and mothers, sothat a wild excitement flew through the village like stubble fire, stirring the inhabitants to futile action. "It's like the 'clipse, "said one of the squad of children collected at the gate, "only theyain't no smoked glass. " Some of the grown people "made an errand" forthe sake of being in the street, but those who lived near-by simplymounted guard at their doors and windows. The horse had not waited longwhen Miss Lucindy appeared before the gaze of an eager world. Her facehad wakened into a keen excitement. 

"Here!" she called to the Crane boy's brother, who was lingering in thebackground grinding his toes on the gravel and then lifting them insudden agony, "you take this kitchen chair and set it down side of him, so't I can climb up. "

The chair was placed, and Miss Lucindy essayed to climb, but vainly. 

"Ann!" she called, "you bring me that little cricket. "

Ann Toby appeared unwillingly, the little cricket in her hand. She wasa tall, red-haired woman, who bore the reputation of being willing tobe "tore into inch pieces" for Miss Lucindy. Her freckled face burnedred with shame and anger. 

"For Heaven's sake, you come back into the house!" she whispered, withtragic meaning. "You jest give it up, an' I'll scatter them boys. Sassylittle peeps! what are they starin' round here for, I'd like to know!"

But Lucindy had mounted the cricket with much agility, and seatedherself on the horse's back. Once she slipped off; but the Crane boyhad the address to mutter, "Put your leg over the horn!" and, owing tothat timely advice, she remained. But he was to experience thegratitude of an unfeeling world; for Ann Toby, in the irritation of onetried beyond endurance, fell upon him and cuffed him soundly. And Mrs. Crane, passing the gate at that moment, did not blame her. 

"My! it seems a proper high place to set, " remarked Lucindy, adjustingherself. "Well, I guess I sha'n't come to no harm. I'll ride round toyour place, boys, when I get through, and leave the horse there. " Shetrotted out of the yard amid the silence of the crowd. 

The spectacle was too awesome to be funny, even to the boys; it seemedto Tiverton strangely like the work of madness. Only one little boyrecovered himself sufficiently to ran after her and hold up a switch hehad been peeling. 

"Here!" he piped up, daringly, "you want a whip. "

Lucindy smiled upon him benignly. 

"I never did believe in abusin' dumb creatur's, " she said, "but I'mmuch obliged. " She took the switch and rode on. 

Now Mrs. Wilson had heard the rumor too late to admit of anyinterference on her part, and she was staying indoors, suffering anagony of shame, determined not to countenance the scandalous sight byher presence. But as she sat "hooking-in, " the window was darkened, andinvoluntarily she lifted her eyes. There was the huge bulk of a horse, and there was Lucindy. The horsewoman's cheeks were bright red withexercise and joy. She wore a black dress and black mitts. Her littlecurls were flying; and oh, most unbearable of all! they were surmountedby a bonnet bearing no modest sheaf of wheat, but blossoming brazenlyout into lavender roses. The spectacle was too much for Mrs. Wilson. She dropped her hook, and flew to the door. 

"Well, I've known a good deal, fust an' last, but I never see the beato' this! Lucindy, where'd you git that long dress?"

"It's my cashmere, " answered Lucindy, joyously. "I set up last night tolengthen it down. "

"Well, I should think you did! Lothrop!"

Her husband had been taking a nap in the sitting-room, and he came out, rubbing his eyes. Mrs. Wilson could not speak for curiosity. Shewatched him with angry intentness. She wondered if he would takeLucindy's part now! But Lothrop only moved forward and felt at thegirth. 

"You know you want to pull him up if he stumbles, " he said; "but Iguess he won't. He was a stiddy horse, fifteen year ago. "

"Lothrop, " began his wife, "do you want to be made a laughin'-stock inthis town--";

"I guess if I've lived in a place over sixty year an' hil' my own, Ican yet, " said Lothrop, quietly. "You don't want to ride too long, Lucindy. You'll be lame to-morrer. "

"I didn't suppose 'twould jounce so, " said Lucindy; "but it's propernice. I don't know what 'twould be on a real high horse. Well, good-by!" She turned the horse about, and involuntarily struck him withher little switch. Old Buckskin broke into a really creditable trot, and they disappeared down the village street. Lothrop sensibly took hisway down to the shop while his wife was recovering her powers ofspeech; and for that, Jane herself mentally commended him. 

Lucindy kept on out of the village and along the country road. Theorioles were singing in the elms, and the leaves still wore the glossof last night's shower. The earth smiled like a new creation, verygreen and sweet, and the horse's hoofs made music in Lucindy's mind. Itseemed to her that she had lost sight both of youth and crabbed age;the pendulum stood still in the jarring machinery of time, the handspointing to a moment of joy. She was quite happy, as any of us may bewho seek the fellowship of dancing leaves and strong, bright sun. Sheturned into a cross-road, hardly wider than a lane, and bordered withwild rose and fragrant raspberry. There was but one house here, --alittle, time-stained cottage, where Tom McNeil lived with his wife andfive children. Perhaps these were the happiest people in all Tiverton, though no one but themselves had ever found it out. Tom made shoes in adesultory fashion, and played the fiddle earnestly all winter, and insummer, peddled essences and medicines from a pack strapped over hisshoulders. Sometimes in the warm summer weather Molly, his wife, andall the children tramped with him, so that the house was closed forweeks at a time, --a thing very trying to the conventional sensibilitiesof Tiverton. Tom might have had a "stiddy job o' work" with some of thefarmers; Molly might have helped about the churning and ironing. Butno! they were like the birds, nesting happily in summer, and drawingtheir feet under their feathers when the snow drifted in. Thechildren--lank, wild-eyed creatures--each went to school a few months, and then stopped, unable to bear the cross of confinement within fourdull walls. They could not write; it was even rumored that they hadnever learned to tell time. And, indeed, what good would it have donethem when the clock was run down and stood always at the hour of noon?But they knew where thoroughwort grows, and the wholesome goldthread;they gathered cress and peppermint, and could tell the mushroom fromits noisome kindred. Day after day, they roamed the woods for simplesto be distilled by the father, and made into potent salves andointments for man and the beasties he loved better. 

When Lucindy came in sight of the house, she was glad to find it open. She had scarcely gone so far afield for years, and the reportsconcerning this strange people had reached her only by hearsay. Shefelt like a discoverer. In close neighborhood to the house stood apeculiar structure, --the half-finished dwelling McNeil had attempted, in a brief access of ambition, to build with his own hands. Thechimney, slightly curving and very ragged at the top, stood foolishlyabove the unfinished lower story. Lucindy remembered hearing how Tomhad begun the chimney first, and built the house round it. But thefulfilment of his worldly dream never came to pass; and perhaps it wasquite as well, for thereby would the unity of his existence have beendestroyed. He might have lived up to the house; he might even havegrown into a proud man, and accumulated dollars. But the bent of birthwas too much for him. A day dawned, warm and entrancing; he left hisbricks and boards in the midst, and the whole family went joyfully offon a tramp. To Tiverton, the unfinished house continued to serve as animmortal joke, and Tom smiled as broadly as any. He always said hecouldn't finish it; he had mislaid the plan. 

A little flower-garden bloomed between the two houses, and on thegrass, by one of its clove-pink borders, sat a woman, rocking back andforth in an ancient chair, and doing absolutely nothing. She was young, and seemed all brown; for her eyes were dark, and her skin had beentanned to the deep, rich tint sweeter to some eyes than pure roses andmilk. Lucindy guided Buckskin up to the gate, and Molly McNeil lookedup and smiled without moving. 

"How do?" she said, in a soft, slow voice. "Won't you come in?"

Lucindy was delighted. It was long since she had met a stranger. 

"Well, I would, " she answered, "but I don't know as I can get down. This is new business to me. "

"Ellen, " called Mrs. McNeil, "you bring out somethin' to step on!"

A little girl appeared with a yellow kitchen chair. Mrs. McNeil rose, carried it outside the gate, and planted it by Buckskin's side. 

"There!" she said, "you put your hand on my shoulder and step down. Itwon't tip. I've got my knee on it. "

Lucindy alighted, with some difficulty, and drew a long breath. 

"I'll hitch him, " said Molly McNeil. "You go in and sit down in thatchair, and Ellen'll bring you a drink of water. "

Ellen was barelegged and barefooted. Her brown hair hung over her darkeyes in a pleasant tangle. Her even teeth were white, and her lips red. There was no fault nor blemish in her little face; and when she hadbrought the dipper full of water, and stood rubbing one foot againstits neighboring leg, Lucindy thought she had never seen anything soabsolutely bewitching. Molly had hitched the horse, in manly andknowing fashion, and then seated herself on the kitchen chair besideLucindy; but the attitude seemed not to suit her, and presently sherose and lay quietly down at full length on the grass. She did it quiteas a matter of course, and her visitor thought it looked very pleasant;possibly she would have tried it herself if she had not been soabsorbed in another interest. She was watching the little girl, who wasrunning into the house with the dipper. 

"Ain't she complete!" she said. "Your oldest?"

"She ain't mine at 'all. " Mrs. McNeil rose on one elbow, and beganchewing a grass stem. 

It was very restful to Lucindy to see some one who was too muchinterested in anything, however trivial, to be interested in her. "Youknow about the Italian that come round with the hand-organ last month?He was her father. Well, he died, --fell off a mow one night, --and thetown sold the hand-organ and kept Ellen awhile on the farm. But she runaway, and my boys found her hidin' in the woods starved most to death. So I took her in, and the overseer said I was welcome to her. She's anice little soul. "

"She's proper good-lookin'!" Lucindy's eyes were sparkling. 

"She don't look as well as common to-day, for the boys went offplummin' without her. She was asleep, and I didn't want to call her. She had a cryin' spell when she waked up, but I didn't know which waythey'd gone. "

Ellen came wandering round the side of the house, and Lucindy crooked atrembling finger at her. 

"Come here!" she called. "You come here and see me!"

Ellen walked up to her with a steady step, and laid one little brownhand on Lucindy's knee. But the old Judge's daughter drew the childcovetously to her lap. 

"Look here, " she said, "should you like to go home and spend a weekwith me?"

The little maid threw back her tangle of curls, and looked Lucindysquarely in the eyes. 

"Yes, " she answered. 

Lucindy's grasp tightened round her. 

"How should you like to live with me?"

The child touched her little breast inquiringly with one finger. 

"Me?" She pointed over to Mrs. McNeil, who lay listening and stretchingher limbs in lazy comfort. "Leave _her_?" And then, gravely, "No; she'sgood to me. "

Lucindy's heart sank. 

"You could come over to see her, " she pleaded, "and I'd come too. We'dall go plummin' together. I should admire to! And we'd have parties, and ask 'em all over. What say?"

The child sat straight and serious, one warm hand clinging to Lucindy'sslender palm. But her eyes still sought the face of her older friend. Molly McNeil rose to a sitting posture. She took the straw from hermouth, and spoke with the happy frankness of those who have no fearbecause they demand nothing save earth and sky room. 

"I know who you are, " she said to Lucindy. "You're left well off, and Iguess you could bring up a child, give you your way. We're as poor aspoverty! You take her, if she'll go. Ellen, she's a nice lady; youbetter say 'yes. '"

Lucindy was trembling all over. 

"You come, dear, " she urged, piteously. "You come and live with me. "

Ellen thought a moment more. Then she nodded. 

"I'll come, " said she. 

Lucindy could not wait. 

"I'll send a wagon over after her to-night. " She had put Ellen down, andwas rising tremblingly. "I won't stop to talk no more now, but you comeand see me, won't you? Now, if you'll help me mount up--there! My! it'shigher 'n 'twas before! Well, I'll see you again. " She turned OldBuckskin's head away from the fence; then she pulled him fiercely roundagain. "Here!" she called, "what if she should jump up behind me andcome now!"

Mrs. McNeil, being the thrall only of the earth, saw no reason, why athing should not be done as one wanted it. She lifted; the child andset her on the horse behind Lucindy. And so, in this strange fashion, the two entered the high street of Tiverton. 

A few weeks after this, Mrs. Wilson and Lucindy went together to thelittle millinery shop. Ellen trotted between them, taking excursionsinto the street, now and again, in pursuit of butterflies orthistledown. When they entered, Miss West, who had seen their approachfrom her position at the ironing-board, came forward with a gay littlehat in her hand. It was trimmed with pink, and a wreath of tiny whiteflowers clung about the crown. She set it on Ellen's curls; and Ellen, her face quite radiant, looked up at Miss Lucindy for approval. Butthat lady was gazing anxiously at Mrs. Wilson. 

"Now, there ain't anything unsuitable about that, is there?" she asked. "I know, it's gay, and I want it to be gay. I can tell about _that_!But is it all right? Is it such as you'd be willin' to have Claribelwear?"

"It's a real beauty!" Mrs. Wilson answered, cordially; but she couldnot refrain from adding, while Miss West was doing up the hat, andEllen surreptitiously tried on a black poke bonnet, "Now, don't youspile her, Lucindy! She's a nice little girl as ever was, but you ain'tno more fit to bring up a child than the cat!"

Lucindy did not hear. She was smiling at Ellen, and Ellen smiled backat her. They thought they knew. 

TOLD IN THE POORHOUSE. 

"Le' me see, " said old Sally Flint, "was it fifty year ago, or was iton'y forty? Some'er's betwixt 1825 an' '26 it must ha' been when theywere married, an' 'twas in '41 he died. "

The other old women in the Poorhouse sitting-room gathered about her. Old Mrs. Forbes, who dearly loved a story, unwound a length of yarnwith peculiar satisfaction, and put her worn shoe up to the fire. Everybody knew when Sally Flint was disposed to open her unwritten bookof folk-tales for the public entertainment; and to-day, having tied ona fresh apron and bound a new piece of red flannel about her wrist, shewas, so to speak, in fighting trim. The other members of the Poorhousehad scanty faith in that red flannel. They were aware that Sally hadbroken her wrist, some twenty years before, and that the bandage wasconsequently donned on days when her "hand felt kind o' cold, " or was"burnin' like fire embers;" but there was an unspoken suspicion that itreally served as token of her inability to work whenever she felt boredby the prescribed routine of knitting and sweeping. No one had daredpresume on that theory, however, since the day when an untactfuloverseer had mentioned it, to be met by such a stream of unpleasantreminiscence concerning his immediate ancestry that he had retreated indismay, and for a week after, had served extra pieces of pie to hisjustly offended charge. 

"They were married in June, " continued Sally. "No, 'twa'n't; 'twas thelast o' May. May thirty-fust--no, May 'ain't but thirty days, has it?"

"'Thirty days hath September, '" quoted Mrs. Giles, with importance. "That's about all I've got left o' my schoolin', Miss Flint. May's gotthirty-one days, sure enough. "

"Call it the thirty-fust, then. It's nigh enough, anyway. Well, JoshMarden an' Lyddy Ann Crane was married, an' for nine year they livedlike two kittens. Old Sperry Dyer, that wanted to git Lyddy himself, used to call 'em cup an' sasser, 'There they be, ' he'd say, when hestood outside the meetin'-house door an' they drove up; 'there comescup an' sasser. ' Lyddy was a little mite of a thing, with great blackeyes; an' if Josh hadn't been as tough as tripe, he'd ha' got all woreout waitin' on her. He even washed the potaters for her, made thefires, an' lugged water. Scairt to death if she was sick! She used tohave sick headaches, an' one day he stopped choppin' pine limbs nearthe house 'cause the noise hurt Lyddy Ann's head. Another time, Irecollect, she had erysipelas in her face, an' I went in to carry someelder-blows, an' found him readin' the Bible. 'Lord!' says I, 'Josh;that's on'y Genesis! 'twon't do the erysipelas a mite o' good for youto be settin' there reading the be'gats! You better turn toRevelation. ' But 'twa'n't all on his side, nuther. 'Twas give an' takewith them. It used to seem as if Lyddy Ann kind o' worshipped him. 'Josh' we all called him; but she used to say 'Joshuay, ' an' look athim as if he was the Lord A'mighty. "

"My! Sally!" said timid Mrs. Spenser, under her breath; but Sally gaveno heed, and swept on in the stream of her recollections. 

"Well, it went on for fifteen year, an' then 'Mandy Knowles, Josh'ssecond cousin, come to help 'em with the work. 'Mandy was a queercreatur'. I've studied a good deal over her, an' I dunno's I've quitegot to the bottom of her yit. She was one o' them sort o' slow women, with a fat face, an' she hadn't got over dressin' young, though Lyddyan' the rest of us that was over thirty was wearin' caps an' talkin'about false fronts. But she never'd had no beaux; an' when Josh begunto praise her an' say how nice 'twas to have her there, it tickled here'en a'most to death. She'd lived alone with her mother an' twoold-maid aunts, an' she didn't know nothin' about men-folks; I al'aysthought she felt they was different somehow, --kind o' cherubim an'seraphim, --an' you'd got to mind 'em as if you was the Childern ofIsr'el an' they was Moses. Josh never meant a mite o' harm, I'll saythat for him. He was jest man-like, that's all. There's lots o'different kinds, --here, Mis' Niles, you know; you've buried yourthird, --an' Josh was the kind that can't see more'n, one woman to atime. He looked at 'Mandy, an' he got over seein' Lyddy Ann, that'sall. Things would ha' come out all right--as right as they be for mostmarried folks--if Lyddy Ann hadn't been so high-sperited; but she setthe world by Joshuay, an' there 'twas. 'Ain't it nice to have herhere?' he kep' on sayin' over'n' over to Lyddy, an' she'd say 'Yes;'but byme-by, when she found he was al'ays on hand to bring a pail o'water for 'Mandy, or to throw away her suds, or even help hang out theclo'es--I see 'em hangin' out clo'es one day when I was goin' acrosstheir lot huckleberr'in', an' he did look like a great gump, an' so didshe--well, then, Lyddy Ann got to seemin' kind o' worried, an' she hadmore sick headaches than ever. Twa'n't a year afore that, I'd been inone day when she had a headache, an' he says, as if he was perfessin'his faith in meetin', 'By gum! I wish I could have them headaches forher!' an' I thought o' speakin' of it, about now, when I run in toborrer some saleratus, an' he hollered into the bedroom: 'Lyddy Ann, you got another headache? If I had such a head as that, I'd cut itoff!' An' all the time 'Mandy did act like the very Old Nick, jest asany old maid would that hadn't set her mind on menfolks till she wasthirty-five. She bought a red-plaid bow an' pinned it on in front, an'one day I ketched her at the lookin'-glass pullin' out a gray hair. 

"'Land, 'Mandy, ' says I (I spoke right up), 'do you pull 'em out asfast as they come? That's why you ain't no grayer, I s'pose. I wassayin' the other day, "'Mandy Knowles is gittin' on, but she holds herown pretty well. I dunno how she manages it, whether she dyes or not, "'says I. 

"An' afore she could stop herself, 'Mandy turned round, red as a beet, to look at Josh an' see if he heard. He stamped out into thewood-house, but Lyddy Ann never took her eyes off her work. Them littlespiteful things didn't seem to make no impression on her. I've thoughta good many times sence, she didn't care how handsome other women was, nor how scrawny she was herself, if she could on'y keep Josh. An' Joshhe got kind o' fretful to her, an' she to him, an' 'Mandy was all honeyan' cream. Nothin' would do but she must learn how to make thegingerbread he liked, an' iron his shirts; an' when Lyddy Ann found heseemed to praise things up jest as much as he had when she done 'em, she give 'em up, an' done the hard things herself, an' let 'Mandy seeto Josh. She looked pretty pindlin' then, mark my words; but I neversee two such eyes in anybody's head. I s'pose 'twas a change for Josh, anyway, to be with a woman like 'Mandy, that never said her soul's herown, for Lyddy'd al'ays had a quick way with her; but, land! you can'ttell about men, what changes 'em or what don't. If you're tied to one, you've jest got to bear with him, an' be thankful if he don't run somekind of a rig an' make you town-talk. "

There was a murmur from gentle Lucy Staples, who had been constant forfifty years to the lover who died in her youth; but no one took anynotice of her, and Sally Flint went on:

"It come spring, an' somehow or nuther 'Mandy found out the last o'March was Josh's birthday, an' nothin' would do but she must make him apresent. So she walked over to Sudleigh, an' bought him a great longpocket-book that you could put your bills into without foldin' 'em, an'brought it home, tickled to death because she'd been so smart. Some o'this come out at the time, an' some wa'n't known till arterwards; thehired man told some, an' a good deal the neighbors see themselves. An'I'll be whipped if 'Mandy herself didn't tell the heft on't arter 'twasall over. She wa'n't more'n half baked in a good many things. It gotround somehow that the pocket-book was comin', an' when, I see 'Mandywalkin' home that arternoon, I ketched up my shawl an' run in behindher, to borrer some yeast. Nobody thought anything o' birthdays in ourneighborhood, an' mebbe that made it seem a good deal more 'n 'twas;but when I got in there, I vow I was sorry I come. There set Josh bythe kitchen table, sort o' red an' pleased, with his old pocket-bookopen afore him, an' he was puttin' all his bills an' papers into thenew one, an' sayin', every other word, --

"'Why, 'Mandy, I never see your beat! Ain't this a nice one, Lyddy?'

"An' 'Mandy was b'ilin' over with pride, an' she stood there takin' offher cloud; she'd been in such a hurry to give it to him she hadn't evengot her things off fust. Lyddy stood by the cupboard, lookin' straightat the glass spoon-holder. I thought arterwards I didn't b'lieve shesee it; an' if she did, I guess she never forgot it. 

"'Yes, it's a real nice one, ' says I. 

"I had to say suthin', but in a minute, I was most scairt. Lyddy turnedround, in a kind of a flash; her face blazed all over red, an' her eyeskind o' went through me. She stepped up to the table, an' took up theold pocket-book. 

"'You've got a new one, ' says she. 'May I have this?'

"'Course you may, ' says he. 

"He didn't look up to see her face, an' her voice was so soft an'still, I guess he never thought nothin' of it. Then she held thepocket-book up tight ag'inst her dress waist an' walked off into thebedroom. I al'ays thought she never knew I was there. An' arterwards itcome out that that old pocket-book was one she'd bought for him aforethey was married, --earned it bindin' shoes. "

"_'Twas_ kind o' hard, " owned Mrs. Niles, bending forward, and, withhands clasped over her knees, peering into the coals for data regardingher own marital experiences. "But if 'twas all wore out--did you say'twas wore?--well, then I dunno's you could expect him to set by it. An' 'twa'n't as if he'd give it away; they'd got it between 'em. "

"I dunno; it's all dark to me, " owned Sally Flint. "I guess 'twouldpuzzle a saint to explain men-folks, anyway, but I've al'ays thoughtthey was sort o' numb about some things. Anyway, Josh Marden was. Well, things went on that way till the fust part o' the summer, an' then theycome to a turnin'-p'int. I s'pose they'd got to, some time, an' itmight jest as well ha' been fust as last. Lyddy Ann was prettymiserable, an' she'd been dosin' with thoroughwort an' what all whenanybody told her to; but I al'ays thought she never cared a mitewhether she lived to see another spring. The day I'm comin' to, she wasstandin' over the fire fryin' fish, an' 'Mandy was sort o' fiddlin'round, settin' the table, an' not doin' much of anything arter all. Idunno how she come to be so aggravatin', for she was al'ays ready to doher part, if she _had_ come between husband an' wife. You know how hardit is to git a fish dinner! Well, Lyddy Ann was tired enough, anyway. An' when Josh come in, 'Mandy she took a cinnamon-rose out of herdress, an' offered it to him. 

"'Here's a flower for your button-hole, ' says she, as if she wa'n'tmore 'n sixteen. An' then she set down in a chair, an' fanned herselfwith a newspaper. 

"Now that chair happened to be Lyddy Ann's at the table, an' she seewhat was bein' done. She turned right round, with the fish-platter inher hand, an' says she, in an awful kind of a voice, --

"'You git up out o' my chair! You've took my husband away, but yousha'n't take my place at the table!'

"The hired man was there, washin' his hands at the sink, an' he told itto me jest as it happened. Well, I guess they all thought they wasstruck by lightnin', an' Lyddy Ann most of all. Josh he come to, fust. He walked over to Lyddy Ann. 

"'You put down that platter!' says he. An' she begun to tremble, an'set it down. 

"I guess they thought there was goin' to be murder done, for 'Mandybusted right out cryin' an' come runnin' over to me, an' the hired mantook a step an' stood side o' Lyddy Ann. He was a little mite of a man, Cyrus was, but he wouldn't ha' stood no violence. 

"Josh opened the door that went into the front entry, an' jest p'inted. 'You walk in there, ' he says, 'an' you stay there. That's your half o'the house, an' this is mine. Don't you dast to darken my doors!'

"Lyddy Ann she walked through the entry an' into the fore-room, an' heshet the door. "

"I wouldn't ha' done it!" snorted old Mrs. Page, who had spent all herproperty in lawsuits over a right of way. "Ketch me!"

"You would if you'd 'a' been Lyddy Ann!" said Sally Flint, with anemphatic nod. Then she continued: "I hadn't more'n heard 'Mandy's storyafore I was over there; but jest as I put my foot on the door-sill, Josh he come for'ard to meet me. 

"'What's wanted?' says he. An' I declare for't I was so scairt I jestturned round an' cut for home. An' there set 'Mandy, wringin' herhands. 

"'What be I goin' to do?' says she, over 'n' over. 'Who ever'd ha'thought o' this?'

"'The thing for you to do, ' says I, 'is to go, straight home to yourmother, an' I'll harness up an' carry you. Don't you step your footinside that house ag'in. Maybe ma'am will go over an' pack up yourthings. You've made mischief enough. ' So we got her off thatarter-noon, an' that was an end of _her_. 

"I never could see what made Josh think so quick that day. We neverthought he was brighter 'n common; but jest see how in that flash o'bein' mad with Lyddy Ann he'd planned out what would be most wormwoodfor her! He gi'n her the half o' the house she'd furnished herself withhair-cloth chairs an' a whatnot, but 'twa'n't the part that was fit tobe lived in. She stayed pretty close for three or four days, an' Iguess she never had nothin' to eat. It made me kind o' sick to think ofher in there settin' on her hair-cloth sofy, an' lookin' at her waxflowers an' the coral on the what-not, an' thinkin' what end she'dmade. It was of a Monday she was sent in there, an' Tuesday night Islipped over an' put some luncheon on the winder-sill; but 'twas therethe next day, an' Cyrus see the old crower fly up an' git it. An' thatsame Tuesday mornin', Josh had a j'iner come an' begin a partitionright straight through the house. It was all rough boards, like a highfence, an' it cut the front entry in two, an' went right through thekitchen--so't the kitchen stove was one side on't, an' the sink theother. Lyddy Ann's side had the stove. I was glad o' that, though Is'pose she 'most had a fit every day to think o' him tryin' to cookover the airtight in the settin'-room. Seemed kind o' queer to go tothe front door, too, for you had to open it wide an' squeeze round thepartition to git into Lyddy Ann's part, an' a little mite of a crackwould let you into Josh's. But they didn't have many callers. It was agood long while afore anybody dared to say a word to her; an' as forJosh, there wa'n't nobody that cared about seein' him but thetax-collector an' pedlers. 

"Well, the trouble Josh took to carry out that mad fit! He split woodan' laid it down at Lyddy Ann's door, an' he divided the eggs an' milk, an' shoved her half inside. He bought her a separate barrel o' flour, an' all the groceries he could think on; they said he laid money on herwinder-sill. But, take it all together, he was so busy actin' like acrazed one that he never got his 'taters dug till 'most time for thefrost. Lyddy Ann she never showed her head among the neighbors ag'in. When she see she'd got to stay there, she begun to cook for herself;but one day, one o' the neighbors heard her pleadin' with Josh, out inthe cow-yard, while he was milkin'. 

"'O Joshuay, ' she kep' a-sayin' over 'n' over, 'you needn't take meback, if you'll on'y let me do your work! You needn't speak to me, an'I'll live in the other part; but I shall be crazy if you don't let medo your work. O Joshuay! O Joshuay!' She cried an' cried as if herheart would break, but Josh went on milkin', an' never said a word. 

"I s'pose she thought he'd let her, the old hunks, for the next day, she baked some pies an' set 'em on the table in his part. She reachedin through the winder to do it. But that night, when Josh come home, hehove 'em all out into the back yard, an' the biddies eat 'em up. Thelast time I was there, I see them very pieces o' pie-plate, white an'blue-edged, under the syringa bush. Then she kind o' give up hope. Iguess--But no! I'm gittin' ahead o' my story. She did try him oncemore. Of course his rooms got to lookin' like a hog's nest--"

"My! I guess when she see him doin' his own washin', she thought thepocket-book was a small affair, " interpolated Mrs. Niles. 

"She used to go round peerin' into his winders when he wa'n't there, an' one day, arter he'd gone off to trade some steers, she jest spunkedup courage an' went in an' cleaned all up. I see the bed airin', an'went over an' ketched her at it. She hadn't more'n got through an'stepped outside when Josh come home, an' what should he do but take thewheelbarrer an', beat out as he was drivin' oxen five mile, go down tothe gravel-pit an' get a barrerful o' gravel. He wheeled it up to theside door, an' put a plank over the steps, an' wheeled it right in. An'then he dumped it in the middle o' his clean floor. That was the lasto' her tryin' to do for him on the sly. 

"I should ha' had some patience with him if 'twa'n't for one thing hedone to spite her. Seemed as if he meant to shame her that way aforethe whole neighborhood. He wouldn't speak to her himself, but he sent apainter by trade to tell her he was goin' to paint the house, an' toask her what color she'd ruther have. The painter said she acted sorto' wild, she was so pleased. She told him yaller; an' Josh had him goright to work on't next day. But he had her half painted yaller, an'his a kind of a drab, I guess you'd call it. He sold a piece o' ma'shto pay for't. Dr. Parks said you might as well kill a woman with ahatchet, as the man did down to Sudleigh, as put her through suchtreatment. My! ain't it growin' late? Here, let me set back by thewinder. I want to see who goes by, to-day. An' I'll cut my story short. 

"Well, they lived jest that way. Lyddy Ann she looked like an oldwoman, in a month or two. She looked every minute as old as you do, Mis' Gridley. Ain't you sixty-nine? Well, she wa'n't but thirty-six. Her hair turned gray, an' she was all stooped over. Sometimes I thoughtshe wa'n't jest right. I used to go in to see if she'd go coltsfootin'with me, or plummin'; but she never'd make me no answer. I recollecttwo things she said. One day, she set rockin' back'ards an' for'ards ina straight chair, holdin' her hands round her knees, an' she says, --

"'I 'ain't got no pride, Sally Flint! I 'ain't got no pride!'

"An' once she looked up kind o' pitiful an' says, 'Ain't it queer Ican't die?' But, poor creatur', I never thought she knew what she wassayin'. She'd ha' been the last one to own she wa'n't contented ifshe'd had any gover'ment over her words. 

"Well, Josh he'd turned the hired man away because he couldn't do forhim over the airtight stove, an' he got men to help him by days' works. An' through the winter, he jest set over the fire an' sucked his claws, an' thought how smart he was. But one day 'twas awful cold, an' we'dbeen tryin' out lard, an' the fat ketched fire, an' everything was allup in arms, anyway. Cyrus he was goin' by Josh's, an' he didn't see nosmoke from the settin'-room stove. So he jest went to the side door an'walked in, an' there set Josh in the middle o' the room. Couldn't movehand nor foot! Cyrus didn't stop for no words, but he run over to ourhouse, hollerin', 'Josh Harden's got a stroke!' An' ma'am left thestove all over fat an' run, an' I arter her, I guess Lyddy Ann must ha'seen us comin', for we hadn't more'n got into the settin'-room aforeshe was there. The place was cold as a barn, an' it looked like ahurrah's nest. Josh never moved, but his eyes follered her when shewent into the bedroom to spread up the bed. 

"'You help me, Cyrus, ' says she, kind, o' twittery-like, but calm. 'We'll carry him in here. I can lift. '

"But our men-folks got there jest about as they was tryin' to plan howto take him, an' they h'isted him onto the bed. Cyrus harnessed up ourhorse an' went after Dr. Parks, an' by the time he come, we'd got theroom so's to look decent. An'--if you'll b'lieve it! Lyddy Ann was inthe bedroom tryin' to warm Josh up an' make him take some hot drink;but when I begun to sweep up, an' swop towards that gravel-pile in themiddle o' the floor, she come hurryin' up, all out o' breath. Sheketched the broom right out o' my hand. 

"I'll sweep, byme-by, ' says she. 'Don't you touch that gravel, none onye!' An' so the gravel laid there, an' we walked round it, watchers an'all. 

"She wouldn't have no watcher in his bedroom, though; she wasdetermined to do everything but turn him an' lift him herself, butthere was al'ays one or two settin' round to keep the fires goin' an'make sure there was enough cooked up. I swan, I never see a woman sohappy round a bed o' sickness as Lyddy Ann was! She never made no fusswhen Josh was awake, but if he shet his eyes, she'd kind o' hang overthe bed an' smooth the clo'es as if they was kittens, an' once Iketched her huggin' up the sleeve of his old barn coat that hungoutside the door. If ever a woman made a fool of herself over a manthat wa'n't wuth it, 'twas Lyddy Ann Marden!

"Well, Josh he hung on for a good while, an' we couldn't make outwhether he had his senses or not. He kep' his eyes shet most o' thetime; but when Lyddy Ann's back was turned, he seemed to know itsomehow, an' he'd open 'em an' foller her all round the room. But henever spoke. I asked the doctor about it. 

"'Can't he speak, doctor?' says I. 'He can move that hand a leetleto-day. Don't you s'pose he could speak, if he'd a mind to?'

"The doctor he squinted up his eyes--he al'ays done that when he didn'twant to answer--an' he says, --

"'I guess he's thinkin' on't over. '

"But one day, Lyddy Ann found she was all beat out, an' she laid downin the best bedroom an' went to sleep. I set with Josh. I was narrerin'off, but when I looked up, he was beckonin' with his well hand. I gotup, an' went to the bed. 

"'Be you dry?' says I. He made a little motion, an' then he lifted hishand an' p'inted out into the settin'-room. 

"Do you want Lyddy Ann?' says I. 'She's laid down. ' No, he didn't wanther. I went to the settin'-room door an' looked out, an'--I dunno how'twas--it all come to me. 

"'Is it that gravel-heap?' says I. 'Do you want it carried off, an' thefloor swop up?' An' he made a motion to say 'Yes. ' I called Cyrus, an'we made short work o' that gravel. When, I'd took up the last miteon't, I went back to the bed. 

"'Josh Marden, ' says I, 'can you speak, or can't you?' But he shet hiseyes, an' wouldn't say a word. 

"When Lyddy Ann come out, I told her what he'd done, an' then she didgive way a little mite. Two tears come out o' her eyes, an' jest rolleddown her cheeks, but she didn't give up to 'em. 

"'Sally, ' says she, sort o' peaceful, 'I guess I'll have a cup o' tea. '

"Well, there was times when we thought Josh would git round ag'in, ifhe didn't have another stroke. I dunno whether he did have another ornot, but one night, he seemed to be sort o' sinkin' away. Lyddy Ann shebegun to turn white, an' she set down by him an' rubbed his sick hand. He looked at her, --fust time he had, fair an' square, --an' then hebegun to wobble his lips round an' make a queer noise with 'em. She puther head down, an' then she says, 'Yes, Joshuay! yes, dear!' An' shegot up an' took the pocket-book 'Mandy had gi'n him off the top o' thebureau, an' laid it down on the bed where he could git it. But he shookhis head, an' said the word ag'in, an' a queer look--as if she wasscairt an' pleased--flashed over Lyddy Ann's face. She run into theparlor, an' come back with that old pocket-book he'd give up to her, an' she put it into his well hand. That was what he wanted. His fingersgripped it up, an' he shet his eyes. He never spoke ag'in. He died thatnight. "

"I guess she died, too!" said Lucy Staples, under her breath, stealthily wiping a tear from her faded cheek. 

"No, she didn't, either!" retorted Sally Flint, hastily, getting up topeer from the window down the country road. "She lived a good manyyear, right in that very room he'd drove her out on, an' she looked asif she owned the airth. I've studied on it consid'able, an' I al'ayss'posed 'twas because she'd got him, an' that was all she cared for. There's the hearse now, an' two carriages, step an' step. "

"Land! who's dead?" exclaimed Mrs. Forbes, getting up in haste, whileher ball rolled unhindered to the other end of the room. 

"It's Lyddy Ann Marden, " returned Sally Flint, with the triumphantquiet of one first at the goal. "I see it this mornin' in the 'CountyDemocrat, ' when I was doin' up my wrist, an' you was all so busy. "

HEMAN'S MA. 

It was half-past nine of a radiant winter's night, and the WidderPoll's tooth still ached, though she was chewing cloves, and hadapplied a cracker poultice to her cheek. She was walking back and forththrough the great low-studded kitchen, where uncouth shadows lurked andbrooded, still showing themselves ready to leap aloft with anyslightest motion of the flames that lived behind the old blackfire-dogs. At every trip across the room, she stopped to look from thewindow into the silver paradise without, and at every glance shegroaned, as if groaning were a duty. The kitchen was unlighted save bythe fire and one guttering candle; but even through such inadequateillumination the Widder Poll was a figure calculated to stir richmerriment in a satirical mind. Her contour was rather square thanoblong, and she was very heavy. In fact, she had begun to announce thather ankles wouldn't bear her much longer, and she should "see the daywhen she'd have to set by, from mornin' to night, like old AnruttyGreen that had the dropsy so many years afore she was laid away. " Herface, also, was cut upon the broadest pattern in common use, and hersmall, dull eyes and closely shut mouth gave token of that firmnesswhich, save in ourselves, we call obstinacy. To-night, however, herfeatures were devoid of even their wonted dignity, compressed, as theyhad been, by the bandage encircling her face. She looked like acaricature of her unprepossessing self. On one of her uneasy journeysto the window, she caught the sound of sleigh-bells; and staying onlyto assure herself of their familiar ring, she hastily closed theshutter, and, going back to the fireplace, sank into a chair there, andhuddled over the blaze. The sleigh drove slowly into the yard, andafter the necessary delay of unharnessing, a man pushed open the sidedoor, and entered the kitchen. He, too, was short and square of build, though he had no superfluous flesh. His ankles would doubtless continueto bear him for many a year to come. His face was but slightlyaccented; he had very thin eyebrows, light hair, and only a shaggyfringe of whisker beneath the chin. This was Heman Blaisdell, theWidder Poll's brother-in-law, for whom she had persistently kept houseever since the death of his wife, four years ago. He came in withoutspeaking, and after shaking himself out of his great-coat, sat silentlydown in his armchair by the fire. The Widder Poll held both hands toher face, and groaned again. At length, curiosity overcame her, and, quite against her judgment, she spoke. She was always resolving thatshe would never again take the initiative; but every time herresolution went down before the certainty that if she did not talk, there would be no conversation at all, --for Heman had a staying powerthat was positively amazing. 

"Well?" she began, interrogatively. 

Heman only stirred slightly in his chair. 

"_Well!_ ain't you goin' to tell me what went on at the meetin'?"

Her quarry answered patiently, yet with a certain dogged resistance ofher, --

"I dunno's there's anything to tell. "

"How'd it go off?"

"'Bout as usual. "

"Did you speak?"

"No. "

"Lead in prayer?"

"No. "

"Wa'n't you _asked_?"

"No. "

"Well, my soul! Was Roxy Cole there?"

"Yes. "

"Did you fetch her home?"

"No, I didn't!" Some mild exasperation animated his tone at last. TheWidder detected it, and occupied herself with her tooth. 

"My soul an' body! I wonder if it's goin' to grumble all night long!"she exclaimed, bending lower over the blaze. "I've tried everything buta roasted raisin, an' I b'lieve I shall come to that. "

Heman rose, and opened the clock on the mantel; he drew forth the keyfrom under the pendulum, and slowly wound up the time-worn machinery. In another instant, he would be on his way to bed; the Widder knew shemust waste no time in hurt silence, if she meant to find out anything. She began hastily, --

"Did they say anything about the, church fair?"

"They ain't goin' to have it. "

"Not have it! Well, how _be_ they goin' to git the shinglin' paid for?"

"They've got up the idee of an Old Folks' Concert. "

"Singin'?"

"Singin' an' playin'. "

"Who's goin' to play?"

"Brad Freeman an' Jont Marshall agreed to play fust an' second fiddle. "Heman paused a moment, and straightened himself with an air ofconscious pride; then he added, --

"They've asked me to play the bass-viol. "

The Widder had no special objections to this arrangement, but it didstrike her as an innovation; and when she had no other reason fordisapproval, she still believed in it on general principles. Soaltogether effective a weapon should never rust from infrequent use!

"Well!" she announced. "I never heard of such carryin's-on, --never!"

Heman was lighting a small kerosene lamp. The little circle of lightseemed even brilliant in the dusky room; it affected him with a reliefso sudden and manifest as to rouse also a temporary irritation athaving endured the previous gloom even for a moment. 

"'Ain't you got no oil in the house?" he exclaimed, testily. "I wishyou'd light up, evenin's, an' not set here by one taller candle!"

He had ventured on this remonstrance before, the only one he permittedhimself against his housekeeper's ways, and at the instant of makingit, he realized its futility. 

"The gre't lamp's all full, " said the Widder, warming her apron andpressing it to her poulticed face. "You can light it, if you've got theheart to. That was poor Mary's lamp, an' hard as I've tried, I nevercould bring myself to put a match to that wick. How many evenin's I'veseen her set by it, rockin' back'ards an' for'ards, --an' her needlegoin' in an' out! She was a worker, if ever there was one, poorcreatur'! At it all the time, jes' like a silk-worm. "

Heman was perfectly familiar with this explanation; from longrepetition, he had it quite by heart. Possibly that was why he did notwait for its conclusion, but tramped stolidly away to his bedroom, where he had begun to kick off his shoes by the time his sister-in-lawreached a period. 

The Widder had a fresh poultice waiting by the fire. She applied it toher cheek, did up her face in an old flannel petticoat, and then, having covered the fire, toiled up to bed. It was a wearisome journey, for she carried a heavy soapstone which showed a tendency to conflictwith the candle, and she found it necessary to hold together most ofher garments; these she had "loosened a mite by the fire, " according tocustom on cold nights, after Heman had left her the field. 

Next day, Heman went away into the woods chopping, and carried hisdinner of doughnuts and cheese, with a chunk of bean-porridge frozeninto a ball, to be thawed out by his noontime fire. He returned muchearlier than usual, and the Widder was at the window awaiting him. Theswelling in her cheek had somewhat subsided; and the bandage, no longerdistended by a poultice beneath, seemed, in comparison, a species ofholiday device. She was very impatient. She watched Heman, as he wentfirst to the barn; and even opened the back door a crack to listen forthe rattling of chains, the signal of feeding or watering. 

"What's he want to do that now for?" she muttered, closing the dooragain, as the cold struck her cheek. "He'll have to feed 'em ag'in, come night!"

But at last he came, and, according to his silent wont, crossed thekitchen to the sink, to wash his hands. He was an unobservant man, andit did not occur to him that the Widder had on her Tycoon rep, the gownshe kept "for nice. " Indeed, he was so unused to looking at her that hemight well have forgotten her outward appearance. He was only sure ofher size; he knew she cut off a good deal of light. One sign, however, he did recognize; she was very cheerful, with a hollow good-naturewhich had its meaning. 

"I got your shavin'-water all ready, " she began. "Don't you burn yewhen ye turn it out. "

It had once been said of the Widder Poll that if she could hold hertongue, the devil himself couldn't get ahead of her. But fortune hadnot gifted her with such endurance, and she always spoke too often andtoo soon. 

"Brad Freeman's been up here, " she continued, eying Heman, as she drewout the supper-table and put up the leaves. "I dunno's I ever knewanybody so took up as he is with that concert, an' goin' to the vestryto sing to-night, an' all. He said he'd call here an' ride 'long o'you, an' I told him there'd be plenty o' room, for you'd take thepung. "

If Heman felt any surprise at her knowledge of his purpose, he did notbetray it. He poured out his shaving-water, and looked about him for anold newspaper. 

"I ain't goin' in the pung, " he answered, without glancing at her. "Theshoe's most off'n one o' the runners now. "

The Widder Poll set a pie on the table with an emphasis unconsciouslyembodying her sense that now, indeed, had come the time for remedies. 

"I dunno what you can take, " she remarked, with that same forebodingliveliness. "Three on a seat, an' your bass-viol, too!"

Heman was lathering his cheeks before the mirror, where a sinuous Venusand a too-corpulent Cupid disported themselves in a green landscapeabove the glass. "There ain't goin' to be three, " he said, patiently. "T'others are goin' by themselves. "

The Widder took up her stand at a well-chosen angle, and looked at himin silence. He paid no attention to her, and it was she who, ofnecessity, broke into speech. 

"_Well!_ I've got no more to say. Do you mean to tell me you'd go offplayin' on fiddles an' bass-viols, an' leave me, your own wife'ssister, settin' here the whole evenin' long, all swelled up with thetoothache?"

Heman often felt that he had reached a state of mind where nothingcould surprise him, but this point of view was really unexpected. Hedecided, however, with some scorn, that the present misunderstandingmight arise from a confusion of terms in the feminine mind. 

"This ain't the concert, " he replied, much as if she had proposed goingto the polls. "It's the rehearsal. That means where you play the tunesover. The concert ain't comin' off for a month. "

And now the Widder Poll spoke with the air of one injured almost beyondreparation. 

"I'd like to know what difference that makes! If a man's goin' where hecan't take his womenfolks, I say he'd better stay to home! an' ifthere's things goin' on there't you don't want me to git hold of, Itell you, Heman Blaisdell, you'd better by half stop shavin' you now, an' take yourself off to bed at seven o'clock! Traipsin' round playin'the fiddle at your age! Ain't I fond o' music?"

"No, you ain't!" burst forth Heman, roused to brief revolt where hisbeloved instrument was concerned. "You don't know Old Hunderd fromYankee Doodle!"

The Widder walked round the table and confronted him as he was turningaway from the glass, shaving-mug in hand. 

"You answer me one question! I know who's goin' to be there, an' set inthe chorus an' sing alto. Brad Freeman told me, as innercent as a lamb. Heman Blaisdell, you answer me? Be you goin' to bring anybody here tothis house, an' set her in poor Mary's place? If you be, I ought to bethe fust one to know it. "

Heman looked at the shaving-mug for a moment, as if he contemplateddashing it to the floor. Then he tightened his grasp on it, like oneputting the devil behind him. 

"No, I ain't, " he said, doggedly, adding under his breath, "not unlessI'm drove to 't. "

"I dunno who could ha' done more, " said the Widder, so patently withthe air of continuing for an indefinite period that Heman reached upfor his hat. "Where you goin'? Mercy sakes alive! don't you mean to eatno supper, now I've got it all ready?"

But Heman pushed his way past her and escaped, muttering somethingabout "feedin' the critters. " Perhaps the "critters" under his carewere fed oftener than those on farms where the ingle-nook was at leastas cosey as the barn. 

These slight skirmishes always left Heman with an uneasy sense thatsomehow he also must be to blame, though he never got beyond wonderingwhat could have been done to avert the squall. When he went back intothe kitchen, however, --the "critters" fed, and his own nerves soothedby pitchforking the haymow with the vigor of one who assaults acitadel, --he was much relieved at finding the atmosphere as clear asusual; and as the early twilight drew on, he became almost happy atthought of; the vivid pleasure before him. Never, since his wife died, had he played his bass-viol in public; but he had long been in thehabit of "slying off" upstairs to it, as to a tryst with lover orfriend whom the world denied. The Widder Poll, though she heard itwailing and droning thence, never seriously objected to it; thepractice was undoubtedly "shaller, " but it kept him in the house. 

They ate supper in silence; and then, while she washed the dishes, Heman changed his clothes, and went to the barn to harness. He stoodfor a moment, irresolute, when the horse was ready, and then backed himinto the old blue pung. A queer little smile lurked at the corners ofhis mouth. 

"I guess the shoe'll go once more, " he muttered. "No, I ain't goin' tomarry ag'in! I said I ain't, an' I ain't. But I guess I can give aneighbor a lift, if I want to!"

Brad Freeman was waiting near the tack door when Heman led the horseout of the barn. He was lank and lean, and his thick red hair strayedlow over the forehead. His army overcoat was rent here and there beyondthe salvation which lay in his wife's patient mending, and his old furcap showed the skin in moth-eaten patches; yet Heman thought, with awondering protest, how young he looked, how free from care. 

"Hullo, Heman!" called Brad. 

"How are ye?" responded Heman, with a cordiality Brad never failed toelicit from his brother man. 

Heman left the horse standing, and opened the back door. 

He stopped short. An awful vision confronted him, --the Widder Poll, clad not only in the Tycoon rep, but her best palm-leaf shawl, herfitch tippet, and pumpkin hood; her face was still bandaged, and herhead-gear had been enwound by a green _barège_ veil. She steppedforward with an alertness quite unusual in one so accustomed toremembering her weight of mortal flesh. 

"Here!" she called, "you kind o' help me climb in. I ain't so spry as Iwas once. You better give me a real boost. But, land! I mustn't talk. Iwouldn't git a mite of air into that tooth for a dollar bill. "

Heman stepped into the house for his bass-viol, and brought it out withan extremity of tender care; he placed it, enveloped in its green baizecovering, in the bottom of the pung. Some ludicrous association betweenthe baize and the green _barège_ veil struck Brad so forcibly that hegave vent to a chuckle, sliding cleverly into a cough. He tried to meetHeman's eye, but Heman only motioned him to get in, and took his ownplace without a word. Brad wondered if he could be ill; his face hadgrown yellowish in its pallor, and he seemed to breathe heavily. 

Midway in their drive to the vestry, they passed a woman walkingbriskly along in the snowy track. She was carrying her singing-booksunder one arm, and holding her head high with that proud lift which hadseemed, more than anything else, to keep alive her girlhood's charm. 

"There's Roxy, " said Brad. "Here, Heman, you let me jump out, an' yougive her a lift. " But Heman looked straight before him, and drove on. 

By the time they entered Tiverton Street, the vestry was full ofchattering groups. Heman was the last to arrive. He made a long job ofcovering the horse, inside the shed, resolved that nothing should tempthim to face the general mirth at the Widder's entrance. For he couldnot deceive himself as to the world's amused estimate of herguardianship and his submission. He had even withdrawn from the SchoolBoard, where he had once been proud to figure, because, entering theschoolroom one day at recess, he had seen, on a confiscated slate atthe teacher's desk, a rough caricature representing "Heman and his Ma. "The Ma was at least half the size of the slate, while Heman wasmicroscopic; but, alas! his inflamed consciousness found in both aresemblance which would mightily have surprised the artist. He feltthat if he ever saw another testimony of art to his unworthiness, hemight commit murder. 

When he did muster courage to push open the vestry door, the WidderPoll sat alone by the stove, still unwinding her voluminous wrappings, and the singers had very pointedly withdrawn by themselves. Brad andJont had begun to tune their fiddles, and the first prelusive snappingof strings at once awakened Heman's nerves to a pleasant tingling; hewas excited at the nearness of the coming joy. He drew a full breathwhen it struck home to him, with the warm certainty of a happy truth, that if he did not look at her, even the Widder Poll could hardly spoilhis evening. Everybody greeted him with unusual kindliness, though somecould not refrain from coupling their word with a meaning glance at thecolossal figure near the stove. One even whispered, --

"She treed ye, didn't she, Heman?"

He did not trust himself to answer, but drew the covering from his owntreasure, and began his part of the delicious snapping and screwing. 

"Where's Roxy?" called Jont Marshall "Can't do without her alto. Anybody seen her?"

Roxy was really very late, and Heman could not help wondering whethershe had delayed in starting because she had expected a friendlyinvitation to ride, "All right, " he reflected, bitterly. "She must getused to it. "

The door opened, and Roxy came in. She had been walking fast, and hercolor was high. Heman stole one glance at her, under cover of thesaluting voices. She was forty years old, yet her hair had not onesilver thread, and at that instant of happy animation, she lookedstrikingly like her elder sister, to whom Heman used to give lozengeswhen they were boy and girl together, and who died in India. Then Roxytook her place, and Heman bent over his bass-viol. The rehearsal began. Heman forgot all about his keeper sitting by the stove, as the old, familiar tunes swelled up in the little room, and one antique phraseafter another awoke nerve-cells all unaccustomed nowadays to thrilling. He could remember just when he first learned The Mellow Horn, and howhis uncle, the sailor, had used to sing it. "Fly like a youthful hartor roe!" Were there spices still left on the hills of life? Ah, butonly for youth to smell and gather! Boldly, with a happy bravado, thechoir sang, --

 "The British yoke, the Gallic chain, Were placed upon our necks in vain!"

And then came the pious climax of Coronation, America, and theDoxology. Above the tumult of voices following the end of rehearsal, some one announced the decision to meet on Wednesday night; and Heman, his bass-viol again in its case, awoke, and saw the Widder putting onher green veil. Rosa Tolman nudged her intimate friend, Laura Pettis, behind Heman's back, and whispered, --

"I wonder if she's had a good time! There 'ain't been a soul for her tospeak to, the whole evenin' long!"

The other girl laughed, with a delicious sense of fun in the situation, and Heman recoiled; the sound was like a blow in the face. 

"Say, Heman, " said Brad, speaking in his ear. "I guess I'll walk home, so't you can take in Roxy. "

But Heman had bent his head, and was moving along with the rest, like aman under a burden. 

"No, " said he, drearily. "I can't. You come along. "

His tone was quite conclusive; and Brad, albeit wondering, said nomore. The three packed themselves into the pung, and drove away. Hemanwas conscious of some dull relief in remembering that he need not passRoxy again on the road, for he heard her voice ring out clearly from agroup near the church. He wondered if anybody would go home with her, and whether she minded the dark "spell o' woods" by the river. Nomatter! It was of no use. She must get used to her own company. 

The Widder was almost torpid from her long sojourn by the stove; butthe tingling air roused her at last, and she spoke, though mumblingly, remembering her tooth, --

"Proper nice tunes, wa'n't they? Was most on 'em new?"

But Brad could not hear, and left it for Heman to answer; and Hemangave his head a little restive shake, and said, "No. " At his own gate, he stopped. 

"I guess I won't car' you down home, " he said to Brad. 

It was only a stone's-throw, Brad hesitated. 

"No, I, didn't mean for ye to, " answered he, "but I'll stop an' helpunharness. "

"No, " said Heman, gently. "You better not. I'd ruther do it. " Even afriendly voice had become unbearable in his ears. 

So, Brad, stepped down, lifted out his fiddle-case, and saidgood-night. Heman drove into the yard, and stopped before the kitchendoor. He took the reins in one hand, and held out the other to theWidder. 

"You be a mite careful o' your feet, " he said. "That bass-viol slippeda little for'ard when we come down Lamson's Hill. "

She rose ponderously. She seemed to sway and hesitate; then she set onefoot cautiously forward in the pung. There was a rending, crash. TheWidder Poll had stepped into the bass-viol. She gave a little scream;and plunged forward. 

"My foot's ketched!" she cried. "Can't you help me out?"

Heman dropped the reins; he put his hands on her arms, and pulled herforward. He never knew whether she reached the ground on her feet orher knees. Then he pushed past her, where she floundered, and liftedout his darling. He carried it into the kitchen, and lighted thecandle, with trembling hands. He drew back the cover. The bass-viol hadits mortal wound; he could have laid both fists into the hole. Hegroaned. 

"My God Almighty!" he said aloud. 

The Widder Poll had stumbled into the room. She threw back her greenveil, and her face shone ivory white under its shadow; her small eyeswere starting. She looked like a culprit whom direst vengeance hadovertaken at last. At the sound of her step, Heman lifted his hurttreasure, carried it tenderly into his bedroom, and shut the door uponit. He turned about, and walked past her out of the house. The WidderPoll followed him, wringing her mittened hands. 

"O Heman!" she cried, "don't you look like that! Oh, you'll do yourselfsome mischief, I know you will!"

But Heman had climbed into the pung, and given Old Gameleg a viciouscut. Swinging out of the yard they went; and the Widder Poll ran afteruntil, just outside the gate, she reflected that she never couldovertake him and that her ankles were weak; then she returned to thehouse, groaning. 

Heman was conscious of one thought only: if any man had come home withRoxy, he should kill him with his own hands. He drove on, almost to thevestry, and found no trace of her. He turned about, and, retracing hisway, stopped at her mother's gate, left Old Gameleg, and strode intothe yard. There was no light in the kitchen, and only a glimmer in thechamber above. Heman went up to the kitchen door and knocked. Thechamber window opened. 

"Who is it?" asked Mrs. Cole. "Why, that you, Heman? Anybody sick?"

"Where's Roxy?" returned Heman, as if he demanded her at the point ofthe bayonet. 

"Why, she's been abed as much as ten minutes. The Tuckers brought herhome. "

"You tell her to come here! I want to see her. "

"What! down there? Law, Heman! you come in the mornin'. She'll ketchher death o' cold gittin' up an' dressin', now she's got all warmedthrough. "

"What's he want, mother?" came Roxy's clear voice from within the room. "That's Heman Blaisdell's voice. "

"Roxy, you come down here!" called Heman, masterfully. 

There was a pause, during which Mrs. Cole was apparently pulled awayfrom the window. Then Roxy, her head enveloped in a shawl, appeared inher mother's place. 

"Well!" she said, impatiently. "What is it?"

Heman's voice found a pleading level. 

"Roxy, will you marry me?"

"Why, Heman, you 're perfectly ridiculous! At this time o' night, too!"

"You answer me!" cried Heman, desperately. "I want you! Won't you haveme, Roxy? Say?"

"Roxy!" came her mother's muffled voice from the bed. "You'll git yourdeath o' cold. What's he want? Can't you give him an answer an' let himgo?"

"Won't you, Roxy?" called Heman. "Oh, won't you?"

Roxy began to laugh hysterically. "Yes, " she said, and shut the window. 

When Heman had put up the horse, he walked into the kitchen, andstraight up to the Widder Poll, who stood awaiting him, clinging to thetable by one fat hand. 

"Now, look here!" he said, good-naturedly, speaking to her with adirect address he had not been able to use for many a month, "Youlisten to me. I don't want any hard feelin', but to-morrer mornin'you've got to pick up your things an' go. You can have the house downto the Holler, or you can go out nussin', but you come here by your owninvitation, an' you've got to leave by mine. I'm goin' to be married assoon as I can git a license. " Then he walked to the bedroom, and shuthimself in with his ruined bass-viol and the darkness. 

And the Widder Poll did not speak. 

 * * * * *

There are very few cosey evenings when Heman and Roxy do not smile ateach other across the glowing circle of their hearth, and ask, the oneor the other, with a perplexity never to be allayed, --

"Do you s'pose she tumbled, or did she put her foot through ita-purpose?"

But Heman is sure to conclude the discussion with a glowing tribute toBrad Freeman, his genius and his kindliness. 

"I never shall forgit that o' Brad, " he announces. "There wa'n'tanother man in the State o' New Hampshire could ha' mended it as hedid. Why, you never'd know there was a brack in it!"

HEARTSEASE. 

 "For as for heartsease, it groweth in a single night. "

"What be you doin' of, Mis' Lamson?" asked Mrs. Pettis, coming in fromthe kitchen, where she had been holding a long conversation with youngMrs. Lamson on the possibility of doing over sugar-barberry. Mrs. Pettis was a heavy woman, bent almost double with rheumatism, and shecarried a baggy umbrella for a cane. She was always sighing over thedifficulty of "gittin' round the house, " but nevertheless she made morecalls than any one else in the neighborhood. "It kind o' limbered herup, " she said, "to take a walk after she had been bendin' over thedish-pan. "

Mrs. Lamson looked up with an alert, bright glance. She was a littlecreature, and something still girlish lingered in her straight, slenderfigure and the poise of her head. "Old Lady Lamson" was over eighty, and she dressed with due deference to custom; but everything about hergained, in the wearing, an air of youth. Her aggressively brown frontwas rumpled a little, as if it had tried to crimp itself, only to bedetected before the operation was well begun, and the purple ribbons ofher cap flared rakishly aloft. 

"I jest took up a garter, " she said, with some apology in her tone. "Kind o' fiddlin' work, ain't it?"

"Last time I was here, you was knittin' mittins, " continued Mrs. Pettis, seating herself laboriously on the lounge, and leaning forwardupon the umbrella clutched steadily in two fat hands. "You're dretfulforehanded. I remember I said so then. 'Samwel 'ain't got a mittin, tohis name, ' I says, 'nor he won't have 'fore November. '"

"Well, I guess David's pretty well on't for everything now, " answeredMrs. Lamson, with some pride. "He's got five pair o' new mittins, an'my little blue chist full o' stockin's. I knit 'em two-an'-two, an'two-an'-one, an' toed some on 'em off with white, an' some with red, so's to keep 'em in pairs. But Mary said I better not knit any more, for fear the moths'd git into 'em, an' so I stopped an' took up thisgarter. But _'tis_ dretful fiddlin' work!"

A brief silence fell upon the two, while the sweet summer scents stolein at the window, --the breath of the cinnamon rose, of growing, grassand good brown earth. Mrs. Pettis pondered, looking vacantly beforeher, and Old Lady Lamson knit hastily on. Her needles clicked together, and she turned her work with a jerk in beginning a row. But neither wasoppressed by lack of speech. They understood each other, and no morethought of "making talk" than of pulling up a seed to learn whether ithad germinated. It was Mrs. Pettis who, after, a natural interval; feltmoved to speak. 

"Mary's master thoughtful of you, ain't she? 'Tain't many sons' wiveswould be so tender of, anybody, now is it?"

Mrs. Lamson looked up sharply, and then, with the same quick movement;bent her eyes on her work. 

"Mary means to do jest what's right, " she answered. "If she don't makeout, it ain't for lack o' tryin'. "

"So I says to Samwel this mornin". 'Old Lady Lamson 'ain't one thing toconcert herself with, ' says I, 'but to git dressed an' set by thewinder. When dinner-time comes, she's got nothin' to do but hitch up tothe table; an' she don't have to touch her hand to a dish. ' Now ain'tthat so, Mis' Lamson?"

"That's so, " agreed Mrs. Lamson, with a little sigh, instantlysuppressed. "It's different from what I thought to myself 'twould bewhen Mary come here. ''Tain't in natur' she'll have the feelin' for meshe would for her own, ' I says; but I b'lieve she has, an' more too. When she come for good, I made up my mind I'd put 'Up with everything, an' say 'twas all in the day's work; but law! I never had to. She an'David both act as if I was sugar or salt, I dunno which. "

"Don't ye never help 'round, washin'-days?"

"Law, no! Mary won't hear to 't. She'd ruther have the dishes wait tilleverything's on the line; an' if I stir a step to go into the gardin topick a 'mess o' beans, or kill a currant worm, she's right arter me. 'Mother, don't you fall!' she says, a dozen 'times a day. 'I dunno whatDavid'd do to me, if I let anything happen to you. ' An' 'David, he'sketched it, too. One night, 'long towards Thanksgivin' time, I kickedthe soapstone out o' bed, an' he come runnin' up as if he wasbewitched. 'Mother, ' says he, 'did you fall? You 'ain't had a stroke, have ye?'"

Old Lady Lamson laughed huskily; her black eyes shone, and her capribbons nodded, and danced, but there was an ironical ring to hermerriment. 

"Do tell!" responded Mrs. Pettis, in her ruminating voice. "Well, things were different when we was young married folks, an' used to doour own spinnin' an' weavin'. "

"I guess so!" Mrs. Lamson dropped her busy hands in her lap, and leanedback a moment, in eager retrospect. "Do you recollect that Friday wespun from four o'clock in the mornin' till six that evenin', becausethe men-folks had gone in the ma'sh, an' all we had to do was to stopan' feed the critters? An' Hiram Peasley come along with tinware, an'you says, 'If you're a mind to stop at my house, an' throw a colanderan' a long-handled dipper over the fence, under the flowerin'-currant, an' wait till next time for your pay, I'll take 'em, ' says you. 'But Iain't goin' to leave off spinnin' for anything less 'n Gabriel'strumpet, ' says you. I remember your sayin' that, as if 'twas onlyyisterday; an' arter you said it, you kind o' drawed down your face an'looked scairt. An' I never thought on't ag'in till next Sabbathevenin', when Jim Bellows rose to speak, an' made some handle about theDay o' Judgment, an' then I tickled right out. "

"How you do set by them days!" said Mrs. Pettis, striving to keep asteady face, though her heavy sides were shaking. "I guess you remember'em better 'n your prayers!"

"Yes, I laughed out loud, an' you passed me a pep'mint over the pew, an' looked as if you was goin' to cry. 'Don't, ' says you; an' it sorto' come over me you knew what I was laughin' at. Why, if there ain'tJohn Freeman stoppin' here, --Mary's sister's brother-in-law, you know. Lives down to Bell P'int. Guess he's pullin' up to give the news. "

Mrs. Pettis came slowly to her feet, and scanned the farmer, who washitching his horse to the fence. When he had gone round to the backdoor, she turned, and grasped her umbrella with a firmer hand. 

"Well, I guess 'twon't pay me to set down ag'in, " she announced. "I'mgoin' to take it easy on the way home. I dunno but I'll let down thebars, an' poke a little ways into the north pastur', an' see if I can'tgit a mite o' pennyr'yal. I'll be in ag'in to-morrer or next day. "

"So do, so do, " returned Mrs. Lamson. 

"'Tain't no use to ask you to come down, I s'pose? You don't git, outso fur, nowadays. "

"No, " said the other, still with that latent touch of sarcasm in hervoice. "If I should fall, there'd be a great hurrah, boys, --'fire onthe mountain, run, boys, run!'"

Mrs. Pettis toiled out into the road; and Old Lady Lamson, laying herknitting on the table, bent forward, not to watch her out of sight, butto make sure whether she really would stop at the north pasture. 

"No, she's goin' by, " she said aloud, with evident relief. "No, sheain't either. I'll be whipped if she ain't lettin' down the bars!_'Twould_ smell kind o' good, I declare!"

She was still peering forward, one slender hand on the window-sill, when Mary, a pretty young woman, with two nervous lines between hereyes, came hurrying in. 

"Mother, " she began, in that unnatural voice which is supposed to allayexcitement in another, "I dunno what I'm goin' to do. Stella's sick. "

"You don't say!" said Old Lady Lamson, turning away from the window. "What do they think 'tis?"

"Fever, John says. An' she's so full-blooded it'll be likely to go hardwith her. They want me to go right down, an' David's got to carry me. John would, but he's gone to be referee in that land case, an' he won'tbe back for a day or two. It's a mercy David's just home from town, sohe won't have to change his clo'es right through. Now, mother, if youshould have little 'Liza Tolman come an' stay with you, do you thinkanything would happen, s'posin' we left you alone just one night?"

A little flush rose in the old lady's withered cheek. Her eyes gleamedbrightly through her glasses. 

"Don't you worry one mite about me, " she replied, in an even voice. "You change your dress, an' git off afore it's dark. I shall be allright. "

"David's harnessin' now, " said Mary, beginning to untie her apron. "Isent John down to the lower barn to call him. But, mother, if anythingshould happen to you--"

"Lord-a-massy! nothin' 's goin' to!" the old lady broke forth, inmomentary impatience. "Don't stan' here talkin'. You better have yourmind on Stella. Fever's a quicker complaint than old age. It al'ayswas, an' al'ays will be. "

"Oh, I know it! I know it!" cried Mary, starting toward the door. "There ain't a thing for you to do. There's new bread an' preserves onthe dairy-wheel, an' you have 'Liza Tolman pick you up some chips, an'build the fire for your tea; an' don't you wash the dishes, mother. Just leave 'em in the sink. An' for mercy sake, take a candle, an' notmeddle with kerosene--"

"Come, come, ain't you ready?" came David's voice from the door. "Ican't keep the horse stan'in' here till he's all eat up with flies. "

Mary fled to her bedroom, unbuttoning her dress as she ran; and Davidcame in, bringing an air of outdoor freshness into the littlesitting-room, with his regal height, his broad shoulders, and tanned, fresh face. 

"Well, mother, " he said, putting a hand of clumsy kindliness on hershoulder, "if anything happens to you while we're gone, I shall wishwe'd let the whole caboodle of 'em die in their tracks. Don't s'poseanything will, do ye?"

"Law, no, David!" exclaimed the old lady, looking at him with beamingpride. "You stan' still an' let me pick that mite o' lint off your arm. I shall be tickled to death to git rid on ye. "

"Now, mother, " counselled Mary, when she came but of the bedroom, hastily tying her bonnet strings, "you watch the school-children, an'ask 'Liza Tolman to stay with you, an' if she can't, to get one of theDaltons; an' tell her we'll give her some Bartlett pears when they'reripe. "

"Yes, yes, I hear, " answered the old lady, rising, and setting back herchair in its accustomed corner. "Now, do go along, or ye won't be downto Grapevine Run afore five o'clock. "

She watched them while they drove out of the yard, shading her eyeswith one nervous hand. 

"Mother, " called Mary, "don't you stan' there in that wind, withnothin' on your head!"

The old lady turned back into the house, and her face was alive withglee. 

"Wind!" she ejaculated scornfully, and yet with the tolerance of onetoo happy for complaint. "Wind! I guess there wouldn't be so much, ifsome folks would save their breath to cool their porridge!"

She did not go back to the sitting-room and her peaceful knitting. Shewalked into the pantry, where she gave the shelves a critical survey, and then, returning to the kitchen, looked about her once more. 

"If it's one day sence I've been down sullar, " she said aloud, "it'stwo year. " She 'was lighting a candle as she spoke. In another moment, she was taking sprightly steps down the stairs into the darkness below. 

"Now, mother, don't you fall!" she chuckled, midway in the descent; andit was undeniable that the voice sounded much like Mary's in heranxious mood. "Now, ain't I a mean creatur' to stan' here laughin' at'em!" she went on: "Well, ' if she don't keep things nice! 'Taters allsprouted; an' the preserve cupboard never looked better in my day. Mary's been well brought up, --I'll say that for her. "

Old Lady Lamson must have spent at least half an hour in the cellar, for when she ascended it was after four o'clock, and theschool-children had passed the house on their way home. She heard theirvoices under the elms at the turn of the road. 

"I ain't to blame if I can't ketch 'em, " she remarked calmly, as sheblew out her light. "I don't see's anybody could say I was to blame. An' I couldn't walk up to the Tolmans' to ask 'Liza. I might fall!"

She set about her preparations for supper. It was a favorite maxim inthe household that the meal should be eaten early, "to get it out ofthe way;" and to-night this unaccustomed handmaid had additionalreasons for haste. But the new bread and preserves were ignored. Shebuilt a rousing fire in the little kitchen stove; she brought out themoulding-board, and with trembling eagerness proceeded to mixcream-of-tartar biscuits. Not Cellini himself nor Jeannie Carlyle hadawaited the results of passionate labor with a more strenuouseagerness; and when she drew out the panful of delicately brownedbiscuits, she set it down on the table, and looked at it in sheerdelight. 

"I'll be whipped if they ain't as good as if I'd made 'em every nightfor the last two year!" she cried. "I ain't got to git my hand in, an' that's truth an' fact!"

She brought out some "cold b'iled dish, " made her strong green tea, andsat down to a banquet such as they taste who have reached theDelectable Mountains. It held within it all the savor of a happy past;it satisfied her hungry soul. 

After she had washed the supper dishes and scrupulously swept thehearth, she rested, for a moment's thought, in the old rocking-chair, and then took her way, candle in hand, to the attic. There was nofurther self-confidence on the stairs; she was too serious, now. Herhours were going fast. The attic, in spite of the open windows, lay hotunder summer's touch upon the shingles outside, and odorous of thedried herbs hanging in bunches here and there. 

"Wormwood--thoroughwort--spearmint, " she mused, as she touched them, one after another, and inhaled their fragrance. "'Tain't so long ago Iwas out pickin' herbs an' dryin' 'em. Well, well, well!"

She made her way under the eaves, and pulled out a hair-trunk, studdedwith brass nails. A rush-bottomed chair stood near-by, and, setting hercandle in it, she knelt before the trunk and began lifting out itscontents: a brocaded satin waistcoat of a long-past day, a woolencomforter knit in stripes, a man's black broadcloth coat. She smoothedthem, as she laid them by, and there was a wondering note in herlowered voice. 

"My Lord!" she whispered reverently, as if speaking to One who wouldhear and understand, "it's over fifty year!"

A pile of yellowed linen lay in the bottom of the trunk, redolent ofcamphor from contact with its perishable neighbors. She lifted oneshirt after another, looking at them in silence. Then she laid back theother clothes, took up her candle and the shirts, and went downstairsagain. In hot haste, she rebuilt the kitchen fire, and set two largekettles of water on the stove. She dragged the washing-bench into theback kitchen from its corner in the shed, and on it placed her tubs;and when the water was heated, she put the garments into a tub, andrubbed with the vigor and ease of a woman well accustomed to such work. All the sounds of the night were loud about her, and the song of thewhippoorwill came in at the open door. He was very near. His presenceshould have been a sign of approaching trouble, but Old Lady Lamson didnot hear him. Her mind was reading the lettered scroll of a vanishedyear. 

Perhaps the touch of the warm water on her hands recalled her to thepresent. 

"Seems good to feel the suds, " she said, happily, holding up onewithered hand, and letting the foam drip from her fingers, "I wish't Icould dry outdoor! But when mornin' come, they'd be all of a sop. "

She washed and rinsed the garments, and, opening a clothes-horse, spread them out to dry. Then she drew a long breath, put out hercandle, and wandered to the door. The garden lay before her, unreal inthe beauty of moonlight. Every bush seemed an enchanted wood. The oldlady went forth, lingering at first, as one too rich for choosing; thenwith a firmer step. She closed the little gate, and walked out into thecountry road. She hurried along to the old signboard, and turned asideunerringly into a hollow, there, where she stooped and filled her handswith tansy, pulling it up in great bunches, and pressing it eagerly toher face. 

"Seventy-four year ago!" she told the unseen listener of the night, with the same wonder in her voice. "Sir laid dead, an' they sent medown here to pick tansy to put round him. Seventy-four year ago!"

Still holding it; she rose, and went through the bars into the dewylane. Down the wandering path, trodden daily by the cows, she walked, and came out in the broad pasture, irregular with its little hillocks, where, as she had been told from her babyhood, the Indians used toplant their corn. She entered the woods by a cart-path hidden from themoon, and went on with a light step, gathering a bit of green here andthere, --now hemlock, now a needle from the sticky pine, --and inhalingits balsam on her hands. A sharp descent, and she had reached the spotwhere the brook ran fast, and where lay "Peggy's b'ilin' spring, " namedfor a great-aunt she had never seen, but whose gold beads she hadinherited, and who had consequently seemed to her a person of opulenceand ease. 

"I wish't I'd brought a cup, " she said. "There ain't no such waterwithin twenty mile. "

She crouched beside the little black pool, where the moon glinted inmysterious, wavering, symbols to beckon the gaze upward, and, making acup of her hand, drank eagerly. There was a sound near-by, as if somewood creature were stirring; she thought she heard a fox barking in thedistance. Yet she was really conscious only of the wonder of time, thesolemn record of the fleeting years. 

When she made her way back through the woods, the moon was sinking, andthe shadows had grown heavy. As she reached the bars again, on herhomeward track, she stopped suddenly, and her face broke into smilingat the pungent fragrance rising from the bruised herbage beneath herfeet. She stooped and gathered one telltale, homely weed, mixed as itwas with the pasture grass. "Pennyr'yal, " she said happily, and feltthe richness of being. 

When Old Lady Lamson had ironed her shirts and put them away again, allhot and sweet from the fire, it was five o'clock, and the birds hadlong been trying to drag creation up from sleep, to sing with them thewonders of the dawn. At six, she had her cup of tea, and when, ateight, her son drove into the yard, she came placidly to the side doorto meet him, her knitting in her hands. 

"Well, if I ain't glad!" called David. "I couldn't git it out o' mymind somethin' 'd happened to you. Stella's goin' to be all right, theythink, but nothin' will do but Mary must stay a spell. Do you s'poseyou an' I could keep house a week or so, if I do the heft o' the work?"

Old Lady Lamson's eyes took on the look which sometimes caused her sonto inquire suspiciously, "Mother, what you laughin' at?"

"I guess we can, if we try hard enough, " she said, soberly, rolling upher yarn. "Now you come in, an' I'll git you a bite o' somethin't'eat. "

MIS' WADLEIGH'S GUEST. 

Cyrus Pendleton sat by the kitchen fire, his stockinged feet, in theoven, and his; hands stretched out toward the kettles, which werebubbling prosperously away, and puffing a cloud of steam, into hisface. He was a meagre, sad-colored man, with mutton-chop whiskers sothin as to lie like a shadow on his fallen cheeks; and his glance, wherever it fell, Seemed to deprecate reproof. Thick layers of flannelswathed his throat, and from time to time, he coughed wheezingly, withthe air of one who, having a cold, was determined to be conscientiousabout it. A voice from the buttery began pouring forth words only alittle slower than the blackbird sings, and with no more reference toreply. 

"Cyrus, don't you feel a mite better? Though I dunno how you could, expect to, arter such a night as you had on't, puffin' an' blowin'!"Mrs. Pendleton followed the voice. She seemed to be borne briskly in onits wings, and came scudding over the kitchen sill, carrying a pan offreshly sifted flour. She set it down on the table, and began "stirrin'up. " "I dunno where you got such a cold, unless it's in the air, " shecontinued. "Folks say they're round, nowadays, an' you ketch 'em, jestas you would the mumps. But there! nobody on your side or mine ever hadthe mumps, as long as I can remember. Except Elkanah, though! an' heketched 'em down to Portsmouth, when he went off on that fool's arrantarter elwives. Do you s'pose you could eat a mite o' fish for dinner?"

"I was thinkin'--" interposed Cyrus, mildly; but his wife swept pasthim, and took the road. 

"I dunno's there's any use in gittin' a real dinner, jest you an' me, an' you not workin' either. Folks say there's more danger of eatin' toomuch'n too little. Gilman Lane, though, he kep' eatin' less an' less, an' his stomach dried all up, till 'twa'n't no bigger'n a bladder. Lookhere, you! I shouldn't wonder a mite if you'd got some o' them stomachtroubles along with your cold. You 'ain't acted as if you'd relished ameal o' victuals for nigh onto ten days. Soon as I git my hands out o'the flour, I'll look in the doctor's book, an' find out. My! how het upI be!" She wiped her hands on the roller towel, and unpinned the littleplaid shawl drawn tightly across her shoulders, Its removal disclosed agreen sontag, and under that manifold layers of jacket and waist. Shewas amply protected from the cold. "I dunno's I ought to ha' stirred uprye'n' Injun, " she went on, returning to her vigorous tossing andmixing at the table. "Some might say the steam was bad for your lungs. Anyhow, the doctor's book holds to't you've got to pick out a dryclimate, if you don't want to go into a decline. Le' me see! when yourAunt Mattie was took, how long was it afore she really gi'n up? Artershe begun to cough, I mean?"

Cyrus moved uneasily. 

"I dunno, " he said, hastily. "I never kep' the run o' such things. "

But Mirandy, pouring her batter into the pan, heeded him no more thanwas her wont. 

"I s'pose that was real gallopin' consumption, " she said, with relish. "I must ask Sister Sarah how long 'twas, next time I see her. She set itdown with the births an' deaths. "

Cyrus was moved to some remonstrance. He often felt the necessity ofasserting himself, lest he should presently hear his own passing-belland epitaph. 

"I guess you needn't stop steamin' bread for me! I ain't half sostuffed up as I was yisterday!"

Mrs. Pendleton clapped the loaf into the pot, wrinkling her face overthe cloud of steam that came puffing into it. 

"There!" she exclaimed. "Now perhaps I can git a minute to se' down. Iain't bound a shoe to-day. My! who's that out this weather?"

The side door was pushed open, and then shut with a bang. A vigorousstamping of snow followed, and the inner door swung in to admit awoman, very short, very stout, with a round, apple-cheeked face, andtwinkling eyes looking out from the enveloping folds of a gray cloud. 

"Well!" she said, in a cheery voice, beginning at once to unwind thecloud, "here I be! Didn't think I'd rain down, did ye? I thoughtmyself, one spell, I should freeze afore I fell!"

Mrs. Pendleton hurried forward, wiping her hands on her apron as shewent. 

"For the land's sake, Marthy Wadleigh!" she cried, laying hold of thenew-comer by the shoulders, and giving her an ineffectual but whollydelighted shake. "Well, I never! Who brought you over? Though I dunnowhich way you come. I 'ain't looked out--"

"I walked from the corner, " said Mrs. Wadleigh, who never felt anycompunction about interrupting her old neighbor. She was unpinning hershawl composedly, as one sure of a welcome. "How do, Cyrus? Jim Thomastook me up jest beyond the depot, an' give me a lift on his sled; but Iwas all of a shiver, an' at the corner, I told him he better let mestep down an' walk. So I come the rest o' the way afoot an' alone. Youain't goin' to use the oven, be ye? I'll jest stick my feet in aminute. No, Cyrus, don't you move! I'll take t'other side. I guess wesha'n't come to 'blows over it. "

She seemed to have brought into the kitchen, with that freshness ofoutdoor air which the new-comer bears, like a balsam, in his garments, a breath of fuller life, and even of jollity. As she sat there in hergood brown dress, with her worked collar, fastened by a large cameo, her gold beads just showing, and her plump hands folded on a capaciouslap, she looked the picture of jovial content, quite able to take careof herself, and perhaps apply a sturdy shoulder to the laggingmachinery of the world. 

"Didn't you git word I was comin' this week?" she asked. "I sent you aline. "

"No, we 'ain't been so fur's the post-office, " answered Mirandy, absently. She was debating over her most feasible bill of fare, nowthat a "pick-up dinner" seemed no longer possible. Moreover, she hadsomething on her mind, and she could not help thinking how unfortunateit was that Cyrus shared her secret. Who could tell at what moment hemight broach it? She doubted his discretion. "The roads wa'n't brokeout till day before yisterday. "

"I shouldn't think they were!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, scornfully, testingthe heat with a hand on her skirt, and then lifting the breadths backover her quilted petticoat. "I thought that would be the way on't, butI'd made up my mind to come, an' come I would. Cyrus, what's the mattero' you? Nothin' more'n a cold, is it?"

Cyrus had withdrawn from the stove, and was feeling his chin, uncertainly. 

"Oh, no, I guess not, " he said. "We've been kind o' peaked, for a weekor two, all over the neighborhood; but I guess we shall come out on't, now we've got into the spring. Mirandy, you git me a mite o' hot water, an' I'll see if I can't shave. "

Mirandy was vigorously washing potatoes at the sink, but she turned, inever-ready remonstrance. 

"Shave!" she ejaculated, "Well, I guess you won't shave, such a day asthis, in that cold bedroom, with a stockin'-leg round your throat, an'all! You want to git your death? Why, 'twas only last night, Marthy, hehad a hemlock sweat, an' all the ginger tea I could git down into him!An' then I didn't know--"

"Law! let him alone!" said Marthy, with a comfortable, throaty laugh. "He'll feel twice as well, git some o' them things off his neck. Here, Cyrus, you reach me down your mug--ain't them your shavin' things upthere?--an' I'll fill it for you. You git him a piece o' flannel, Mirandy, to put on when he's washed up an' took all that stuff off histhroat. Why, he's got enough wool round there, if 'twas all in yarn, toknit Old Tobe a pair o' mittins! An' they say one o' his thumbs wasbigger'n the hand o' Providence. You don't want to try all the goodnessout of him, do ye?"

Cyrus gave one swift glance at his wife. "There! you see!" it saidplainly. "I am not without defenders. " He took down his shaving-mug, with an air of some bravado. But Mirandy was no shrew; she was simplytroubled about many things. 

"Well, " she said, compressing her lips, and wrinkling her forehead inresignation. "If folks want to kill themselves, I can't hender 'em! Butwhen he's down ag'in, I shall be the one to take care of him, that'sall. Here, Cyrus, don't you go into that cold bedroom. You shave youhere, if you're determined to do it. "

So Cyrus, after honing his razor, with the pleasure of a bored childprovided at last with occupation, betook himself to the glass set inthe lower part of the clock, and there, with much contortion of histhin visage, proceeded to shave. Mirandy put her potatoes on to boil, and set the fish on the stove to freshen; then She sat down by thewindow, with a great basket beside her, and began to bind shoes. 

"Here, " said Mrs. Wadleigh, coming to her feet and adjusting her skirt, "you give me a needle! I've got my thimble right here in my pocket. It's three months sence I've seen a shoe. I should admire to do a pairor two. I wish I could promise ye more, but somehow I'm bewitched togit over home right arter dinner!"

Mrs. Pendleton laid down her work, and leaned back in her chair. Cyrusturned, cleared his throat, and looked at her. 

"Marthy, " said the hostess, "you ain't goin' over there to thatlonesome house, this cold snap?"

"Ain't I?" asked Mrs. Wadleigh, composedly, as she trimmed the top ofher shoe preparatory to binding it. "Well, you see'f I ain't!"

"In the fust place, " went on Mrs. Pendleton, nervously, "the cross-roadain't broke out, an' you can't git there. I dunno's a horse couldplough through; an' s'posin' they could, Cyrus ain't no more fit to goout an' carry you over'n a fly. "

"Don't you worry, " said Mrs. Wadleigh, binding off one top. "While I'vegot my own legs, I don't mean to be beholden to nobody. I've had aproper nice time all winter, fust with Lucy an' then with Ann, --an' Itell ye 'tain't everybody that's got two darters married so well!--butfor the last fortnight, I've been in a real tew to come home. They'vekep' me till I wouldn't stay no longer, an' now I've got so near asthis, I guess I ain't goin' to stop for nobody!"

Mrs. Pendleton looked despairingly at her husband; and he, absentlywiping his razor on a bit of paper, looked at her. 

"Marthy!" she burst forth. "No, Cyrus, don't you say one word! Youcan't go! There's somebody there!"

Mrs. Wadleigh, in turn, put down her work. 

"Somebody there!" she ejaculated. "Where?"

"In your house!"

"In my house? What for?"

"I dunno, " said Mirandy, unhappily. 

"Dunno? Well, what are they doin' there?"

"I dunno that. We only know there's somebody there. "

Here the brown-bread kettle boiled over, creating a diversion; andMirandy gladly rose to set it further back. A slight heat had come intoMrs. Wadleigh's manner. 

"Cyrus, " said she, with emphasis, "I should like to have you speak. Ileft that house in your care. I left the key with you, an' I shouldlike to know who you've been an' got in there. "

Cyrus opened his mouth, and then closed it again without saying a word. He looked appealingly at his wife; and she took up the tale with somejoy, now that the first plunge had been made. 

"Well, " she said, folding her hands in her apron, and beginning to rockback and forth, a little color coming into her cheeks, and her eyessnapping vigorously. "You see, this was the way 'twas. Cyrus, do let mespeak!" Cyrus had ineffectually opened his mouth again. "Wa'n't it inNovember you went away? I thought so. Jest after that first sprinklin'o' snow, that looked as if 'twould lay all winter. Well, we took thekey, an' hung it up inside the clock--an' there 'tis now!--an' once aweek, reg'lar as the day come round, Cyrus went over, an' opened thewinders, an' aired out the house. "

Mrs. Wadleigh sat putting her thimble off and on. 

"I know all about that, " she interposed, "but who's in there now?That's what I want to find out. "

"I'm comin' to that. I don't want to git ahead o' my story. An' so'twent on till it come two weeks ago Friday, an' Cyrus went over jest thesame as ever. An' when he hitched to the gate, he see smoke comin' outo' the chimbly, an' there was a man's face at one square o' glass. " Shepaused, enjoying her climax. 

"Well? Why don't you go ahead? Mirandy Jane Pendleton, I could shakeyou! You can talk fast enough when somebody else wants the floor! How'dhe git in? What'd he say for himself?"

"Why, he never said anything! Cyrus didn't see him. "

"Didn't see him? I thought he see him lookin' out the winder!"

"Why, yes! so he did, but he didn't see him to speak to. He jest nailedup the door, an' come away. "

Mrs. Wadleigh turned squarely upon the delinquent Cyrus, who stood, half-shaven, absently honing his razor. 

"Cyrus, " said she, with an alarming decision, "will you open your head, an' tell me what you nailed up that door for? an' where you got yournails? I s'pose you don't carry 'em round with you, ready for anydoor't happens to need nailin' up?"

This fine sarcasm was not lost on Cyrus. He perceived that he hadbecome the victim of a harsh and ruthless dealing. 

"I had the key to the front door with me, an' I thought I'd jest stepround an' nail up t'other one, " he said, in the tone of one consciousof right. "There was some nails in the wood-shed. Then I heard somebodysteppin' round inside, an' I come away. "

"You come away!" repeated Mrs. Wadleigh, rising in noble wrath. "Younailed up the' door an' come away! Well, if you! ain't a weak sister!Mirandy, you hand me down that key, out o' the clock, while I git mythings!"

She walked sturdily across to the bedroom, and Mirandy followed her, wringing her hands in futile entreaty. 

"My soul, Marthy! you ain't goin' over there! You'll be killed, as sureas you step foot into the yard. Don't you remember how that hired mandown to Sudleigh toled the whole fam'ly out into the barn, one arteranother, an' chopped their heads off--"

"You gi' me t'other end o' my cloud, " commanded Mrs. Wadleigh. "I'mglad I've got on stockin'-feet. Where's t'other mittin? Oh! there'tis, down by the sto'-leg. Cyrus, if you knew how you looked with yourface plastered over o' lather, you'd wipe it off, an' hand me down thatkey. Can't you move? Well, I guess I can reach it myself. "

She dropped the house key carefully into her pocket, and opened theouter door; both Cyrus and his wife knew they were powerless to stopher. 

"O Marthy, do come back!" wailed Mrs. Pendleton after her. You 'ain'thad a mite o' dinner, an' you'll never git out o' that house alive!"

"I'd rather by half hitch up myself, " began Cyrus; but his wife turnedupon him, at the word, bundled him into the kitchen, and shut the doorupon him. Then she went back to her post in the doorway, and peeredafter Mrs. Wadleigh's square figure on the dazzling road, with amelancholy determination to stand by her to the last. Only when itoccurred to her that it was unlucky to watch a departing friend out ofsight, did she shut the door hastily, and go in to reproach Cyrus andprepare his dinner. 

Mrs. Wadleigh plodded steadily onward. Her face had lost its robustnessof scorn, and expressed only a cheerful determination. Once or twiceher mouth relaxed, in retrospective enjoyment of the scene behind her, and she gave vent to a scornful ejaculation. 

"A man in my house!" she said once, aloud. "I guess we'll see!"

She turned into the cross-road, where stood her dear and lonelydwelling, with no neighbors on either side for half a mile, and stoppeda moment to gaze about her. The road was almost untravelled, and thesnow lay encrusted over the wide fields, sparkling on the heights andblue in the hollows. The brown bushes by a hidden stone-wall broke thesheen entrancingly; here and there a dry leaf fluttered, but onlyenough to show how still such winter stillness can be, and a flock oflittle brown birds rose, with a soft whirr, and settled further on. Mrs. Wadleigh pressed her lips together in a voiceless content, and hereyes took on a new brightness. She had lived quite long enough in thetown. Rounding a sweeping bend, and ploughing sturdily along, though itwas difficult here to find the roadway, she kept her eyes fixed on apatch of sky, over a low elm, where the chimney would first come intoview. But just before it stepped forward to meet her, as she had seenit a thousand times, a telltale token forestalled it; a delicate bluehaze crept out, in spiral rings, and tinged the sky. 

"He's got a fire!" she exclaimed loudly. "He's there! My soul!" Untilnow the enormity of his offence had not penetrated her understanding. She had heard the fact without realizing it. 

The house was ancient but trimly kept, and it stood within a spaciousyard, now in billows and mounds of snow, under which lay the treasuresinherited by the spring. The trellises on either side the door held thebare clinging arms of jessamine and rose, and the syringa and lilacbushes reached hardily above the snow. As Mrs. Wadleigh approached thedoor, she gave a rapid glance at the hop-pole in the garden, andwondered if its vine had stood the winter well. That was the third hopvine she'd had from Mirandy Pendleton! Mounting the front steps, shedrew forth the key, and put it in the door. It turned readily enough, but though she gave more than one valiant push, the door itself did notyield. It was evidently barricaded. 

"My soul!" said Mrs. Wadleigh. 

She stepped back, to survey the possibilities of attack; but at thatinstant, glancing up at the window, she had Cyrus Pendleton's ownalarming experience. A head looked out at her, and was quicklywithdrawn. It was dark, unkempt, and the movement was stealthy. 

"That's him!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, grimly, and returning to the charge, she knocked civilly at the door. No answer. Then she pushed again. Itwould not yield. She thought of the ladder in the barn, of the smallcellar-window; vain hopes, both of them!

"Look here!" she called aloud. "You let me in! I'm the Widder Wadleigh!This is my own house, an' I'm real tried stan'in' round here, knockin'at my own front door. You le'me in, or I shall git my death o' cold!"

No answer; and then Mrs. Wadleigh, as she afterwards explained it, "gotmad. " She ploughed her way round the side of the house, --not the sidewhere she had seen the face, but by the "best-room" windows, --andstepped softly up to the back door. Cyrus Pendleton's nail was nolonger there. The man had easily pushed it out. She lifted the latch, and set her shoulder against the panel. 

"If it's the same old button, it'll give, " she thought. And it didgive. She walked steadily across the kitchen toward the clock-room, where the man that moment turned to confront her. He made a little runforward; then, seeing but one woman, he restrained himself. He was notover thirty years old; a tall, well-built fellow, with very black eyesand black hair. His features were good, but just now his mouth was set, and he looked darkly defiant. Of this, however, Mrs. Wadleigh did notthink, for she was in a hot rage. 

"What under the sun do you mean, lockin' me out o' my own house?" shecried, stretching out her reddened hands to the fire. "An' potatersb'iled all over this good kitchen stove! I declare, this room's a realhog's nest, an' I left it as neat as wax!"

Perhaps no man was ever more amazed than this invader. He stood staringat her in silence. 

"Can't you shet the door!" she inquired, fractiously, beginning tountie her cloud. "An' put a stick o' wood in the stove? If I don't githet through, I shall ketch my death!"

He obeyed, seemingly from the inertia of utter surprise. Midway in theact of lifting the stove-cover, he glanced at her in sharp, suspicion. 

"Where's the rest?" he asked, savagely. "You ain't alone?"

"Well, I guess I'm alone!" returned Mrs. Wadleigh, drawing off her icystocking-feet, "an' walked all the way from Cyrus Pendleton's! Thereain't nobody likely to be round, " she continued, with grim humor. "Inever knew 'twas such a God-forsaken hole, till I'd been away an' comeback to 't. No, you needn't be scairt! The road ain't broke out, an' if'twas, we shouldn't have no callers to-day. It's got round there's aman here, an' I'll warrant the selec'men are all sick abed with colds. But there!" she added, presently, as the soothing warmth of her ownkitchen stove began to penetrate, "I dunno's I oughter call it aGodforsaken place. I'm kind o' glad to git back. "

There was silence for a few minutes, while she toasted her feet, andthe man stood shambling from one foot to the other and furtivelywatching her and the road. Suddenly she rose, and lifted a pot-cover. 

"What you got for dinner?" she inquired, genially. "I'm as holler's ahorn!"

"I put some potatoes on, " said he, gruffly. 

"Got any pork? or have you used it all up?"

"I guess there's pork! I 'ain't touched it. I 'ain't eat anything butpotatoes; an' I've chopped wood for them, an' for what I burnt. "

"Do tell!" said Mrs. Wadleigh. She set the potatoes forward, where theywould boil more vigorously. "Well, you go down sullar an' bring me up alittle piece o' pork--streak o' fat an' streak o' lean--an' I'll fryit. I'll sweep up here a mite while you're gone. Why, I never see sucha lookin' kitchen! What's your name?" she called after him, as he sethis foot on the Upper stair. 

He hesitated. "Joe!" he said, falteringly. 

"All right, then, Joe, you fly round an' git the pork!" She took downthe broom from its accustomed nail, and began sweeping joyously; theman, fishing in the pork-barrel, listened meanwhile to the regularsound above. Once it stopped, and he held his breath for a moment, andstood at bay, ready to dash up the stairs and past his pursuers, hadshe let them in. But it was only her own step, approaching the cellardoor. 

"Joe!" she called. "You bring up a dozen apples, Bald'ins. I'll frythem, too. "

Something past one o'clock, they sat down together to as strange a mealas the little kitchen had ever seen. Bread and butter were lacking, butthere was quince preserve, drawn from some hidden hoard, the apples andpork, and smoking tea. Mrs. Wadleigh's spirits rose. Home was evenbetter than her dreams had pictured it. She told her strange guest allabout her darter Lucy and her darter Ann's children; and he listened, quite dazed and utterly speechless. 

"There!" she said at last, rising, "I dunno's I ever eat such a mealo' victuals in my life, but I guess it's better'n many a poor soldierused to have. Now, if you've got some wood to chop, you go an' do it, an' I'll clear up this kitchen; it's a real hurrah's nest, if everthere was one!"

All that afternoon, the stranger chopped wood, pausing, from time totime, to look from the shed door down the country road; and Mrs. Wadleigh, singing "Fly like a Youthful, " "But O! their end, theirdreadful end, " and like melodies which had prevailed when she "set inthe seats, " flew round, indeed, and set the kitchen in immaculateorder. Evidently her guest had seldom left that room. He had sleptthere on the lounge. He had eaten his potatoes there, and smoked hispipe. 

When the early dusk set in, and Mrs. Wadleigh had cleared away theirsupper of baked potatoes and salt fish, again with libations of quince, she drew up before the shining stove, and put her feet on the hearth. 

"Here!" she called to the man, who was sitting uncomfortably on onecorner of the woodbox, and eying her with the same embarrassedwatchfulness. "You draw up, too! It's the best time o' the day now, 'tween sunset an' dark. "

"I guess I'd better be goin', " he returned, doggedly. 

"Goin'? Where?"

"I don't know. But I'm goin'. "

"Now look here, " said Mrs. Wadleigh, with rigor. "You take that chair, an' draw up to the fire. You do as I tell you!"

He did it. 

"Now, I can't hender your goin', but if you do go, I've got a word tosay to you. "

"You needn't say it! I don't want nobody's advice. "

"Well, you've got to have it jest the same! When you bile potaters, don't you let 'em run over onto the stove. Now you remember! I've hadto let the fire go down here, an' scrub till I could ha' cried. Don'tyou never do such a thing ag'in, wherever you be!"

He could only look at her. This sort of woman was entirely new to hisexperience. 

"But I've got somethin' else to say, " she continued, adjusting her feetmore comfortably. "I ain't goin' to turn anybody out into the snow, such a night as this. You're welcome to stay, but I want to know whatbrought ye here. I ain't one o' them that meddles an' makes, an' if you'ain't done nothin' out o' the way, an' I ain't called on for awitness, you needn't be afraid o' my tellin'. "

"You will be called on!" he broke in, speaking from a desperationoutside his own control. "It's murder! I've killed a man!" He turnedupon her with a savage challenge in the motion; but her face was set, placidly forward, and the growing dusk had veiled its meaning. 

"Well!" she remarked, at length, "ain't you ashamed to set theretalkin' about it! You must have brass enough to line a kittle! Why'ain't you been, like a man, an' gi'n yourself up, instid o' livin'here, turnin' my kitchen upside down? Now you tell me all about it!It'll do ye good. "

"I'm goin', " said the man, breathing hard as he spoke, "I'm goin' awayfrom here tonight. They never'll take me alive. It was this way. Therewas a man over where I lived that's most drunk himself under ground, but he ain't too fur gone to do mischief. He told a lie about me, an'lost me my place in the shoe shop. Then one night, I met him goin'home, an' we had words. I struck him. He fell like an ox. I killed him. I didn't go home no more. I didn't even see my wife. I couldn't tellher. I couldn't be took _there_. So I run away. An' when I got starvedout, an' my feet were most froze walkin', I see this house, all shetup, an' I come here. "

He paused; and the silence was broken only by the slow, cosey tickingof the liberated clock. 

"Well!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, at last, in a ruminating tone. "Well! well!Be you a drinkin' man?"

"I never was till I lost my job, " he answered, sullenly. "I had alittle then. I had a little the night he sassed me. "

"Well! well!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, again. And then she continued, musingly: "So I s'pose you're Joe Mellen, an' the man you struck wasSolomon Ray?"

He came to his feet with a spring. 

"How'd you know?" he shouted. 

"Law! I've been visitin' over Hillside way!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, comfortably. "You couldn't ha' been very smart not to thought o' thatwhen I mentioned my darter Lucy, an' where the childern went to school. No smarter'n you was to depend on that old wooden button! I know allabout that drunken scrape. But the queerest part on't was--Solomon Raydidn't die!"

"Didn't die!" the words halted, and he dragged them forth. "Didn'tdie?"

"Law, no! you can't kill a Ray! They brought him to, an' fixed him upin good shape. I guess you mellered him some, but he's more scairt thanhurt. He won't prosecute. You needn't be afraid. He said he dared youto it. There, there now! I wouldn't. My sake alive! le' me git alight!"

For the stranger sat with his head bowed on the table, and he trembledlike a child. 

Next morning at eight o'clock, Mrs. Wadleigh was standing at the door, in the sparkling light, giving her last motherly injunction to thedeparting guest. 

"You know where the depot is? An' it's the nine o'clock train you'vegot to take. An' you remember what I said about hayin' time. If youdon't have no work by the middle o' May, you drop me a line, an'perhaps I can take you an' your wife, too; Lucy's childern al'ays makea sight o' work. You keep that bill safe, an'--Here, wait a minute! Youmight stop at Cyrus Pendleton's--it's the fust house arter you pass;the corner--an' ask 'em to put a sparerib an' a pat o' butter into thesleigh, an' ride over here to dinner. You tell 'em I'm as much obleegedto 'em for sendin' over last night to see if I was alive, as if Ihadn't been so dead with sleep I couldn't say so. Good-bye! Now, youmind you keep tight hold o' that bill, an', spend it prudent!"

"Is Kelup Rivers comin' over here to-night?" suddenly asked AuntMelissa Adams, peering over her gold-bowed glasses, and fixing hersmall shrewd eyes sharply upon her niece. 

Amanda did not look up from her fine hemming, but her thin handtrembled almost imperceptibly, and she gave a little start, as if suchattacks were not altogether unexpected. 

"I don't know, " she answered, in a low tone. 

"Dunno! why don't ye know?" said her aunt, beginning to sway back andforth in the old-fashioned rocking-chair, but not once dropping hereyes from Amanda's face. "Don't he come every Saturday night?"

Amanda took another length, of thread, and this time her hand reallyshook. 

"I guess so, " she answered. 

"You guess so? Don't ye know? An' if he's come every Saturday night forfifteen year, ain't he comin' to-night? I dunno what makes you act asif you wa'n't sure whether your soul's your own, 'Mandy Green. Mydander al'ays rises when I ask you a civil question an' you put on thatlook. "

Amanda bent more closely over her sewing. She was a woman ofthirty-five, with a pathetically slender figure, thin blond hairpainstakingly crimped, and anxious blue eyes. Something deprecating layin her expression; her days had been uncomplainingly sacrificed to thecomfort of those she loved, and the desire of peace and good-will hadcrept into her face and stayed there. Her mother, who looked evenslighter than she, and whose cheeks were puckered by wrinkles, sat bythe window watching the two with a smile of empty content. Old LadyGreen had lost her mind, said the neighbors; but she was sufficientlylike her former self to be a source of unspeakable joy and comfort toAmanda, who nursed and petted her as if their positions were reversed, and protected her from the blunt criticism of the literal-tonguedneighborhood with a reverential awe belonging to the old days when thefifth commandment was written and obeyed. 

"Gold-bowed, " said Mrs. Green, with a look of unalloyed delight, pointing to her sister-in-law's spectacles; and Aunt Melissa repeatedindulgently, --

"Yes, yes, gold-bowed. I'll let you take 'em a spell, arter I've set myheel. It'll please her, poor creatur'!" she added, in an audible asideto Amanda. Since the time when Mrs. Green's wits had ceased to worknormally, she had treated her sympathetically, but from a loftyeminence. Aunt Melissa was perhaps too prosperous. She sat there, swaying back and forth, in her thin black silk trimmed with narrow rowsof velvet, her heavy chin sunk upon a broad collar, worked in heryouth, and she seemed to Mrs. Green a vision of majesty and delight, but to Amanda a virtuous censor, necessarily to be obeyed, yet whosepresence made the summer day intolerable. Even her purple cap-ribbonsbespoke terror to the evil-doer, and her heavy face was set, as ajudgment, toward the doom of the man who knew not how to account forhis actions. She began speaking again, and Amanda involuntarily gave alittle start, as at a lightning flash. 

"I says to myself when I drove off, this mornin': 'I'll have a littletalk with 'Mandy. I don' go there to spend a day more'n four times ayear, an' like as not she'll be glad to have somebody to speak to, seen' 's her mother's how she is. '"

Amanda gave a quick look at Mrs. Green; but the old lady was busilypleating the hem of her apron and then smoothing it out again. AuntMelissa rocked, and went on:--

"I says to myself: 'Here they let Kelup carry on the farm at thehalves, an' go racin' an' trottin' from the other place over here dayin an' day out. An' when his Uncle Nat died, two year ago, then was thetime for him to come over here an' marry 'Mandy an' carry on the farm. But no, he'd rather hang round the old place, an' sleep in theell-chamber, an' do their chores for his board, an' keep on a-runnin'over here. ' An' when young Nat married, I says to myself, 'That'll makehim speak. ' But it didn't--an' you 're a laughin'-stock, 'Mandy Green, if ever there was one. Every time the neighbors see him steppin' bySaturday nights, all fixed up, with that brown coat on he's had sencethe year one, they have suthin' to say, 'Goin' over to 'Mandy's, 'that's what they say. An' on'y last Saturday one on 'em hollered out tome, when I was pickin' a mess o' pease for Sunday, 'Wonder what'Mandy'll answer when he gits round to askin' of her?' I hadn't a wordto say. 'You better go to _him_, ' says I, at last. "

Amanda had put down her sewing in her lap, and was looking steadfastlyout of the window, with eyes brimmed by two angry tears. Once she wipedthem with a furtive movement of the white garment in her lap; hercheeks were crimson. Aunt Melissa had lashed herself into a cumulativepassion of words. 

"An' I says to myself, 'If there ain't nobody else to speak to 'Mandy, I will, ' I says, when I was combin' my hair this mornin'. 'She 'ain'tgot no mother, ' I says, 'nor as good as none, an' if she 'ain't spunkenough to look out for herself, somebody's got to look out for her. 'An' then it all come over me--I'd speak to Kelup himself, an' bein'Saturday night, I knew I should ketch him here. "

"O Aunt Melissa!" gasped Amanda, "you wouldn't do that!"

"Yes, I would, too!" asserted Aunt Melissa, setting her firm lips. "Yousee if I don't, an' afore another night goes over my head!"

But while Amanda was looking at her, paralyzed with the certainty thatno mortal aid could save her from this dire extremity, there came anunexpected diversion. Old Lady Green spoke out clearly and decidedlyfrom her corner, in so rational a voice that it seemed like one callingfrom the dead. 

"'Mandy, what be you cryin' for? You come here an' tell me what 'tis, an' I'll see to't. You'll spile your eyes, 'Mandy, if you take on so. "

"There, there, ma'am! 'tain't anything, " said Amanda, hurrying over toher chair and patting her on the shoulder. "We was just havin' a littlespat, --Aunt Melissa an' me; but we've got all over it. Don't you wantto knit on your garter a little while now?"

But the old lady kept her glazed eyes fixed on Amanda's face. 

"Be you well to-day, 'Mandy?" she said, wistfully. "If you ain't well, you must take suthin'. "

"There, there! don't you make a to-do, an' she'll come round allright, " said Aunt Melissa, moving her chair about so that it faced theold lady. "I'll tell her suthin' to take up her mind a little. " And shecontinued, in the loud voice which was her concession to Mrs. Green'sfeebleness of intellect, "They've got a boarder over to theBlaisdells'. "

Mrs. Green sat up straight in her chair, smoothed her apron, and lookedat her sister with grateful appreciation. 

"Do tell!" she said, primly. 

"Yes, they have. Name's Chapman. They thought he was a book agent fust. But he's buyin' up old dishes an' all matter o' truck. He wanted myandirons, an' I told him if I hadn't got a son in a Boston store, hemight ha' come round me, but I know the vally o' things now. You don'twant to sell them blue coverlids o' yourn, do ye?"

Aunt Melissa sometimes asked the old lady questions from a sense of therequirements of conversation, and she was invariably startled when theyelicited an answer. 

"Them coverlids I wove myself, fifty-five years ago come next spring, "said Mrs. Green, firmly. "Sally Ann Mason an' me used to set up tillthe clock struck twelve that year, spinnin' an' weavin'. Then we had acup or two o' green tea, an' went to bed. "

"Well, you wove 'em, an' you don't want to sell 'em, " said AuntMelissa, her eyes on her work. "If you do, 'Lijah he'll take 'em rightup to Boston for you, an' I warrant he'll git you a new white spreadfor every one on 'em. "

"That was the year afore I was married, " continued Old Lady Green. "Ihad a set o' white chiny with lavender sprigs, an' my dress waschangeable. He had a flowered weskit. 'Mandy, you go into theclo'es-press in my bedroom an' git out that weskit, an' some o' themquilts, an' my M's an' O's table-cloths. "

Amanda rose and hurried into the bedroom, in spite of Aunt Melissa'swhispered comment: "What makes you go to overhaulin' things? She'llforgit it in a minute. "

While she was absent, a smart wagon drove up to the gate, and a youngman alighted from it, hitched his horse, and knocked at the front door. Aunt Melissa saw him coming, and peered at him over her glasses with anunrecognizing stare. 

"'Mandy!" she called, "'Mandy, here's a pedler or suthin'! If he's gotany essences, you ask him for a little bottle o' pep'mint. "

Amanda dropped the pile of coverlets on the sofa, and went to the frontdoor. Presently she reappeared, and with her, smoothly talking herdown, came the young man. His eyes lighted first on the coverlets, witha look of cheerful satisfaction. 

"Got all ready for me, didn't you?" he asked, briskly. "Heard I wascoming, I guess. "

He was a man of an alert Yankee type, with waxed blond mustache andeye-glasses; he was evidently to be classed among those who haveexchanged their country honesty for a veneer of city knowingness. 

"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Aunt Melissa, as soon as she had himat short range, "you're the one down to Blaisdell's that's buyin' upall the old truck in the neighborhood. Well, you won't git myandirons!"

He had begun to unfold the blue coverlets and examine them with apractised eye, while Amanda stood by, painfully conscious that somedecisive action might be required of her; and her mother sat watchingthe triumph of her quilts in pleased importance. 

"They ain't worth much, " he said, dropping them, with a conclusive air. "Fact is, they ain't worth anything, unless any body's got a fancy forsuch old stuff. I'll tell you what, I'll give you fifty cents apiecefor the lot! How many are there here--four? Two dollars, then. "

Amanda took a hasty step forward. 

"But we don't want to sell our coverlids!" she said, indignantly, casting an appealing glance at Aunt Melissa. 

"I guess they don't want to git rid on 'em, " said that lady, "'specially at such a price. They're wuth more 'n that to cover up thesquashes when the frost comes. "

"Mother wove 'em herself, " exclaimed Amanda, irrelevantly. It began toseem to her as if the invader might pack up her mother's treasures andwalk off with them. 

"Well, then, I s'pose they're hers to do as she likes with?" he said, pleasantly, tipping back, in his chair, and beginning to pare his nailswith an air of nicety that fascinated Amanda into watching him. "They're hers, I s'pose?" he continued, looking suddenly and keenly upat her. 

"Why, yes, " she answered, "they're mother's, but she don't want tosell. She sets by 'em. "

"Just like me, for all the world, " owned the stranger, "Now there'splenty of folks that wouldn't care a Hannah Cook about such old truck, but it just hits me in the right spot. Mother's doughnuts, mother'smince-pies, I say! Can't improve on _them_! And when my wife and Ibought our little place, I said to her, 'We'll have it all furnishedwith old-fashioned goods. ' And here I am, taking, time away from mybusiness, riding round the country, and paying good money for what's nouse to anybody but me. "

"What is your business?" interrupted Aunt Melissa. 

"Oh, insurance--a little of everything--Jack-of-all-trades!" Then heturned to Old Mrs. Green, and asked, abruptly, "What'll you take forthat clock?"

The old lady followed his alert forefinger until her eyes rested on thetall eight-day clock in the corner. She straightened herself in herchair, and spoke with pride:--

"That was Jonathan's gre't-uncle Samwell's. He wound it every Sundaynight, reg'lar as the day come round. I've rubbed that case up till Isweat like rain. 'Mandy she rubs it now. "

"Well, what'll you take?" persisted he, while Amanda, in wordlessprotest, stepped in front of the clock. "Five dollars?"

"Five dollars, " repeated the old lady, lapsing into senselessiteration. "Yes, five dollars. "

But Aunt Melissa came to the rescue. 

"Five dollars for that clock?" she repeated, winding her ball, andrunning the needles into it with a conclusive stab. "Well, I guessthere ain't any eight-day clocks goin' out o' _this_ house for fivedollars, if they go at all! 'Mandy, why don't you speak up, an' notstand there like a chicken with the pip?"

"Oh, all right, all right!" said the visitor, shutting his knife with asnap, and getting briskly on his feet. "I don't care much about buying. That ain't a particularly good style of clock, anyway. But I like oldthings. I may drop in again, just to take a look at 'em. I supposeyou're always at home?" he said to Amanda, with his hand on the door. 

"Yes; but sometimes I go to Sudleigh with butter. I go Mondayafternoons most always, after washin'. "

With a cheerful good-day he was gone, and Amanda drew a long breath ofrelief. 

"Well, some folks have got enough brass to line a kittle, " said AuntMelissa, carefully folding her knitting-work in a large silkhandkerchief. "'Mandy, you'll have to git supper a little earlier'ncommon for me. I told Hiram to come by half arter six. Do you s'poseKelup'll be round by that time? I'll wait all night afore I'll give upseein' him. "

"I don't know, Aunt Melissa, " said Amanda, nervously clearing the tableof its pile of snowy cloth, and taking a flying glance from the window. She looked like a harassed animal, hunted beyond its endurance; butsuddenly a strange light of determination flashed into her face. "Should you just as lieves set the table, " she asked, in a tone ofguilty consciousness, "while I start the kitchen fire? You know wherethings are. " Hardly waiting for an assent, she fled from the room, andonce in the kitchen, laid the fire in haste, with a glance from thewindow to accompany every movement. Presently, by a little path throughthe field, came a stocky man in blue overalls and the upper garmentknown as a jumper. He was bound for the pigpen in the rear of the barn;and there Amanda flew to meet him, stopping only to throw an apron overher head. They met at the door. He was a fresh-colored man, with honestbrown eyes and a ring of whiskers under the chin. He had a way ofblushing, and when Amanda came upon him thus unannounced, he colored tothe eyes. 

"Why, you're all out o' breath!" he said, in slow alarms. 

"O Caleb!" she cried, looking at him with imploring eyes. "I'll feedthe pigs to-night. "

Caleb regarded her in dull wonderment. Then he set down the pail he hadtaken. 

"Ain't there any taters to bile?" he asked, solving the difficulty inhis own way; "or 'ain't you skimmed the milk? I'd jest as soon wait. "

"You better not wait, " answered Amanda, almost passionately, her thinhair blowing about her temples. "You better go right back. I'd rutherdo it myself; I'd a good deal ruther. "

Caleb turned about. He took a few steps, then stopped, and calledhesitatingly over his shoulder, "I thought maybe I'd come an' set aspell to-night. "

Then, indeed, Amanda felt her resolution, crack and quiver. "I guessyou better come some other night, " she said, in a steady voice, thoughher face was wet with tears. And Caleb walked away, never once lookingback. Amanda stayed only to wipe her eyes, saying meanwhile to hersorry self, "Oh, I dunno how I can get along! I dunno!" Then shehurried back to the house, to find the kettle merrily singing, and AuntMelissa standing at the kitchen cupboard, looking critically up anddown the shelves. 

"If you've got two sets o' them little gem-pans, you might lend meone, " she remarked; and Amanda agreed, not knowing what she gave. 

The supper was eaten and the dishes were washed, Aunt Melissa meantimekeeping a strict watch from the window. 

"Is it time for Kelup?" she asked, again and again; and finally sheconfronted the guilty Amanda with the challenge, "Do you think Kelupain't comin'?"

"I--guess not, " quavered Amanda, her cheeks scarlet, and her small, pathetic hands trembling. She was not more used to _finesse_ than toheroic action. 

"Do you s'pose there's any on 'em sick down to young Nat's?" asked AuntMelissa; and Amanda was obliged to take recourse again to her shielding"I guess not. " But at length Uncle Hiram drove up in the comfortablecarry-all; and though his determined spouse detained him more thanthree-quarters of an hour, sitting beside him like a portlyRhadamanthus, and scanning the horizon for the Caleb who never came, hefinally rebelled, shook the reins, and drove off, Aunt Melissa meantimescreaming over her shoulder certain vigorous declarations, whichevidently began with the phrase, "You tell Kelup--"

Then Amanda went into the house, and sat down by the window in thegathering dusk, surveying the wreckage of her dream. The dream was evenmore precious in that it had grown so old. Caleb was a part of herevery-day life, and for fifteen years Saturday had brought a littlefestival, wherein the commonplace man with brown eyes had beenhigh-priest. He would not come to-night. Perhaps he never would comeagain. She knew what it was to feel widowed. 

Sunday passed; and though Caleb fed the pigs and did the barn-work asusual, he spoke but briefly. Even in his customary salutation of "Howdee?" Amanda detected a change of tone, and thereafter took flightwhenever she heard his step at the kitchen door. So Monday forenoonpassed; Caleb brought water for her tubs and put out her clothes-line, but they had hardly spoken. The intangible monster of amisunderstanding had crept between them. But when at noon he asked asusual, though without looking at her, "Goin' to Sudleigh with thebutter to-day?" Amanda had reached the limit of her endurance. Itseemed to her that she could no longer bear this formal travesty oftheir old relations, and she answered in haste, --

"No, I guess not. "

"Then you don't want I should set with your mother?"

"No!" And again Caleb turned away, and plodded soberly off to youngNat's. 

"I guess I must be crazy, " groaned poor Amanda, as she changed herwashing-dress for her brown cashmere. "The butter's got to go, an' nowI shall have to harness, an' leave ma'am alone. Oh, I wish AuntMelissa'd never darkened these doors!"

Everything went wrong with Amanda, that day. The old horse objected tothe bits, and occupied twenty minutes in exasperating protest; thewheels had to be greased, and she lost a butter-napkin in the well. Finally, breathless with exertion, she went in to bid her mothergood-by, and see that the matches were hidden and the cellar doorfastened. 

"Now, ma'am, " she said, standing over the little old woman and speakingwith great distinctness, "don't you touch the stove, will you? You jestset right here in your chair till I come back, an' I'll bring you agood parcel o' pep'-mints. Here's your garter to knit on, an' here'sthe almanac. Don't you stir now till I come. "

And so, with many misgivings, she drove away. 

When, Amanda came back, she did not stay to unharness, but hurried upto the kitchen door, and called, "You all right, ma'am?" There was noanswer, and she stepped hastily across the floor. As she opened thesitting-room door, a low moaning struck her ear. The old lady sathuddled together in, her chair, groaning at intervals, and lookingfixedly at the corner of the room. 

"O ma'am, what is it? Where be you hurt?" cried Amanda, possessed by ananguish of self-reproach. But the old lady only continued her moaning;and then it was that Amanda noticed her shrivelled and shaking fingerstightly clasped upon a roll of money in her lap. 

"Why, ma'am, what you got?" she cried; but even as she spoke, theexplanation flashed upon her, and she looked up at the corner of theroom. The eight-day clock was gone. 

"Here, ma'am, you let me have it, " she said, soothingly; and by dint offurther coaxing, she pulled the money from the old lady's tensefingers. There were nine dollars in crisp new bills. Amanda sat lookingat them in unbelief and misery. 

"O my!" she whispered, at length, "what a world this is! Ma'am, did youtell him he might have 'em?"

"I dunno what Jonathan'll do without that clock, " moaned the old lady. "I see it carried off myself. "

"Did you tell him he might?" cried Amanda, loudly. 

"I dunno but I did, but I never'd ha' thought he'd ha' done it. I dunnowhat time 'tis now;" and she continued her low-voiced lamenting. 

"O my Lord!" uttered Amanda, under her breath. Then she roused herselfto the present exigency of comfort. "You come an' set in the kitchen aspell, " she said, coaxingly, "an' I'll go an' get the things back. "

Old Lady Green looked at her with that unquestioning trust which wasthe most pathetic accompaniment of her state. "You'll git 'em back, 'Mandy, won't ye?" she repeated, smiling a little and wiping her eyes. "That's a good gal! So't we can tell what time 'tis. "

Amanda led her into the kitchen, and established her by the window. Sheshut the door of the denuded sitting-room, and, giving her courage notime to cool, ran across lots to the Blaisdells', the hated moneyclasped tightly in her hand. The family was at supper, and the strangerwith them, when she walked in at the kitchen door. She hurried up toher enemy, and laid the little roll of bills by his plate. Her cheekswere scarlet, her thin hair-flying. 

"Here's your money, " she said, in a strained, high voice, "an' I wantour things. You hadn't ought to gone over there an' talked over an oldlady that--that--"

There she stopped. Amanda had never yet acknowledged that her motherwas not in her "perfect mind. " Chapman took out a long pocket-book, andfor a moment her courage stood at flood-tide; she thought he was aboutto accept the money and put it away. But no! He produced a slip ofwhite paper and held it up before her. She bent forward and examinedit, --a receipt signed by her mother's shaking hand. 

"But it ain't right!" she cried, helpless in her dismay. "Cap'n Jabez, you speak to him! You know how 'tis about mother! She wouldn't any moreha' sold that clock than she'd ha' sold--me!"

Captain Jabez looked at his plate in uncomfortable silence. He was ajust man, but he hated to interfere. 

"Well, there!" he said, at length, pushing his chair back to leave thetable. "It don't seem jestly right to me, but then he's got the resate, an' your mother signed it--an' there 'tis!"

"An' you won't do anything?" cried Amanda, passionately, turning backto the stranger. "You mean to keep them things?"

He was honestly sorry for her, as the business man for thesentimentalist, but he had made a good bargain, and he held it sacred. 

"I declare, I wish it hadn't happened so, " he said, good-naturedly. "But the old lady'll get over it. You buy her a nice bright littlenickel clock that'll strike the half-hours, and she'll be tickled todeath to watch it. "

Amanda turned away and walked out of the house. 

"Here, " called Chapman, "come back and get your money!" But she hurriedon. "Well, I'll leave it with Captain Jabez, " he called again, "and youcan come over and get it. I'm going in the morning, early. "

Amanda was passing the barn, and there, through the open door, she sawthe old clock pathetically loaded on the light wagon, protected byburlap, and tied with ropes. The coverlets lay beside it. A sob rose inher throat, but her eyes were dry, and she hurried across lots home. Atthe back door she found Caleb unharnessing the horse. She had forgottentheir misunderstanding in the present practical emergency. 

"O Caleb, " she began, before she had reached him, "ma'am's sold theclock an' some coverlids, an' I can't get 'em back!"

"Cap'n Jabez said she had, this arternoon, " said Caleb, slowly, tying atrace. "I dunno's the old lady's to blame. Seem's if she hadn't oughtto be left alone. "

"But how'm I goin' to get 'em back?" persisted Amanda, coming close tohim, her poor little face pinched and eager. "He jest showed me thereceipt, all signed. How'm I goin' to get the things, Caleb?"

"If he's got the receipt, an' the things an' all, an' she took themoney, I dunno's you can get 'em, " said Caleb, "unless you could provein a court o' law that she wa'n't in her right mind. I dunno how thatwould work. "

Amanda stood looking him in the face. For the first time in all hergentle life she was questioning masculine superiority, and its presentembodiment in Caleb Rivers. 

"Then you don't see's anything can be done?" she asked, steadily. 

"Why, no, " answered Caleb, still reflecting. "Not unless you should goto law. "

"You'd better give the pigs some shorts, " said Amanda, abruptly. "Isha'n't bile any taters, to-night. "

She walked into the house; and as Caleb watched her, it crossed hismind that she looked very tall. He had always thought of her as alittle body. 

Amanda set her lips, and went about her work. From time to time, shesmiled mechanically at her mother; and the old lady, forgetful of hergrief now that she was no longer reproached by the empty space on, thewall, sat content and sleepy after her emotion. She was willing to goto bed early; and when Amanda heard her breathing peacefully, she satdown by the kitchen window to wait. The dusk came slowly, and thewhippoorwill sang from the deep woods behind the house. 

That night at ten o'clock, Caleb Rivers was walking stolidly along thecountry road, when his ear became aware of a strangely familiarsound, --a steadily recurrent creak. It was advancing, thoughintermittently. Sometimes it ceased altogether, as if the machinerystopped to rest, and again it began fast and shrill. He rounded a bendof the road, and came full upon a remarkable vision. Approaching himwas a wheelbarrow, with a long object balanced across it, and, wheelingit, walked a woman. Caleb was nearly opposite her before his braintranslated the scene. Then he stopped short and opened his lips. 

"'Mandy, " he cried, "what under the heavens be you a-doin'?"

But Amanda did not pause. Whatever emotion the meeting caused in herwas swiftly vanquished, and she wheeled on. Caleb turned and walked byher side. When he had recovered sufficiently from his surprise, he laida hand upon her wrist. 

"You set it down, an' let me wheel a spell, " he said. 

But Amanda's small hands only grasped the handles more tightly, and shewent on. Caleb had never in his life seen a necessity for passionateremonstrance, but now the moment had come. 

"'Mandy, " he kept repeating, at every step, "you give me holt o' themhandles! Why, 'Mandy, I should think you was crazy!"

At length, Amanda dropped the handles with a jerk, and turning about, sat down on the edge of the wheelbarrow, evidently to keep the right ofpossession. Then she began to speak in a high, strained voice, thatechoed sharply through the country stillness. 

"If you've got to know, I'll tell you, an' you can be a witness, if youwant to. It won't do no hurt in a court o' law, because I shall tellmyself. I've gone an' got our clock an' our coverlids from where theywere stored in the Blaisdells' barn. The man's got his money, an' I'vetook our things. That's all I've done, an' anybody can know it that's amind to. "

Then she rose, lifted the handles, and went on, panting. Caleb walkedby her side. 

"But you ain't afraid o' me, 'Mandy?" he said, imploringly. "Jest youlet me wheel it, an' I won't say a word if I never set eyes on youag'in. Jest you let me wheel, 'Mandy. "

"There ain't anybody goin' to touch a finger to it but me, " saidAmanda, shortly. "If anybody's got to be sent to jail for it, it'll beme. I can't talk no more. I 'ain't got any breath to spare. "

But the silence of years had been broken, and Caleb kept on. 

"Why, I was goin' over to Blaisdell's myself to buy 'em back. Here's mywallet an' my bank-book. Don't that prove it? I was goin' to pay anyprice he asked. I set an' mulled over it all the evenin'. It got late, an' then I started. It al'ays has took me a good long spell to make upmy mind to things. I wa'n't to blame this arternoon because I couldn'ttell what was best to do all of a whew!"

At the beginning of this revelation, Amanda's shoulders twitchedeloquently, but she said nothing. She reached the gate of the farmyard, and wheeled in, panting painfully as she ascended the rise of thegrassy driveway. She toiled round to the back door; and then Caleb sawthat she had prepared for her return by leaving the doors of thecellar-case open, and laying down a board over the steps. She turnedthe wheelbarrow to descend; and Caleb, seeing his opportunity, ranbefore to hold back its weight. Amanda did not prevent him; she had nobreath left for remonstrance. When the clock was safely in the cellar, she went up the steps again, hooked the bulkhead door, and turned, evenin the darkness, unerringly to the flight of stairs. 

"You wait till I open the door into the kitchen, " she said. "There's alight up there. "

And Caleb plodded up the stairs after her with his head down, amazedand sorrowful. 

"You can stay here, " said Amanda, opening the outside door withoutlooking at him. "I'm goin' back to Cap'n Blaisdell's. "

She hurried out into the moonlit path across lots, and Caleb followed. They entered the yard, and Amanda walked up to the window belonging tothe best bedroom. It was wide open, and she rapped on it loudly, andthen turned her back. 

"Hello!" came a sleepy voice from within. 

"I've got to speak to you, " called Amanda. "You needn't get up. Be youawake?"

"I guess so, " said the voice, this time several feet nearer the window. "What's up?"

"I've been over an' got our clock an' the rest of our things, " saidAmanda, steadily. "An', you've got your money. I've carried the thingshome an' fastened 'em up. They're down cellar under the arch, an' I'mgoin' to set over 'em till I drop afore anybody lays a finger on 'emagain. An' you can go to law if you're a mind to; _but I've got ourthings_!"

There was a silence. Amanda felt that the stranger's eyes were fastenedupon her back, and she tried not to tremble. Caleb knew they were, forhe and the man faced each other. 

"Well, now, you know you've as good as stole my property, " beganChapman; but at that instant, Caleb's voice broke roughly upon the air. 

"You say that ag'in, " said he, "an' I'll horsewhip you within an inchof your life. You touch them things ag'in, an' I'll break every bone inyour body. I dunno whose they be, accordin' to rights, but by gum!--"and he stopped, for words will fail where a resolute heart need not. 

There was again a silence, and the stranger spoke: "Well, well!" hesaid, good-naturedly. "I guess we'll have to call it square. I don'toften do business this way; but if you'll let me alone, I'll let youalone. Good luck to you!"

Amanda's heart melted. "You're real good!" she cried, and turnedimpulsively; but when she faced the white-shirted form at the window, she ejaculated, "Oh, my!" and fled precipitately round the corner ofthe house. 

Side by side, the two took their way across lots again. Amanda wasshaking all over, with weariness and emotion spent. Suddenly a strangesound at her side startled her into scrutiny of Caleb's face. 

"Why, Caleb Rivers!" she exclaimed, in amazement, "you ain't cryin'?"

"I dunno what I'm doin', " said Caleb, brushing off two big tears withhis jumper sleeve, "an' I don't much care. It ain't your harnessin' foryourself an' feedin' the pigs, an' my not comin' Saturday night, butit's seein' you wheelin' that great thing all alone. An' you're solittle, 'Mandy! I never thought much o' myself, an' it al'ays seemedkind o' queer you could think anything _of_ me; but I al'ays s'posedyou'd let me do the heft o' the work, an' not cast me off!"

"I 'ain't cast you off, Caleb, " said Amanda, faintly, and in spite ofherself her slender figure turned slightly but still gratefully towardhim. And that instant, for the first time in all their lives, Caleb'sarms were upholding her, and Amanda had received her crown. Caleb hadkissed her. 

"Say, 'Mandy, " said he, when they parted, an hour later, by the syringabush at the back door, "the world won't come to an end if you don'tiron of a Tuesday. I was thinkin' we could ketch Passon True about teno'clock better'n we could in the arternoon. "

JOINT OWNERS IN SPAIN. 

The Old Ladies' Home, much to the sorrow of its inmates, "set back fromthe road. " A long, box-bordered walk led from the great door down tothe old turnpike, and thickly bowering lilac-bushes forced the eye toplay an unsatisfied hide-and-seek with the view. The sequestered oldladies were quite unreconciled to their leaf-hung outlook; active lifewas presumably over for them, and all the more did they long to "seethe passing" of the little world which had usurped their places. Thehouse itself was very old, a stately, square structure, with pillars oneither side of the door, and a fanlight above. It had remainedunpainted now for many years, and had softened into a mellowlichen-gray, so harmonious and pleasing in the midst of summer's vitalgreen, that the few artists who ever heard of Tiverton sought it out, to plant umbrella and easel in the garden, and sketch the statelyrelic; photographers, also, made it one of their accustomed haunts. Ofthe artists the old ladies disapproved, without a dissenting voice. Itseemed a "shaller" proceeding to sit out there in the hot sun for noresult save a wash of unreal colors on a white ground, or a few hastylines indicating no solid reality; but the photographers were theirconstant delight, and they rejoiced in forming themselves into groupsupon, the green, to be "took" and carried away with the house. 

One royal winter's day, there was a directors' meeting in the greatsouth room, the matron's parlor, a sprat bearing the happy charm ofperfect loyalty to the past, with its great fireplace, iron dogs andcrane, its settle and entrancing corner cupboards. The hard-workingpresident of the board was speaking hastily and from a full heart, conscious that another instant's discussion might bring the tears toher eyes:--

"May I be allowed to say--it's irrelevant, I know, but I should likethe satisfaction of saying it--that this is enough to make one vownever to have anything to do with an institution of any sort, from thistime forth for evermore?"

For the moment had apparently come when a chronic annoyance must berecognized as unendurable. They had borne with the trial, inmates anddirectors, quite as cheerfully as most ordinary people accept theinevitable; but suddenly the tension had become too great, and theuniversal patience snapped. Two of the old ladies, Mrs. Blair and MissDyer, who were settled in the Home for life, and who, before goingthere, had shown no special waywardness of temper, had proved utterlyincapable of living in peace with any available human being; and as theHome had insufficient accommodations, neither could be isolated tofight her "black butterflies" alone. No inmate, though she were cousinto Hercules, could be given a room to herself; and the effect of thisdual system on these two, possibly the most eccentric of the number, had proved disastrous in the extreme. Each had, in her own favoritefashion, "kicked over the traces, " as the matron's son said intown-meeting (much to the joy of the village fathers), and to suchpurpose that, to continue the light-minded simile, very little harnesswas left to guide them withal. Mrs. Blair, being "high sperited, " likeall the Coxes from whom she sprung, had now so tyrannized over the lastof her series of room-mates, so browbeaten and intimidated her, thatthe latter had actually taken to her bed with a slow-fever ofdiscouragement, announcing that "she'd rather go to the poor-farm anddone with it than resk her life there another night; and she'd like toknow what had become of that hunderd dollars her nephew Thomas paiddown in bills to get her into the Home, for she'd be thankful to themthat laid it away so antic to hand it back afore another night wentover her head, so't she could board somewheres decent till 'twas gone, and then starve if she'd got to!"

If Miss Sarah Ann Dyer, known also as a disturber of the public peace, presented a less aggressive front to her kind, she was yet, in her ownway, a cross and a hindrance to their spiritual growth. She, poorwoman, lived in a scarcely varying state of hurt feeling; her tinyworld seemed to her one close federation, existing for the sole purposeof infringing on her personal rights; and though she would not take theinitiative in battle, she lifted up her voice in aggrieved lamentationover the tragic incidents decreed for her alone. She had perhaps neverdirectly reproached her own unhappy room-mate for selecting acomfortable chair, for wearing squeaking shoes, or singing "Hearken, yesprightly, " somewhat early in the morning, but she chanted those illsthrough all her waking hours in a high, yet husky tone, broken byfrequent sobs. And therefore, as a result of these domestic whirlwindsand too stagnant pools, came the directors' meeting, and the helplessprotest of the exasperated president. The two cases were discussed foran hour longer, in the dreary fashion pertaining to a question whichhas long been supposed to have but one side; and then it remained forMrs. Mitchell, the new director, to cut the knot with the energy of oneto whom a difficulty is fresh. 

"Has it ever occurred to you to put them together?" asked she. "Theyare impossible people; so, naturally, you have selected the verymildest and most Christian women to endure their nagging. They can'tlive with the saints of the earth. Experience has proved that. Put theminto one room, and let them fight it out together. "

The motion was passed with something of that awe ever attending aNapoleonic decree, and passed, too, with the utmost good-breeding; fornobody mentioned the Kilkenny cats. The matron compressed her lips andlifted her brows, but said nothing; having exhausted her own resources, she was the more willing to take the superior attitude of good-naturedscepticism. 

The moving was speedily accomplished; and at ten o'clock, one morning, Mrs. Blair was ushered into the room where her forced colleague sat bythe window, knitting. There the two were left alone. Miss Dyer lookedup, and then heaved a tempestuous sigh over her work, in the manner ofone not entirely surprised by its advent, but willing to suppress it, if such alleviation might be. She was a thin, colorless woman, andinfinitely passive, save at those times when her nervous systemconflicted with the scheme of the universe. Not so Mrs. Blair. She hadblack eyes, "like live coals, " said her awed associates; and her skinwas soft and white, albeit wrinkled. One could even believe she hadreigned a beauty, as the tradition of the house declared. This morning, she held her head higher than ever, and disdained expression exceptthat of an occasional nasal snort. She regarded the room with the airof an impartial though exacting critic; two little beds covered withrising-sun quilts, two little pine bureaus, two washstands. Thesunshine lay upon the floor, and in that radiant pathway Miss Dyer sat. 

"If I'd ha' thought I should ha' come to this, " began Mrs. Blair, inthe voice of one who speaks perforce after long sufferance, "I'd ha'died in my tracks afore I'd left my comfortable home down in TivertonHoller. Story-'n'-a-half house, a good sullar, an' woods nigh-by fullo' sarsaparilla an' goldthread! I've moved more times in thisGod-forsaken place than a Methodist preacher, fust one room an' thenanother; an' bad is the best. It was poor pickin's enough afore, butthis is the crowner!"

Miss Dyer said nothing, but two large tears rolled down and dropped onher work. Mrs. Blair followed their course with gleaming eyes endowedwith such uncomfortable activity that they seemed to pounce with everyglance. 

"What under the sun be you carryin' on like that for?" she asked, giving the handle of the water-pitcher an emphatic twitch to make iteven with the world. "You 'ain't lost nobody, have ye, sence I moved inhere?"

Miss Dyer put aside her knitting with ostentatious abnegation, andbegan rocking herself back and forth in her chair, which seemed not ofitself to sway fast enough, and Mrs. Blair's voice rose again, everhigher and more metallic:--

"I dunno what you've got to complain of more'n the rest of us. Look atthat dress you've got on, --a good thick thibet, an' mine's a cheap, sleazy alpaca they palmed off on me because they knew my eyesight ain'twhat it was once. An' you're settin' right there in the sun, gittin'het through, an' it's cold as a barn over here by the door. My land! ifit don't make me mad to see anybody without no more sperit than a wetrag! If you've lost anybody, why don't ye say so? An' if it's a madfit, speak out an' say that! Give me anybody that's got a tongue intheir head, _I_ say!"

But Miss Dyer, with an unnecessary display of effort, was hitching herchair into the darkest corner of the room, the rockers hopelesslysnarling her yarn at every move. 

"I'm sure I wouldn't keep the sun off'n anybody, " she said, tearfully. "It never come into my head to take it up, an' I don't claim no shareof anything. I guess, if the truth was known, 'twould be seen I'd beenused to a house lookin' south, an' the fore-room winders all of a glareo' light, day in an' day out, an' Madeira vines climbin' over 'em, an'a trellis by the front door; but that's all past an' gone, past an'gone! I never was one to take more 'n belonged to me; an' I don't carewho says it, I never shall be. An' I'd hold to that, if 'twas the lastword I had to speak!"

This negative sort of retort had an enfeebling effect upon Mrs. Blair. 

"My land!" she exclaimed, helplessly. "Talk about my tongue! Vinegar'snothin' to cold molasses, if you've got to plough through it. "

The other sighed, and leaned her head upon her hand in an attitude ofextreme dejection. Mrs. Blair eyed her with the exasperation of onewhose just challenge has been refused; she marched back and forththrough the room, now smoothing a fold of the counterpane, with viciouscare, and again pulling the braided rug to one side or the other, thewhile she sought new fuel for her rage. Without, the sun was lightingsnowy knoll and hollow, and printing the fine-etched tracery of thetrees against a crystal sky. The road was not usually much frequentedin winter time, but just now it had been worn by the week's sleddinginto a shining track, and several sleighs went jingling up and down. 

Tiverton was seizing the opportunity of a perfect day and the best of"going, " and was taking its way to market. The trivial happenings ofthis far-away world had thus far elicited no more than a passing glancefrom Mrs. Blair; she was too absorbed in domestic warfare even to peerdown through the leafless lilac-boughs, in futile wonderment as towhose bells they might be, ringing merrily past. On one journey aboutthe room, however, some chance arrested her gaze. She stopped, transfixed. 

"Forever!" she cried. Her nervous, blue-veined hands clutched at herapron and held it; she was motionless for a moment. Yet the picturewithout would have been quite devoid of interest to the casual eye; itcould have borne little significance save to one who knew the innerlife history of the Tiverton Home, and thus might guess what slightevents wrought all its joy and pain. A young man had set up his cameraat the end of the walk, and thrown the cloth over his head, preparatoryto taking the usual view of the house. Mrs. Blair recovered from hertemporary inaction. She rushed to the window, and threw up the sash. Her husky voice broke strenuously upon the stillness:--

"Here! you keep right where you be! I'm goin' to be took! You wait tillI come!"

She pulled down the window, and went in haste to the closet, in theexcess of her eagerness stumbling recklessly forward into its depths. 

"Where's my bandbox?" Her voice came piercingly from her temporaryseclusion. "Where'd they put it? It ain't here in sight! My soul!where's my bunnit?"

These were apostrophes thrown off in extremity of feeling; they werenot questions, and no listener, even with the most friendly dispositionin the world, need have assumed the necessity of answering. So, wrappedin oblivion to all earthly considerations save that of her Own inwardgloom, the one person who might have responded merely swayed back andforth, in martyrized silence. But no such spiritual withdrawal couldinsure her safety. Mrs. Blair emerged from the closet, and dartedacross the room with the energy of one stung by a new despair. Sheseemed about to fall upon the neutral figure in the corner, but seizedthe chair-back instead, and shook it with such angry vigor that MissDyer cowered down in no simulated fright. 

"Where's my green bandbox?'" The words were emphasized by cumulativeshakes, "Anybody that's took that away from me ought to be b'iled inile! Hangin''s too good for 'em, but le' me git my eye on 'em an' theyshall swing for 't! Yes, they shall, higher 'n Gil'roy's kite!"

The victim put both trembling hands to her ears. 

"I ain't deef!" she wailed. 

"Deef? I don't care whether you're deef or dumb, or whether you'renummer'n a beetle! It's my bandbox I'm arter. Isr'el in Egypt! youmight grind some folks in a mortar an' you couldn't make 'em speak!"

It was of no use. Intimidation had been worse than hopeless; evenbodily force would not avail. She cast one lurid glance at the supinefigure, and gave up the quest in that direction as sheer waste of time. With new determination, she again essayed the closet, tossing shoes andrubbers behind her in an unsightly heap, quite heedless of theconfusion of rights and lefts. At last, in a dark corner, behind a bluechest, she came upon her treasure. Too hurried now for reproaches, shedrew it forth, and with trembling fingers untied the strings. Castingaside the cover, she produced a huge scoop bonnet of a long-past date, and setting it on her head, with the same fevered haste, tied over itthe long figured veil destined always to make an inseparable part ofher state array. She snatched her stella shawl from the drawer, threwit over her shoulders, and ran out of the room. 

Miss Dyer was left quite bewildered by these erratic proceedings, butshe had no mind to question them; so many stories were rife in the Homeof the eccentricities embodied in the charitable phrase "Mis' Blair'sway" that she would scarcely have been amazed had her terribleroom-mate chosen to drive a coach and four up the chimney, or saddlethe broom for a midnight revel. She drew a long breath of relief at thebliss of solitude, closed her eyes, and strove to regain the lostpeace, which, as she vaguely remembered, had belonged to her once in ashadowy past. 

Silence had come, but not to reign. Back flew Mrs. Blair, like awhirlwind. Her cheeks wore each a little hectic spot; her eyes wereflaming. The figured veil, swept rudely to one side, was bornebackwards on the wind of her coming, and her thin hair, even in thosefew seconds, had become wildly disarranged. 

"He's gone!" she announced, passionately. "He kep' right on while I wasfindin' my bunnit. He come to take the house, an' he'd ha' took me an'been glad. An' when I got that plaguy front door open, he was jestdrivin' away; an' I might ha' hollered till I was black in the face, an' then I couldn't ha' made him hear. "

"I dunno what to say, nor what not to, " remarked Miss Dyer, to hercorner. "If I speak, I'm to blame; an' so I be if I keep still. "

The other old lady had thrown herself into a chair, and was lookingwrathfully before her. 

"It's the same man that come from Sudleigh last August, " she said, bitterly. "He took the house then, an' said he wanted another view whenthe leaves was off; an' that time I was laid up with my stiff ankle, an' didn't git into it, an' to-day my bunnit was hid, an' I lost itag'in. "

Her voice changed. To the listener, it took on an awful meaning. 

"An' I should like to know whose fault it was. If them that owns thewinder, an' set by it till they see him comin', had spoke up an' said, 'Mis' Blair, there's the photograph man. Don't you want to be took?' itwouldn't ha' been too late! If anybody had answered a civil question, an' said, 'Your bunnit-box sets there behind my blue chist, ' itwouldn't ha' been too late then! An' I 'ain't had my likeness tooksence I was twenty year old, an' went to Sudleigh Fair in my changeable_visite_ an' leghorn hat, an' Jonathan wore the brocaded weskit hestood up in, the next week Thursday. It's enough to make a ministerswear!"

Miss Dyer rocked back and forth. 

"Dear me!" she wailed. "Dear me suz!"

The dinner-bell rang, creating a blessed diversion. Miss Blair, rendered absent-minded by her grief, went to the table still in herbonnet and veil; and this dramatic entrance gave rise to such morbidthough unexpressed curiosity that every one forbore, for a time, towonder why Miss Dyer did not appear. Later, however, when a tray wasprepared and sent up to her (according to the programme of her baddays), the general commotion reached an almost unruly point, stimulatedas it was by the matron's son, who found an opportunity to whisper onegarrulous old lady that Miss Dyer had received bodily injury at thehands of her roommate, and that Mrs. Blair had put on her bonnet to beready for the sheriff when he should arrive. This report, judiciouslystarted, ran like prairie fire; and the house was all the afternoon ina pleasant state of excitement. Possibly the matron will never know whyso many of the old ladies promenaded the corridors from dinnertimeuntil long after early candlelight, while a few kept faithful yetagitated watch from the windows. For interest was divided; somepreferred to see the sheriff's advent, and others found zest in thepossibility of counting the groans of the prostrate victim. 

When Mrs. Blair returned to the stage of action, she was much refreshedby her abundant meal and the strong tea which three times dailyheartened her for battle. She laid aside her bonnet, and carefullyfolded the veil. Then she looked about her, and, persistently ignoringall the empty chairs, fixed an annihilating gaze on one where thedinner-tray still remained. 

"I s'pose there's no need o' my settin' down, " she remarked, bitingly. "It's all in the day's work. Some folks are waited on; some ain't. Somehave their victuals brought to 'em an' pushed under their noses, an'some has to go to the table; when they're there, they can take it orleave it. The quality can keep their waiters settin' round day in an'day out, fillin' up every chair in the room. For my part, I shouldthink they'd have an extension table moved in, an' a snowdrop clothover it!"

Miss Dyer had become comparatively placid, but now she gave way totears. 

"Anybody can move that waiter that's a mind to, " she said, tremulously. "I would myself, if I had the stren'th; but I 'ain't got it. I ain't awell woman, an' I 'ain't been this twenty year. If old Dr. Parks wasalive this day, he'd say so. 'You 'ain't never had a chance, ' he saysto me. 'You've been pull-hauled one way or another sence you was born. 'An' he never knew the wust on't, for the wust hadn't come. "

"Humph!" It was a royal and explosive note. It represented scorn forwhich Mrs. Blair could find no adequate utterance. She selected thestraightest chair in the room, ostentatiously turned its back to herenemy, and seated herself. Then, taking out her knitting, she strove tokeep silence; but that was too heavy a task, and at last she brokeforth, with renewed bitterness, --

"To think of all the wood I've burnt up in my kitchen stove an'air-tight, an' never thought nothin' of it! To think of all the woodthere is now, growin' an' rottin' from Dan to Beersheba, an' I can'tlay my fingers on it!"

"I dunno what you want o' wood. I'm sure this room's warm enough. "

"You don't? Well, I'll tell ye. I want some two-inch boards, to nail upa partition in the middle o' this room, same as Josh Marden done tospite his wife. I don't want more'n my own, but I want it mine. "

Miss Dyer groaned, and drew an uncertain hand across her forehead. 

"You wouldn't have no gre't of an outlay for boards, " she said, drearily. "'Twouldn't have to be knee-high to keep me out. I'm no handto go where I ain't wanted; an' if I ever was, I guess I'm cured on'tnow. "

Mrs. Blair dropped her knitting in her lap. For an instant, she satthere motionless, in a growing rigidity; but light was dawning in hereyes. Suddenly she came to her feet, and tossed her knitting on thebed. 

"Where's that piece o' chalk you had when you marked out yourtumbler-quilt?" The words rang like a martial order. 

Miss Dyer drew it forth from the ancient-looking bag, known as a cavo, which was ever at her side. 

"Here 'tis, " she said, in her forlornest quaver. "I hope you won't donothin' out o' the way with it. I should hate to git into trouble here. I ain't that kind. "

Mrs. Blair was too excited to hear or heed her. She was briefly, flashingly, taking in the possibilities of the room, her bright blackeyes darting here and there with fiery insistence. Suddenly she went tothe closet, and, diving to the bottom of a baggy pocket in her "t'otherdress, " drew forth a ball of twine. She chalked it, still in delightedhaste, and forced one end upon her bewildered room-mate. 

"You go out there to the middle square o' the front winder, " shecommanded, "an' hold your end o' the string down on the floor. I'llsnap it. "

Miss Dyer cast one despairing glance about her, and obeyed. 

"Crazy!" she muttered. "Oh my land! she's crazy's a loon. I wisht Mis'Mitchell'd pitch her tent here a spell!"

But Mrs. Blair was following out her purpose in a manner exceedinglymethodical. Drawing out one bed, so that it stood directly opposite herkneeling helper, she passed the cord about the leg of the bedstead andmade it fast; then, returning to the middle of the room, she snappedthe line triumphantly. A faint chalk-mark was left upon the floor. 

"There!" she cried. "Leggo! Now, you gi' me the chalk, an' I'll go overit an' make it whiter. "

She knelt and chalked with the utmost absorption, crawling along on herknees, quite heedless of the despised alpaca; and Miss Dyer, hoveringin a corner, timorously watched her. Mrs. Blair staggered to her feet, entangled by her skirt, and pitching like a ship at sea. 

"There!" she announced. "Now here's two rooms. The chalk-mark's thepartition. You can have the mornin' sun, for I'd jest as soon live by ataller candle if I can have somethin' that's my own. I'll chalk a laneinto the closet, an' we'll both keep a right o' way there. Now I'm tohome, an' so be you. Don't you dast to speak a word to me unless youcome an' knock here on my headboard, --that's the front door, --an' Iwon't to you. Well, if I ain't glad to be alone! I've hung my harp on awiller long enough!"

It was some time before the true meaning of the new arrangementpenetrated Miss Dyer's slower intelligence; but presently she drew herchair nearer the window and thought a little, chuckling as she did so. She, too, was alone. 

The sensation was new and very pleasant. Mrs. Blair went back and forththrough the closet-lane, putting her clothes away, with high goodhumor. Once or twice she sang a little--Derby's Ram and Lord Lovel--ina cracked voice. She was in love with solitude. 

Just before tea, Mrs. Mitchell, in some trepidation, knocked at thedoor, to see the fruits of contention present and to come. She hadexpected to hear loud words; and the silence quite terrified her, emphasizing, as it did, her own guilty sense of personalresponsibility. Miss Dyer gave one appealing look at Mrs. Blair, andthen, with some indecision, went to open the door, for the latch was inher house. 

"Well, here you are, comfortably settled!" began Mrs. Mitchell. She hadthe unmistakable tone of professional kindliness; yet it rang clear andtrue. "May I come in?"

"Set right down here, " answered Miss Dyer, drawing forward a chair. "I'm real pleased to see ye. "

"And how are you this afternoon?" This was addressed to the occupant ofthe other house, who, quite oblivious to any alien presence, stoodbusily rubbing the chalk-marks from her dress. 

Mrs. Blair made no answer. She might have been stone deaf, and as dumbas the hearthstone bricks. Mrs. Mitchell cast an alarmed glance at herentertainer. 

"Isn't she well?" she said, softly. 

"It's a real pretty day, ain't it?" responded Miss Dyer. "If 'twassummer time, I should think there'd be a sea turn afore night. I like asea turn myself. It smells jest like Old Boar's Head. "

"I have brought you down some fruit. " Mrs. Mitchell was still anxiouslyobserving the silent figure, now absorbed in an apparently futilesearch in a brocaded work-bag. "Mrs. Blair, do you ever cut up bananasand oranges together?"

No answer. The visitor rose, and unwittingly stepped across thedividing line. 

"Mrs. Blair--" she began, but she got no further. 

Her hostess turned upon her, in surprised welcome. 

"Well, if it ain't Mis' Mitchell! I can't say I didn't expect you, forI see you goin' into Miss Dyer's house not more'n two minutes ago. Seems to me you make short calls. Now set right down here, where youcan see out o' the winder. That square's cracked, but I guess thedirectors'll put in another. "

Mrs. Mitchell was amazed, but entirely interested. It was many a longday since any person, official or private, had met with cordiality fromthis quarter. 

"I hope you and our friend are going to enjoy your room together, " sheessayed, with a hollow cheerfulness. 

"I expect to be as gay as a cricket, " returned Mrs. Blair, innocently. "An' I do trust I've got good neighbors. I like to keep to myself, butif I've got a neighbor, I want her to be somebody you can depend upon. "

"I'm sure Miss Dyer means to be very neighborly. " The director turned, with a smile, to include that lady in the conversation. But the localdeafness had engulfed her. She was sitting peacefully by the window, with the air of one retired within herself, to think her own veryremote thoughts. The visitor mentally improvised a little theory, andit seemed to fit the occasion. They had quarrelled, she thought, andeach was disturbed at any notice bestowed on the other. 

"I have been wondering whether you would both like to go sleighing withme some afternoon?" she ventured, with the humility so prone to assailhumankind in a frank and shrewish presence. "The roads are in wonderfulcondition, and I don't believe you'd take cold. Do you know, I foundGrandmother Eaton's foot-warmers, the other day! I'll bring themalong. "

"Law! I'd go anywheres to git out o' here, " said Mrs. Blair, ruthlessly. "I dunno when I've set behind a horse, either. I guess thelast time was the day I rid up here for good, an' then I didn't feelmuch like lookin' at outdoor. Well, I guess you _be_ a new director, oryou never'd ha' thought on't!"

"How do you feel about it, Miss Dyer?" asked the visitor. "Will yougo, --perhaps on, Wednesday?"

The other householder moved uneasily. Her hands twitched at theirknitting; a flush came over her cheeks, and she cast a childishlyappealing glance at her neighbor across the chalkline. Her eyes werefilling fast with tears. "Save me!" her look seemed to entreat "Let menot lose this happy fortune!" Mrs. Blair interpreted the message, androse to the occasion with the vigor of the intellectually great. 

"Mis' Mitchell, " she said, clearly, "I may be queer in my notions, butit makes me as nervous as a witch to have anybody hollerin' out o' mywinders. I don't care whether it's company nor whether it's my ownfolks. If you want to speak to Miss Dyer, you come along here afterme, --don't you hit the partition now!--right out o' my door an' intoher'n. Here, I'll knock! Miss Dyer, be you to home?"

The little old lady came forward, fluttering and radiant in the excessof her relief. 

"Yes, I guess I be, " she said, "an' all alone, too! I see you go by thewinder, an' I was in' hopes you'd come in!"

Then the situation dawned upon Mrs. Mitchell with an effect vastlysurprising to the two old pensioners. She turned from one to the other, including them both in a look of warm loving-kindness. It was truly anillumination. Hitherto, they had thought chiefly of her winter cloakand nodding ostrich plume; now, at last, they saw her face, and readsome part of its message. 

"You poor souls!" she cried. "Do you care so much as that? 'O you poorsouls!"

Miss Dyer fingered her apron and looked at the floor, but her companionturned brusquely away, even though she trod upon the partition in herhaste. 

"Law! it's nothin' to make such a handle of" she said. "Folks don'twant to be under each other's noses all the time. I dunno's anybodycould stan' it, unless 'twas an emmet. They seem to git along swarmin'round together. "

Mrs. Mitchell left the room abruptly. 

"Wednesday or Thursday, then!" she called over her shoulder. 

The next forenoon, Mrs. Blair made her neighbor a long visit. Both oldladies had their knitting, and they sat peacefully swaying back andforth, recalling times past, and occasionally alluding to their happyWednesday. 

"What I really come in for, " said Mrs. Blair, finally, "was to ask ifyou don't think both our settin'-rooms need new paper. "

The other gave one bewildered glance about her. 

"Why, 'tain't been on more 'n two weeks, " she began; and thenremembrance awoke in her, and she stopped. It was not the scene oftheir refuge and conflict that must be considered; it was the house offancy built by each unto herself. Invention did not come easily to heras yet, and she spoke with some hesitation. 

"I've had it in mind myself quite a spell, but somehow I 'ain't beenable to fix on the right sort o' paper. "

"What do you say to a kind of a straw color, all lit up with tulips?"inquired Mrs. Blair; triumphantly. 

"Ain't that kind o' gay?"

"Gay? Well, you want it gay, don't ye? I dunno why folks seem to thinkthey've got to live in a hearse because they expect to ride in one!What if we be gittin' on a little mite in years? We ain't undergroundyit, be we? I see a real good ninepenny paper once, all covered overwith green brakes. I declare if 'twa'n't sweet pretty! Well, whether Ipaper or whether I don't, I've got some thoughts of a magenta sofy. I'mtired to death o' that old horsehair lounge that sets in my clock-room. Sometimes I wish the moths would tackle it, but I guess they've gotmore sense. I've al'ays said to myself I'd have a magenta sofy when Icould git round to it, and I dunno's I shall be any nearer to it than Ibe now. "

"Well, you _are_ tasty, " said Miss Dyer, in some awe. "I dunno how youcome to think o' that!"

"Priest Rowe had one when I wa'n't more 'n twenty. Some o' hisrelations give it to him (he married into the quality), an' I rememberas if 'twas yisterday what a tew there was over it. An' I said tomyself then, if ever I was prospered I'd have a magenta sofy. I 'ain'tgot to it till now, but now I'll have it if I die for't. " "Well, Iguess you're in the right on't. " Miss Dyer spoke absently, glancingfrom the window in growing trouble. "O Mis' Blair!" she continued, witha sudden burst of confidence, "you don't think there's a storm brewin', do you? If it snows Wednesday, I shall give up beat!"

Mrs. Blair, in her turn, peered at the smiling sky. 

"I hope you ain't one o' them kind that thinks every fair day's aweather breeder, " she said. "Law, no! I don't b'lieve it will storm;an' if it does, why, there's other Wednesdays comin'!"

AT SUDLEIGH FAIR. 

Delilah Joyce was sitting on her front doorstone with a fine disregardof the fact that her little clock had struck eight of the morning, while her bed was still unmade. The Tiverton folk who disapproved ofher shiftlessness in letting the golden hours, run thus to waste, didgrudgingly commend her for airing well. Her bed might not even bespread up till sundown, but the sheets were always hanging from herlittle side window, in fine weather, flapping dazzlingly in the sun;and sometimes her feather-bed lay, the whole day long, on the greenslope outside, called by Dilly her "spring, " only because the snowmelted first there on the freedom days of the year. The new editor ofthe Sudleigh "Star, " seeing her slight, wiry figure struggling with thebed like a very little ant under a caterpillar all too large, was onceon the point of drawing up his horse at her gate. He was a chivalrousfellow, and he wanted to help; but Brad Freeman, hulking by with hisgun at the moment, stopped him. 

"That's only Dilly wrastlin' with, her bed, " he called back, in the actof stepping over the wall into the meadow. "'Twon't do no good to takeholt once, unless you're round here every mornin' 'bout the same time. Dilly'll git the better on't. She al'ays does. " So the editor laughed, put down another Tiverton custom in his mental notebook, and drove on. 

Dilly was a very little woman, with abnormally long and sinewy arms. Her small, rather delicate face had a healthy coat of tan, and heriron-gray hair was braided with scrupulous care. She resembled her ownhouse to a striking degree; she was fastidiously neat, but not in theleast orderly. The Tiverton housekeepers could not appreciate thisattitude in reference to the conventional world. It was all very wellto keep the kitchen floor scrubbed, but they did believe, also, inseeing the table properly set, and in finishing the washing by eighto'clock on Monday morning. Now Dilly seldom felt inclined to set anytable at all. She was far more likely to take her bread and milk undera tree; and as for washing, Thursday was as good a day as any, she waswont to declare. Moreover, the tradition of hanging garments on theline according to a severely classified system, did not in the leastappeal to her. 

"I guess a petticoat'll dry jest as quick if it's hung 'side of anightgown, " she told her critics, drily. "An' when you come to hangin'stockin's by the pair, better separate 'em, I say! Like man an' wife!Give 'em a vacation, once in a while, an' love'll live the longer!"

Dilly was thinking, this morning, of all the possibilities of thelovely, shining day. So many delights lay open to her! She could takeher luncheon in her pocket, and go threading through the woods behindher house. She could walk over to Pine Hollow, to see how the coneswere coming on, and perchance scrape together a basket of pine needles, to add to her winter's kindling; or she might, if the world and thedesires thereof assailed her, visit Sudleigh Fair. Better still, sheneed account to nobody if she chose to sit there on the doorstone, andlet the hours go unregretted by. Presently, her happy musing was brokenby a ripple from the outer world. A girl came briskly round the cornerwhere the stone-wall lay hidden under a wilderness of cinnamonrosebushes and blackberry vines, --Rosa Tolman, dressed in white_piqué_, with a great leghorn hat over her curls. The girl camehurrying up the path, with a rustle of starched petticoats, and stillDilly kept her trance-like posture. 

"I know who 'tis!" she announced, presently, in a declamatory voice. "It's Rosy Tolman, an' she's dressed in white, with red roses, allcomplete, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh Cattle-Show. "

Rosa lost a shade of pink from her cheeks. Her round blue eyes widened, in an unmistakable terror quite piteous to see. 

"O Dilly!" she quavered, "how do you know such things? Why, you 'ain'tlooked at me!"

Dilly opened her eyes, and chuckled in keen enjoyment. 

"Bless ye!" she said, "I can't help imposin' on ye, no more 'n a catcould help ketchin' a mouse, if't made a nest down her throat. Why, Isee ye comin' round the corner! But when folks thinks you're a witch, it ain't in human natur' not to fool 'em. I _am_ a witch, ain't I, dear? Now, ain't I?"

Rosa's color had faltered back, but she still stood visibly in awe ofher old neighbor. 

"Well, " she owned, "Elvin Drew says you can see in the dark, but Idon't know's he means anything by it. "

Again Dilly broke into laughter, rocking back and forth, in happyabandonment. 

"I can!" she cried, gleefully. "You tell him I can! An' when I can't, folks are so neighborly they strike a light for me to see by. You tellhim! Well, now, what is it? You've come to ask suthin'. Out with it!"

"Father told me to come over, and see if you can't tell something aboutour cows. They're all drying up, and he don't see any reason why. "

Dilly nodded her head sagely. 

"You'd better ha' come sooner, " she announced. "You tell him he mustdrive 'em to pastur' himself, an' go arter 'em, too. "

"Why?"

"An' you tell him to give Davie a Saturday, here an' there, to gofishin' in, an' not let him do so many chores. Now, you hear! Yourfather must drive the cows, an' he must give Davie time to play alittle, or there'll be dark days comin', an' he won't be prepared for'em. "

"My!" exclaimed Rosa, blankly. "My! Ain't it queer! It kind o' scaresme. But, Dilly, "--she turned about, so that only one flushed cheekremained visible, --"Dilly, 'ain't you got something to say to me? We'regoing to be married next Tuesday, Elvin and me. It's all right, ain'tit?"

Dilly bent forward, and peered masterfully into her face. She took thegirl's plump pink handy and drew her forward. Rosa, as if compelled bysome unseen force, turned about, and allowed her frightened gaze to lieensnared by the witch's great black eyes. Dilly began, in a deepintense voice, with the rhythm of the Methodist exhorter, though on alower key, --

"Two years, that boy's been arter you. Two years, you trampled on himas if he'd been the dust under your feet. He was poor an' strugglin'. He was left with his mother to take care on, an' a mortgage to work off. An' then his house burnt down, an' he got his insurance money; an' thatminute, you turned right round an' says, 'I'll have you. ' An' now, yousay, 'Is it all right?' _Is_ it right, Rosy Tolman? You tell _me_!"

Rosa was sobbing hysterically. 

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't scare me so!" she exclaimed, yet not for amoment attempting to withdraw her hand, or turn aside her terrifiedgaze. "I wish I never'd said one word!"

Dilly broke the spell as lightly as she had woven it. A smile passedover her face, like a charm, dispelling all its prophetic fervor. 

"There! there!" she said, dropping the girl's hand. "I thought I'dscare ye! What's the use o' bein' a witch, if ye can't upset folks? Nowdon't cry, an' git your cheeks all blotched up afore Elvin calls tofetch ye, with that hired horse, an' take ye to the Cattle-Show! Butdon't ye forgit what I say! You remember we ain't goin' to wait for theDay o' Judgment, none on us. It comes every hour. If Gabriel wastootin', should you turn fust to Elvin Drew, an' go up or down withhim, wherever he was 'lected? That's what you've got to think on; notyour new hat nor your white _pique_. (Didn't iron it under theoverskirt, did ye? How'd I know? Law! how's a witch know anything?)Now, you 'ain't opened your bundle, dear, have ye? Raisin-cake in it, ain't there?"

Rosa bent suddenly forward, and placed the package in Dilly's lap. Inspite of the bright daylight all about her, she was frightened; if acloud had swept over, she must have screamed. 

"I don't know how you found it out, " she whispered, "but _'tis_raisin-cake. Mother sent it. She knew I was going to ask you about thecows. She said I was to tell you, too, there's some sickness over toSudleigh, and she thought you could go over there nussing, if youwanted to. "

"I 'ain't got time, " said Dilly, placidly. "I give up nussin', two yearago. I 'ain't got any time at all! Well, here they come, don't they?One for me, an' one for you!"

A light wagon, driven rapidly round the corner, drew up at the gate. Elvin Drew jumped down, and helped out his companion, a short, ratherthickset girl, with smooth, dark hair, honest eyes, and a sensitivemouth. She came quickly up the path, after an embarrassed word ofthanks to the young man. 

"He took me in, " she began, almost apologetically to Rosa, who surveyedher with some haughtiness. "I was comin' up here to see Dilly, an' heoffered me a ride. "

Rosa's color and spirits had returned, at the sight of her tangibleally at the gate. 

"Well, I guess I must be going, " she said, airily. "Elvin won't want towait. Good-by, Dilly! I'll tell father. Good-by, Molly Drew!"

But Dilly followed her down to the road, where Elvin stood waiting withthe reins in his hands. He was a very blond young man, with curly hair, and eyes honest in contour and clear of glance. Perhaps his coloringimpressed one with the fact that he should have looked very young; buthis face shrunk now behind a subtile veil of keen anxiety, of irritatedemotion, which were evidently quite foreign to him. Even a stranger, looking at him, could hardly help suspecting an alien trouble graftedupon a healthy stem. He gave Dilly a pleasant little nod, in the act ofturning eagerly to help Rosa into the wagon. But when he would havefollowed her, Dilly laid a light but imperative hand on his arm. 

"Don't you want your fortune told?" she asked, meaningly. "Here's thewitch all ready. Ain't it well for me I wa'n't born a hunderd year ago?Shouldn't I ha' sizzled well? An' now, all there is to burn me is GodA'mighty's sunshine!"

Elvin laughed lightly. 

"I guess I don't need any fortune, " he said. "Mine looks pretty fairnow. I don't feel as if anybody'd better meddle with it. " But he hadnot withdrawn his arm, and his gaze still dwelt on hers. 

"You know suthin' you don't mean to tell, " said Dilly, speaking sorapidly that although Rosa bent forward to listen, she caught only aword, here and there. "You think you won't have to tell, but you will. God A'mighty'll make you. You'll be a stranger among your own folks, an' a wanderer on the earth; till you tell. There! go along! Go an' seethe punkins an' crazy-quilts!"

She withdrew her hand, and turned away. Elvin, his face suddenlyblanched, looked after her, fascinated, while she went quickly up thegarden walk. An impatient word from Rosa recalled him to himself, andhe got heavily into the wagon and drove on again. 

When Dilly reached the steps where her new guest had seated herself, her manner had quite changed. It breathed an open frankness, a sweetand homely warmth which were very engaging. Molly spoke first. 

"How pleased he is with her!" she said, dreamily. 

"Yes, " answered Dilly, "but to-day ain't tomorrer. They're bothlight-complected. It's jest like patchwork. Put light an' darktogether, I say, or you won't git no figger. Here, le's have a mite o'cake! Mis' Tolman's a proper good cook, if her childern _have_ allturned out ducks, an' took to the water. Every one on 'em's took backas much as three generations for their noses an' tempers. Strange theyhad to go so fur!"

She broke the rich brown loaf in the middle, and divided a piece withMolly. Such were the habits calculated to irritate theconventionalities of Tiverton against her. Who ever heard of breakingcake when one could go into the house for a knife! They ate in silence, and the delights of the summer day grew upon Molly as they never didsave when she felt the nearness of this queer little woman. Turn whichside of her personality she might toward you, Dilly could always bendyou to her own train of thought. 

"I come down to talk things over, " said Molly, at last, brushing thecrumbs of cake from her lap. "I've got a chance in the shoe-shop. "

"Do tell! Well, ain't that complete? Don't you say one word, now! Iknow how 'tis. You think how you'll have to give up the birds' singin', an' your goin' into the woods arter groundpine, an' stay cooped up in aboardin'-house to Sudleigh. I know how 'tis! But don't you fret. Youcome right here an' stay Sundays, an' we'll eat up the woods an' drinkup the sky! There! It's better for ye, dear. Some folks are made tolive in a holler tree, like me; some ain't. You'll be better on't amongfolks. "

Molly's eyes filled with tears. 

"You've been real good to me, " she said, simply. 

"I wish I'd begun it afore, " responded Dilly, with a quick upward liftof her head, and her brightest smile. "You see I didn't know ye verywell, for all you'd lived with old Mis' Drew so many year. I 'ain't hadmuch to do with folks. I knew ye hadn't got nobody except her, but Iknew, too, ye were contented there as a cricket. But when she died, an'the house burnt down, I begun to wonder what was goin' to become onye. "

Molly sat looking over at the pine woods, her lips compressed, hercheeks slowly reddening. Finally she burst passionately forth, --

"Dilly, I'd like to know why I couldn't have got some rooms an' kep'house for Elvin? His mother's my own aunt!"

"She wa'n't his mother, ye know. She was His stepmother, for all theyset so much by one Another. Folks would ha' talked, an' I guess Rosywouldn't ha' stood that, even afore they were engaged. Rosy may notlike corn-fodder herself, any more 'n t'other dog did, but she ain'tgoin' to see other noses put into't without snappin' at 'em. "

"Well, it's all over, " said Molly, drearily. "It 'ain't been hard forme stayin' round as I've done, an' sewin' for my board; but it's seemedpretty tough to think of Elvin livin' in that little shanty of Caleb'san' doin' for himself. I never could see why he didn't board somewheresdecent. "

"Wants to save his six hunderd dollars, to go out West an' start in thefurniture business, " said Dilly, succinctly. "Come, Molly, what say towalkin' over to Sudleigh Cattle-Show?"

Molly threw aside her listless mood like a garment. 

"Will you?" she cried. "Oh, I'd like to! You know I'm sewin' for Mis'Eli Pike; an' they asked me to go, but I knew she'd fill up the seat soI should crowd 'em out of house an' home. Will you, Dilly?"

"You wait till I git suthin' or other to put over my head, " said Dilly, rising with cheerful decision. "Here, you gi' me that cake! I'll tie itup in a nice clean piece o' table-cloth, an' then we'll take along afew eggs, so 't we can trade 'em off for bread an' cheese. You jestpull in my sheets, an' shet the winder, while I do it. Like as notthere'll be a shower this arternoon. "

When the little gate closed behind them, Molly felt eagerly excited, as, if she were setting forth for a year's happy wandering. Dilly knewthe ways of the road as well as the wood. She was, as usual, in lightmarching order, a handkerchief tied over her smooth braids; another, slung on a stick over her shoulder, contained their luncheon and theeggs for barter. All her movements were buoyant and free, like those ofa healthy animal let loose in pleasant pastures. She walked so lightlythat the eggs in the handkerchief were scarcely stirred. 

"See that little swampy patch!" she said, stopping when they hadrounded the curve in the road. "A week or two ago, that was all alivewith redbud flowers. I dunno the right name on 'em, an' I don't care. Redbirds, I call 'em. I went over there, one day, an' walked alongbetween the hummocks, spush! spush! You won't find a nicer feelin' thanthat, wherever ye go. Take off your shoes an' stockin's, an' wade intoa swamp! Warm, coarse grass atop! Then warm, black mud, an' arter that, a layer all nice an' cold that goes down to Chiny, fur's I know! Thatwas the day I meant to git some thoroughwort over there, to dry, but Ilooked at the redbird flowers so long I didn't have time, an' Inever've been sence. "

Molly laughed out, with a pretty, free ripple in her voice. 

"You're always sayin' that, Dilly! You never have time for anything butdoin' nothin'!"

A bright little sparkle came into Dilly's eyes, and she laughed, too. 

"Why, that's what made me give' up nussin' two year ago, " she said, happily. "I wa'n't havin' no time at all. I couldn't live my properlife. I al'ays knew I should come to that, so I'd raked an' scraped, an' put into the bank, till I thought I'd got enough to buy me a miteo' flour while I lived, an' a pine coffin arter I died; an' then I jestset up my Ebenezer I'd be as free's a bird. Freer, I guess I be, forthey have to scratch pretty hard, come cold weather, an' I bake me a'tater, an' then go clippin' out over the crust, lookin' at the baretwigs. Oh, it's complete! If I could live this way, I guess a thousandyears'd be a mighty small dose for me. Look at that goldenrod, overthere by the stump! That's the kind that's got the most smell. "

Molly broke one of the curving plumes. 

"I don't see as it smells at all, " she said, still sniffing delicately. 

"Le'me take it! Why, yes, it does, too! Everything smells _some_. Oftentimes it's so faint it's more like a feelin' than a smell. Butthere! you ain't a witch, as I be!"

"I wish you wouldn't say that!" put in Molly, courageously. "You makepeople think you are. "

"Law, then, let 'em!" said Dilly, with a kindly indulgence. "It don'tdo them no hurt, an' it gives me more fun'n the county newspaper. They'd ruther I'd say I was a witch'n tell 'em I've got four eyes an'eight ears where they 'ain't but two. I tell ye, there's a good dealmissed when ye stay to home makin' pies, an' a good deal ye can learnif ye live out-door. Why, there's Tolman's cows! He dunno why they dryup; but I do. He, sends that little Davie with 'em, that don't have noproper playtime; an' Davie gallops 'em all the way to pastur', so't hecan have a minute to fish in the brook. An' then he gallops 'em homeag'in, because he's stole a piece out o' the arternoon. I ketched himdown there by the brook, one day, workin' away with a bent pin, an' thenext mornin' I laid a fish-hook on the rock, an' hid in the woods tosee what he'd say. My! I 'guess Jonah wa'n't more tickled when he setfoot on dry land. Here comes the wagons! There's the Poorhouse teamfust, an' Sally Flint settin' up straighter 'n a ramrod. An' there'sHeman an' Roxy! She don't look a day older'n twenty-five. Proper nicefolks, all on 'em, but they make me kind o' homesick jest because they_be_ folks. They do look so sort o' common in their bunnits an' veils, an' I keep thinkin' o' little four-legged creatur's, all fur!" TheTiverton folk saluted them, always cordially, yet each after his kind. They liked Dilly as a product all their own, but one to be partaken ofsparingly, like some wild, intoxicating root. 

They loved her better at home, too, than at Sudleigh Fair. It was likea betrayal of their fireside secrets, to see her there in heraccustomed garb; so slight a concession to propriety would have lain inher putting on a bonnet and shawl!

As they neared Sudleigh town, the road grew populous with carriages andfarm-wagons, "step and step, " not all from Tiverton way, but gatheredin from the roads converging here. Men were walking up and down themarket street, crying their whips, their toy balloons, and a multitudeof cheaper gimcracks. 

"Forty miles from home! forty miles from home!" called one, moreimaginative than the rest. "And no place to lay my head! That's why I'mselling these little whips here to-day, a stranger in a strange land. Buy one! buy one! and the poor pilgrim'll have a supper and a bed! Keepyour money in your pocket, and he's a wanderer on the face of theearth!"

Dilly, the fearless in her chosen wilds, took a fold of Molly's dress, and held it tight. 

"You s'pose that's so?" she whispered. "Oh, dear! I 'ain't got a miteo' money, on'y these six eggs. Oh, why didn't he stay to home, if he'sso possessed to sleep under cover? What does anybody leave their home_for_, if they've got one?"

But Molly put up her head, and walked sturdily on. 

"Don't you worry, " she counselled, in an undertone. "It don't mean anymore 'n it does when folks say they're sellin' at a sacrifice. I guessthey expect to make enough, take it all together. "

Dilly walked on, quite bewildered. She had lost her fine, joyouscarriage; her shoulders were bent, and her feet shuffled, in adiscouraged fashion, over the unlovely bricks. Molly kept the lead, with unconscious superiority. 

"Le's go into the store now, " she said, "an' swap off the eggs. You'llbe joggled in this crowd, an' break 'em all to smash. Here, you le' mehave your handkerchief! I'll see to it all. " She kept the handkerchiefin her hand, after their slight "tradin'" had been accomplished; andDilly, too dispirited to offer a word, walked meekly about after her. 

The Fair was held, according to ancient custom, in the town-hall, ofwhich the upper story had long been given over to Sudleigh Academy. Behind the hall lay an enormous field, roped in now, and provided withpens and stalls, where a great assemblage of live-stock lowed, andgrunted, and patiently chewed the cud. 

"Le's go in there fust, " whispered Dilly. "I sha'n't feel so strangethere as I do with folks. I guess if the four-footed creatur's canstan' it, I can. Pretty darlin'!" she added, stopping before a heiferwho had ceased eating and was looking about her with a mild anddignified gaze. Dilly eagerly sought out a stick, and began to scratchthe delicate head. "Pretty creatur'! Smell o' her breath, Molly! Seeher nose, all wet, like pastur' grass afore day! Now, if I didn't wantto live by myself, I'd like to curl me up in a stall, 'side o' her. "

"'Mandy, you an' Kelup come here!" called Aunt Melissa Adams. Sheloomed very prosperous, over the way, in her new poplin and herlace-trimmed cape. "Jest look at these roosters! They've got spurs ontheir legs as long's my darnin'-needle. What under the sun makes 'emgrow so! An' ain't they the nippin'est little creatur's you ever see?"

"They're fightin'-cocks, " answered Caleb, tolerantly. 

"Fightin'-cocks? You don't mean to tell me they're trained up forthat?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Well, I never heard o' such a thing in a Christian land! never! Whosebe they? I'll give him a piece o' my mind, if I live another minute!"

"You better let other folks alone, " said Caleb, stolidly. 

"'Mandy, " returned Aunt Melissa, in a portentous undertone, "be yougoin' to stan' by an' see your own aunt spoke to as if she was the dirtunder your feet?"

Amanda had once in her life asserted herself at a crucial moment, andshe had never seen cause to regret it. Now she "spoke out" again. Shemade her slender neck very straight and stiff, and her lips setthemselves firmly over the words, --

"I guess Caleb won't do you no hurt, Aunt Melissa. He don't want youshould make yourself a laughin'-stock, nor I don't either. There'sUncle Hiram, over lookin' at the pigs. I guess he don't see you. Caleb, le's we move on!"

Aunt Melissa stood looking after them, a mass of quivering wrath. 

"Well, I must say!" she retorted to the empty air. "If I live, I mustsay!"

Dilly took her placid companion by the arm, and hurried her on. Humanjangling wore sadly upon her; under such maddening onslaught she wasnot incapable of developing "nerves. " They stopped before a stall whereanother heifer stood, chewing her cud, and looking away into rememberedpastures. 

"Oh, see!" said Molly, "'Price $500'! Do you b'lieve it?"

"Well, well!" came Mrs. Eli Pike's ruminant voice from the crowd. "I'mglad I don't own that creatur'! I shouldn't sleep nights if I had fivehunderd dollars in cow. "

"Tain't five hunderd dollars, " said Hiram Cole, elbowing his way to thefront. "'Tain't p'inted right, that's all. P'int off two ciphers--"

"Five dollars!" snickered a Crane boy, diving through the crowd, andproceeding to stand on his head in a cleared space beyond. "That's wuthless'n Miss Lucindy's hoss!"

Hiram Cole considered again, one lean hand stroking his cheek. 

"Five--fifty--" he announced. "Well, I guess _'tis_ five hunderd, arterall! Anybody must want to invest, though, to put all their income intoperishable cow-flesh!"

"You look real tired, " whispered Molly. "Le's come inside, an' perhapswe can set down. "

The old hall seemed to have donned strange carnival clothes, for amystic Saturnalia. It was literally swaddled in bedquilts, --tumbler-quilts, rising-suns, Jacob's-ladders, log-cabins, and the more modern and altogether terrible crazy-quilt. There weresquare yards of tidies, on wall and table, and furlongs of home-knitlace. Dilly looked at this product of the patient art of woman with adispirited gaze. 

"Seems a kind of a waste of time, don't it?" she said, dreamily, "whenthings are blowin' outside? I wisht I could see suthin' made once tolook as handsome as green buds an' branches. Law, dear, now jest turnyour eyes away from them walls, an' see the tables full of apples! an'them piles o' carrots, an' cabbages an' squashes over there! Well, 'tain't so bad if you can look at things the sun's ever shone on, nomatter if they be under cover. " She wandered up and down the tables, caressing the rounded outlines of the fruit with her loving gaze. Theapples, rich and fragrant, were a glory and a joy. There were greatpound sweetings, full of the pride of mere bigness; long purplegilly-flowers, craftily hiding their mealy joys under a sad-coloredskin; and the Hubbardston, a portly creature quite unspoiled by theprosperity of growth, and holding its lovely scent and flavor like anindividual charm. There was the Bald'in, stand-by old and good asbread; and there were all the rest. We know them, we who have courtedPomona in her fair New England orchards. 

Near the fancy-work table sat Mrs. Blair, of the Old Ladies' Home, on astool she had wrenched from an unwilling boy, who declared it belongedup in the Academy, whence he had brought it "to stan' on" while hedrove a nail. And though he besought her to rise and let him return it, since he alone must be responsible, the old lady continued sitting insilence. At length she spoke, --

"Here I be, an' here I'm goin' to set till the premiums is tacked on. Them pinballs my neighbor, Mis' Dyer, made with her own hands, an'she's bent double o' rheumatiz. An' I said I'd bring 'em for her, an'I'd set by an' see things done fair an' square. "

"There, Mrs. Blair, don't you worry, " said Mrs. Mitchell, a director ofthe Home, putting a hand on the martial and belligerent shoulder, "Don't you mind if she doesn't get a premium. I'll buy the pinballs, and that will do almost as well. "

"My! if there ain't goin' to be trouble between Mary Lamson an'Sereno's Hattie, I'll miss my guess!" said a matron, with anappreciative wag of her purple-bonneted head. "They've either on 'emcanned up more preserves 'n Tiverton an' Sudleigh put together, an'Mary's got I dunno what all among 'em!--squash, an' dandelion, an'punkin with lemon in't. That's steppin' acrost the bounds, _I_ say! Ifshe gits a premium for puttin' up gardin-sass, I'll warrant there'll bea to-do. An' Hattie'll make it!"

"I guess there won't be no set-to about such small potaters, " said Mrs. Pike, with dignity. Her broad back had been unrecognized by the herald, careless in her haste. "Hattie's ready an' willin' to divide thepremium, if't comes to her, an' I guess Mary'd be, put her in the sameplace. "

"My soul an' body!" exclaimed another, trudging up and waving a largepalmleaf fan. "Well, there, Rosanna Pike! Is that you? Excuse me all, if I don't stop to speak round the circle, I'm so put to't with PassonTrue's carryin's on. You know he's been as mad as hops over SudleighCattle-Show, reg'lar as the year come round, because there's a rafflefor a quilt, or suthin'. An' now he's come an' set up a sort of a stallover t'other side the room, an' folks thinks he's tryin' to git up arevival. I dunno when I've seen John so stirred. He says we hadn'tought to be made a laughin'-stock to Sudleigh, Passon or no Passon. An'old Square Lamb says--"

But the fickle crowd waited to hear no more. With one impulse, itsurged over to the other side of the hall, where Parson True, standingbehind a table brought down from the Academy, was saying solemnly, --

"Let us engage in prayer!"

The whispering ceased; the titters of embarrassment were stilled, andmothers tightened their grasp on little hands, to emphasize the changeof scene from light to graver hue. Some of the men looked lowering; oneor two strode out of doors. They loved Parson True, but the Cattle-Showwas all their own, and they resented even a ministerial innovation. Theparson was a slender, wiry man, with keen blue eyes, a serious mouth, and an overtopping forehead, from which the hair was always brushedstraight back. He called upon the Lord, with passionate fervor, to"bless this people in all their outgoings and comings-in, and to keeptheir feet from paths where His blessing could not attend them. "

"Is that the raffle, mother?" whispered the smallest Crane boy; and hismother promptly administered a shake, for the correction of misplacedcuriosity. 

Then Parson True opened his eyes on his somewhat shamefaced flock andtheir neighbor townsmen, and began to preach. It was good to be there, he told them, only as it was good to be anywhere else, in the spirit ofGod. Judgment might overtake them there, as it might at home, in houseor field. Were they prepared? He bent forward over the table, his slimform trembling with the intensity of gathering passion. He appealed toeach one personally with that vibratory quality of address peculiar tohim, wherein it seemed that not only his lips but his very soulchallenged the souls before him. One after another joined the outercircle, and faces bent forward over the shoulders in front, with thatstrange, arrested expression inevitably born when, on the flood ofsunny weather, we are reminded how deep the darkness is within thegrave. 

"Let every man say to himself, 'Thou, God, seest me!'" reiterated theparson. "Thou seest into the dark corners of my heart. What dost Thousee, O God? What dost Thou see?"

Elvin and Rosa had drawn near with the others. She smiled a little, andthe hard bloom on her cheeks had not wavered. No one looked at them, for every eye dwelt on the preacher; and though Elvin's face changedfrom the healthy certainty of life and hope to a green pallor ofself-recognition, no one noticed. Consequently, the general surpriseculminated in a shock when he cried out, in a loud voice, "God bemerciful! God be merciful! I ain't fit to be with decent folks! I'dought to be in jail!" and pushed his way through the crowd until hestood before the parson, facing him with bowed head, as if he found inthe little minister the vicegerent of God. He had kept Rosa's hand in aconvulsive grasp, and he drew her with him into the eye of the world. She shrank back, whimpering feebly; but no one took note of her. Theparson knew exactly what, to do when the soul travailed and criedaloud. He stretched forth his hands, and put them on the young man'sshoulders. 

"Come, poor sinner, come!" he urged, in a voice of wonderful meltingquality. "Come! Here is the throne of grace! Bring your burden, andcast it down. "

The words roused Elvin, or possibly the restraining touch. He startedback. 

"I can't!" he cried out, stridently. "I can't yet! I can't! I can't!"

Still leading Rosa, who was crying now in good earnest, he turned, andpushed his way out of the crowd. But once outside that warm humancircuit, Rosa broke loose from him. She tried to speak for his earalone, but her voice strove petulantly through her sobs:

"Elvin Drew, I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself! You've mademe ridiculous before the whole town, and I never'll speak to you againas long as I live. If I hadn't stayed with you every minute, I shouldthink you'd been drinking, and I believe to my soul you have!" Sheburied her face in her handkerchief, and stumbled over to a table whereLaura Pettis was standing, open-eyed with amazement, and the twoclasped each other, while Rosa cried on. Elvin only looked about him, in a bewildered fashion, when the warm hand was wrenched away; then, realizing that he was quite alone, his head bent under a deeperdejection. He seemed unable to move from the spot, and stood therequite stupidly, until murmurs of "What's the matter of him?" came fromthe waiting crowd, and Parson True himself advanced, with hands againoutstretched. But Dilly Joyce forestalled the parson. She, too cameforward, in her quick way, and took Elvin firmly by the arm. 

"Here, dear, " she said, caressingly, "you come along out-doors withus!"

Elvin turned, still hanging his head, and the three (for little Mollyhad come up on the other side, trying to stand very tall to show herchampionship) walked out of the hall together. Dilly had ever a quickeye for green, growing things, and she remembered a little corner ofthe enclosure, where one lone elm-tree stood above a bank. Thither sheled him, with an assured step; and when they had reached the shadow, she drew him forward, and said, still tenderly, --

"There, dear, you set right down here an' think it over. We'll staywith ye. We'll never forsake ye, will we, Molly?"

Molly, who did not know what it was all about, had no need to know. "Never!" she said, stanchly. 

The three sat down there; and first the slow minutes, and then thehours, went by. It had not been long before some one found out wherethey were, and curious groups began to wander past, always in silence, but eying them intently. Elvin sat with his head bent, looking fixedlyat a root of plantain; but Molly confronted the alien faces with ahaughty challenging stare, while her cheeks painted themselves ever adeeper red. Dilly leaned happily back against the elm trunk, and dweltupon the fleece-hung sky; and her black eyes grew still calmer and morecontent. She looked as if she had learned what things are lovely and ofgood repute. When the town-clock struck noon, she brought forth theirlittle luncheon, and pressed it upon the others, with a nicehospitality. Elvin shook his head, but Molly ate a trifle, for pride'ssake. 

"You go an' git him a mite o' water, " whispered Dilly, when they hadfinished. "I would, but I dunno the ways o' this place. It'll tastegood to him. "

Molly nodded, and hurried away; presently she came back, bearing a tincup, and Elvin drank, though he did not thank her. 

In the early afternoon, Ebenezer Tolman came striding down between thepens in ostentatious indignation. He was a tall, red-faced man, with alarge, loose mouth, and blond-gray whiskers, always parted and blowingin the wind. He wore, with manifest pride, the reputation of being adangerous animal when roused. He had bought a toy whip, at littleDavie's earnest solicitation, and, lashing it suggestively against hisboot, he began speaking long before he reached the little group. Thelagging crowd of listeners paused, breathless, to lose no word. 

"Look here, you! don't ye darken my doors ag'in, an' don't ye dast toopen your head to one o' my folks! We're done with ye! Do you hear?We're done with ye! Rosy'll ride home with me to-night, an' she'll ridewith you no more!"

Elvin said nothing, though his brow contracted suddenly at Rosa's name. Ebenezer was about to speak again; but the little parson came stridingswiftly up, his long coat flying behind him, and Tolman, who was achurch-member, in good and regular standing, moved on. But the parsonwas routed, in his turn. Dilly rose, and, as some one afterwards said, "clipped it right up to him. "

"Don't you come now, dear, " she advised him, in that persuasive voiceof hers. "No, don't you come now. He ain't ready. You go away, an' lethim set an' think it out. " And the parson, why he knew not, turnedabout, and went humbly back to his preaching in the hall. 

The afternoon wore on, and it began to seem as if Elvin would neverbreak from his trance, and never speak. Finally, after watching him amoment with her keen eyes, Dilly touched him lightly on the arm. 

"The Tolmans have drove home, " she said, quietly. "All on 'em. What ifyou should git your horse, an' take Molly an' me along?"

Elvin came to his feet with a lurch. He straightened himself. 

"I've got to talk to the parson, " said he. 

"So I thought, " answered Dilly, with composure, "but 'tain't no placehere. You ask him to ride, an' let Miss Dorcas drive home alone. Wefour'll stop at my house, an' then you can talk it over. "

Elvin obeyed, like a child tired of his own way. When they packedthemselves into the wagon, --where Dilly insisted on sitting behind, tomake room, --the Tiverton and Sudleigh people stood about in groups, towatch them. Hiram Cole came forward, just as Elvin took up the reins. 

"Elvin, " said he, in a cautious whisper, with his accustomed gesture ofscraping his cheek, "I've got suthin' to say to ye. Don't ye put nomoney into Dan Forbes's hands. I've had a letter from brother 'Lisha, out in Illinois, an' he says that business Dan wrote to youabout--well, there never was none! There ain't a stick o' furnituremade there! An' Dan's been cuttin' a dash lately with money he gotsom'er's or other, an' he's gambled, an' I dunno what all, an' beentook up. An' now he's in jail. So don't you send him nothin'. I thoughtI'd speak. "

Elvin looked at him a moment, with a strange little smile dawning abouthis mouth. 

"That's all right, " he said, quickly, and drove away. 

To Molly, the road home was like a dark passage full of formless fears. She did not even know what had befallen the dear being she loved best;but something dire and tragic had stricken him, and therefore her. Theparson was acutely moved for the anguish he had not probed. Only Dillyremained cheerful. When they reached her gate, it was she who took thehalter from Elvin's hand, and tied the horse. Then she walked up thepath, and flung open her front door. 

"Come right into the settin'-room, " she said. "I'll git ye some waterright out o' the well. My throat's all choked up o' dust. "

The cheerful clang of the bucket against the stones, the rumble of thewindlass, and then Dilly came in with a brimming bright tin dipper. Sheoffered it first to the parson, and though she refilled it scrupulouslyfor each pair of lips, it seemed a holy loving-cup. They sat there inthe darkening room, and Dilly "stepped round" and began to get supper. Molly nervously joined her, and addressed her, once or twice, in awhisper. But Dilly spoke out clearly in, answer, as if rebuking her. 

"Le's have a real good time, " she said, when she had drawn the tableforward and set forth her bread, and apples, and tea. "Passon, draw up!You drink tea, don't ye? I don't, myself. I never could bear to spilegood water. But I keep it on hand for them that likes it. Elvin, here!You take this good big apple. It's man's size more 'n woman's, Iguess. "

Elvin pushed back his chair. 

"I ain't goin' to put a mouthful of victuals to my lips till I make upmy mind whether I can speak or not, " he said, loudly. 

"All right, " answered Dilly, placidly. "Bless ye! the teapot'll begoin' all night, if ye say so. "

Only Dilly and the parson made a meal; and when it was over, ParsonTrue rose, as if his part of the strange drama must at last begin, andfell on his knees. 

"Let us pray!"

Molly, too, knelt, and Elvin threw his arms upon the table, and laidhis head upon them. But Dilly stood erect. From time to time, sheglanced curiously from the parson to the lovely darkened world outsideher little square of window, and smiled slightly, tenderly, as if outthere she saw the visible God. The parson prayed for "this sick soul, our brother, " over and over, in many phrases, and with true andpassionate desire. And when the prayer was done, he put his hand on theyoung man's shoulder, and said, with a yearning persuasiveness, --

"Tell it now, my brother! Jesus is here. "

Elvin raised his head, with a sudden fierce gesture toward Dilly. 

"She knows, " he said. "She can see the past. She'll tell you what I'vedone. "

"I 'ain't got nothin' to tell, dear, " answered Dilly, peacefully. "Everything you've done's between you an' God A'mighty. I 'ain't gotnothin' to tell!"

Then she went out, and, deftly unharnessing the horse, put him in herlittle shed, and gave him a feed of oats. The hens had gone to bedwithout their supper. 

"No matter, biddies, " she said, conversationally, as she passed theirroost. "I'll make it up to you in the mornin'!"

When she entered the house again, Elvin still sat there, staringstolidly into the dusk. The parson was praying, and Molly, by thewindow, was holding the sill tightly clasped by both hands, as ifthreatening herself into calm. When the parson rose, he turned toElvin, less like the pastor than the familiar friend. One forgot hisgray hairs in the loving simplicity of his tone. 

"My son, " he said, tenderly, "tell it all! God is merciful. "

But again Dilly put in her voice. 

"Don't you push him, Passon! Let him speak or not, jest as he's a mindto. Let God A'mighty do it His way! Don't _you_ do it!"

Darkness settled in the room, and the heavenly hunter's-moon rose anddispelled it. 

"O God! can I?" broke forth the young man. "O God! if I tell, I'll gothrough with it. I will, so help me!"

The moving patterns of the vine at the window began to etch themselveswaveringly on the floor. Dilly bent, and traced the outline of a leafwith her finger. 

"I'll tell!" cried Elvin, in a voice exultant over the prospect offreedom. "I'll tell it all. I wanted money. The girl I meant to havewas goin' with somebody else, an' I'd got to scrape together somemoney, quick. I burnt down my house an' barn. I got the insurancemoney. I sent some of it out West, to put into that furniture business, an' Dan Forbes has made way with it. I only kept enough to take Rosaan' me out there. I'll give up that, an' go to jail; an' if the Lordspares my life, when I come out I'll pay it back, principal an'int'rest. "

Molly gave one little moan, and buried her face in her hands. Theparson and Dilly rose, by one impulse, and went forward to Elvin, whosat upright, trembling from excitement past. Dilly reached him first. She put both her hands on his forehead, and smoothed back his hair. 

"Dear heart, " she said, in a voice thrilled through by music, --"dearheart! I was abroad that night, watchin' the stars, an' I see it all. Isee ye do it. You done it real clever, an' I come nigh hollerin' out toye, I was so pleased, when I see you was determined to save thelivestock. An' that barn-cat, dear, that old black Tom that's ketchedmy chickens so long!--you 'most broke your neck to save him. But Inever should ha' told, dear, never! 'specially sence you got out thecreatur's. "

"And 'in Christ shall all be made alive!'" said the parson, wiping hiseyes, and then beginning to pat Elvin's hand with both his own. "Now, what shall we do? What shall we do? Why not come home with me, and stayover night? My dear wife will be glad to see you. And the morning willbring counsel. "

Elvin had regained a fine freedom of carriage, and a decision of tonelong lost to him. He was dignified by the exaltation of the moment. 

"I've got it all fixed, " he said, like a man. "I thought it all outunder that elm-tree, today. You drive me over to Sheriff Holmes's, an'he'll tell me what's right to do, --whether I'm to go to the insurancepeople, or whether I'm to be clapped into jail. He'll know. It's out o'my hands. I'll go an' harness now. "

Parson True drew Molly forward from her corner, and held her hand, while he took Elvin's, and motioned Dilly to complete the circle. 

"Jesus Christ be with us!" he said, solemnly. "God, our Father, help usto love one another more and more tenderly because of our sins!"

While Elvin was harnessing, a dark figure came swiftly through themoonlight. 

"Elvin, " whispered Molly, sharply. "O Elvin, I can't bear it! You takewhat money you've got, an' go as fur as you can. Then you work, an'I'll work, an' we'll pay 'em back. What good will it do, for you to goto jail? Oh, what good will it do!"

"Poor little Molly!" said he. "You do care about me, don't you? Isha'n't forget that, wherever I am. "

Molly came forward, and threw her arms about him passionately. 

"Go! go!" she whispered, fiercely. "Go now! I'll drive you some'er'san' bring the horse back. Don't wait! I don't want a hat. "

Elvin smoothed her hair. 

"No, " said he, gravely, "you'll see it different, come mornin'. Thethings of this world ain't everything. Even freedom ain't everything. There's somethin' better. Good-by, Molly. I don't know how long asentence they give; but when they let me out, I shall come an' tell youwhat I think of you for standin' by. Parson True!"

The parson came out, and Dilly followed. When the two men were seatedin the wagon, she bent forward, and laid her hand on Elvin's, as itheld the reins. 

"Don't you be afraid, " she said, lovingly. "If they shet ye up, youremember there ain't nothin' to be afraid of but wrong-doin', an'that's only a kind of a sickness we al'ays git well of. An' GodA'mighty's watchin' over us all the time. An' if you've sp'iled yourchance in this life, don't you mind. There's time enough. Plenty o'time, you says to yourself, plenty!"

She drew back, and they drove on. Molly, in heart-sick sobbing, threwherself forward into the little woman's arms, and Dilly held her withan unwearied cherishing. 

"There, there, dear!" she said, tenderly. "Ain't it joyful to thinkhe's got his soul out o' prison, where he shet it up? He's all freenow. It's jest as if he was born into a new world, to begin all over. "

"But, Dilly, I love him so! An' I can't do anything! not a thing! ODilly, yes! yes! Oh, it's little enough, but I could! I could save myshoe-shop money, an' help him pay his debt, when he's out o' jail. "

"Yes, " said Dilly, joyously. "An' there's more'n that you can do. Youcan keep him in your mind, all day long, an' all night long, an' yoursperit'll go right through the stone walls, if they put him there, an'cheer him up. 

"He won't know how, but so it'll be, dear, so it'll be. Folks don't knowwhy they're uplifted sometimes, when there ain't no cause; but _I_ sayit's other folks's love. Now you come in, dear, an' we'll make thebed--it's all aired complete--an' then we'll go to sleep, an' see if wecan't dream us a nice, pleasant dream, --all about green gardins, an'the folks we love walking in the midst of 'em!"

BANKRUPT

Miss Dorcas True stood in her square front entry, saying good-by toPhoebe Marsh. The entry would have been quite dark from itstime-stained woodwork and green paper, except for the twilight glimmerswaying and creeping through the door leading into the garden. Outthere were the yellow of coreopsis, and the blue of larkspur, meltedinto a dim magnificence of color, suffusing all the air; to one whoknew what common glory was a-blowing and a-growing there without, thebare seclusion of the house might well seem invaded by it, like aheavenly flood. Phoebe, too, in her pink calico, appeared to spreadabroad the richness of her youth and bloom, and radiate a certain lightabout her where she stood. She was tall, her proportions were ample, and her waist very trim. She had the shoulders and arms of the women ofan elder time, whom we classify vaguely now as goddesses. The Tivertonvoices argued that she would have been "real handsome if she'd had anysense about doin' her hair;" which was brought down loosely over herears, in the fashion of her Aunt Phoebe's miniature. Miss Dorcas besideher looked like one of autumn's brown, quiescent stems left standing bythe way. She was firmly built, yet all her lines subdued themselves tothat meagreness which ever dwells afar from beauty. The deep marks ofhard experience had been graven on her forehead, and her dark eyesburned inwardly; the tense, concentrated spark of pain and the glowingof happy fervor seemed as foreign to them as she herself to all thelighter joys and hopes. Her only possibility of beauty lay in anabundance of soft dark hair; but even that had been restricted andcoiled into a compact, utilitarian compass. She had laid one nervoushand on Phoebe's arm, and she grasped the arm absently, from time totime, in talking, with unconscious joy in its rounded warmth. She spokecautiously, so that her voice might not be heard within. 

"Then you come over to-morrow, after the close of service, if it'sconvenient. You can slip right into the kitchen, just as usual. Anynews?"

Phoebe, too, lowered her voice, but the full sweetness of its qualitythrilled out. 

"Mary Frances Giles is going to be married next week. I've been down tosee her things. She's real pleased. "

"You don't suppose they'll ask father to marry 'em?" Miss Dorcas spokequite eagerly. 

"Oh, no, they can't! It's a real wedding, you know. It's got to be atthe house. "

"Yes, of course it's got to! I knew that myself, but I couldn't helphoping. Well, goodnight. You come Sunday. "

Phoebe lifted her pink skirts about her, and stepped, rustling andstately, down the garden walk. Miss Dorcas drew one deep breath of theouter fragrance, and turned back into the house. A thin voice, enfeebled and husky from old age, rose in the front room, as sheentered:

"Dorcas! Dorcas! you had a caller?"

Her father, old Parson True, lay in the great bed opposite the window. A thin little twig of a man, he was still animated, at times, by thepower of a strenuous and dauntless spirit. His hair, brushed straightback from the overtopping forehead, had grown snowy white, and theeager, delicate face beneath wore a strange pathos from the veryfineness of its nervously netted lines. Not many years after his wife'sdeath, the parson had shown some wandering of the wits; yet hisdisability, like his loss, had been mercifully veiled from him. He tookcalmly to his bed, perhaps through sheer lack of interest in life, andit became his happy invention that he was "not feeling well, " from oneday to another, but that, on the next Sunday, he should rise andpreach. He seemed like an unfortunate and uncomplaining child, and thevillage folk took pride in him as something all their own; a prideenhanced by his habit, in this weak estate, of falling back into thehomely ways of speech he had used long ago when he was a boy "on thefarm. " In his wife's day, he had stood in the pulpit above them, andexpounded scriptural lore in academic English; now he lapsed into theirown rude phrasing, and seemed to rest content in a tranquil certaintythat nothing could be better than Tiverton ways and Tiverton's homelyspeech. 

"Dorcas, " he repeated, with all a child's delight in his owncleverness, "you've had somebody here. I heard ye!"

Dorcas folded the sheet back over the quilt, and laid her hand on hishair, with all the tenderness of the strong when they let themselvesbrood over the weak. 

"Only Phoebe, on her way home, " she answered, gently. "The doctorvisited her school to-day. She thinks he may drop in to see youto-night. I guess he give her to understand so. "

The minister chuckled. 

"Ain't he a smart one?" he rejoined. "Smart as a trap! Dorcas, I 'ain'tfinished my sermon. I guess I shall have to preach an old one. You layme out the one on the salt losin' its savor, an' I'll look it over. "

"Yes, father. "

The same demand and the same answer, varied but slightly, had beenexchanged between them every Saturday night for years. Dorcas repliednow without thinking. Her mind had spread its wings and flown out intothe sweet stillness of the garden and the world beyond; it evenhastened on into the unknown ways of guesswork, seeking for one whoshould be coming. She strained her ears to hear the beating of hoofsand the rattle of wheels across the little, bridge. The dusk sifted inabout the house, faster and faster; a whippoorwill cried from thewoods. So she sat until the twilight had vanished, and another of theinvisible genii was at hand, saying, "I am Night. "

"Dorcas!" called the parson again. He had been asleep, and seemed nowto be holding himself back from a broken dream. "Dorcas, has yourmother come in yet?"

"No, father. "

"Well, you wake me up when you see her down the road; and then you goan' carry her a shawl. I dunno what to make o' that cough!" His voicetrailed sleepily off, and Dorcas rose and tiptoed out of the room. Shefelt the blood in her face; her ears thrilled noisily. The doctor's, wagon, had crossed the bridge; now it was whirling swiftly up the road. She stationed herself in the entry, to lose no step in his familiarprogress. The horse came lightly along, beating out a pleasant tune ofeasy haste. He was drawn up at the gate, and the doctor threw out hisweight, and jumped buoyantly to the ground. There was the brief pauseof reaching for his medicine-case, and then, with that firm step whoserhythm she knew so well, he was walking up the path. Involuntarily, asDorcas awaited him, she put her hand to her heart with one of thosegestures that seem so melodramatic and are so real; she owned toherself, with a throb of appreciative delight, how the sick must warmat his coming. This new doctor of Tiverton was no younger than Dorcasherself, yet with his erect carriage and merry blue eye she seemed tobe not only of another temperament, but another time. It had neverstruck him that they were contemporaries. Once he had told Phoebe, in aburst of affection and pitying praise, that he should have liked MissDorcas for a maiden aunt. 

"Good evening, " he said, heartily, one foot on the sill. "How's thepatient?"

At actual sight of him, her tremor vanished, and she answered veryquietly, --

"Father's asleep. I thought you wouldn't want he should be disturbed;so I came out. "

The doctor took off his hat, and pushed back his thick, unruly hair. 

"Yes, that was right, " he said absently, and pinched a spray ofsouthernwood that grew beside the door. "How has he seemed?"

"About as usual. "

"You've kept on with the tonic?"

"Yes. "

"That's good! Miss Dorcas, look up there. See that moon! See that wispof an old blanket dragging over her face! Do you mind coming out andwalking up and down the road while we talk? I may think of one or twodirections to give about your father. "

Dorcas stepped forward with the light obedience given to happy tasking. She paused as! quickly. 

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I can't. Father might wake up. I never leave himalone. "

"Never mind, then! let's sit right down here on the steps. After all, perhaps it's pleasanter. What a garden! It's like my mother's. I couldpick out every leaf in the dark, by the smell. But you're alone, aren'tyou? I'm not keeping you from any one?"

"Oh, no! I'm all alone, except father. "

"Yes. The fact is, I went into your school to-day, and the teacher saidshe was coming here to-night. She offered to bring you a message, but Isaid I should come myself. I'm abominably late. I couldn't get here anyearlier. "

"Oh, yes! Phoebe! She was here over an hour ago. Phoebe's a realcomfort to me. " She was seated on the step above him, and it seemedvery pleasant to her to hear his voice, without encountering also thechallenge of his eyes. 

"No, is she though?" The doctor suddenly faced round upon her. "Tell meabout it!"

Then, quite to her surprise, Dorcas found herself talking under thespell of an interest so eager that it bore her on, entirely without herown guidance. 

"Well, you see there's a good many things I keep from father. Henever's been himself since mother died. She was the mainstay here. Buthe thinks the church prospers just the same, and I never've told himthe attendance dropped off when they put up that 'Piscopal buildingover to Sudleigh. You 'ain't lived here long enough to hear much aboutthat, but it's been a real trial to him. The summer boarders built it, and some rich body keeps it up; and our folks think it's complete to goover there and worship, and get up and down, and say their prayers outloud. "

The doctor laughed out. 

"I've heard about it, " said he. "You know what Brad Freeman told UncleEli Pike, when they went in to see how the service was managed?Somebody found the places in the prayer-book for them, and Brad wasquick-witted, and got on very well; but Eli kept dropping behind. Bradnudged him. 'Read!' he said out loud. 'Read like the devil!' I've heardthat story on an average of twice a day since I came to Tiverton. I'mnot tired of it yet!"

Miss Dorcas, too, had heard it, and shrunk from its undisguisedprofanity. Now she laughed responsively. 

"I guess they do have queer ways, " she owned. "Well, I never let fatherknow any of our folks go over there. He'd be terrible tried. And I'vemade it my part in our meeting to keep up the young folks' interest asmuch as I can. I've been careful never to miss my Sunday-school class. They're all girls, nice as new pins, every one of 'em! Phoebe was in ittill a little while ago, but now she comes here and sits in the kitchenwhile I'm gone. I don't want father to know that, for I hope itnever'll come into his head he's so helpless; but I should be worriedto death to have him left alone. So Phoebe sits there with her book, ready to spring if she should hear anything out o' the way. "

The doctor had lapsed into his absent mood, but now he roused himself, with sudden interest. 

"That's very good of her, isn't it?" he said "You trust her, don'tyou?"

"Trust Phoebe! Well, I guess I do! I've known her ever since she wentto Number Five, and now she's keeping the school herself. She's a realnoble girl!"

"Tell me more!" said the doctor, warmly. "I want to hear it all. You're so new to me here in Tiverton! I want to get acquainted. "

Miss Dorcas suddenly felt as if she had been talking a great deal, andan overwhelming shyness fell upon her. 

"There isn't much to tell, " she hesitated. "I don't know's anything'dhappened to me for years, till father had his ill-turn in the spring, and we called you in. He don't seem to realize his sickness wasanything much. I've told the neighbors not to dwell on it when they'rewith him. Phoebe won't; she's got some sense. "

"Has she?" said the doctor, still eagerly. "I'm glad of that, for yoursake!" He rose to go, but stood a moment near the steps, dallying witha reaching branch of jessamine; it seemed persuading him to stay. Hehad always a cheery manner, but to-night it was brightened by a dash ofsomething warm and reckless. He had the air of one awaiting good news, in confidence of its coming. Dorcas was alive to the rapt contagion, and her own blood thrilled. She felt young. 

"Well!" said he, "well, Miss Dorcas!" He took a step, and then turnedback. "Well, Miss Dorcas, " he said again, with an embarrassed laugh, "perhaps you'd like to gather in one more church-goer. If I have timetomorrow, I'll drop in to your service, and then I'll come round here, and tell your father I went. "

Dorcas rose impulsively. She could have stretched out her hands to him, in the warmth of her gratitude. 

"Oh, if you would! Oh, how pleased he'd be!"

"All right!" Now he turned away with decision. "Thank you, Miss Dorcas, for staying out. It's a beautiful evening. I never knew such a June. Good-night!" He strode down the walk, and gave a quick word to hishorse, who responded in whinnying welcome. An instant's delay, anotherword, and they were gone. 

Dorcas stood listening to the scatter of hoofs down the dusty road andover the hollow ledge. She sank back on the sill, and, step by step, tried to retrace the lovely arabesque the hour had made. At last, shehad some groping sense of the full beauty of living, when friendshipsays to its mate, "Tell me about yourself!" and the frozen fountainwells out, every drop cheered and warmed, as it falls, in the sunshineof sympathy. She saw in him that perfection of life lying in strength, which he undoubtedly had, and beauty, of which he had little or muchaccording as one chose to think well of him. To her aching sense, hewas a very perfect creature, gifted with, infinite capacities for helpand comfort. 

But the footfalls ceased, and the garden darkened by delicate yet swiftdegrees; a cloud had gone over the moon, fleecy, silver-edged, butstill a cloud. The waning of the light seemed to her significant; shefeared lest some bitter change might befall the moment; and went in, bolting the door behind her. Once within her own little bedroom, sheloosened her hair, and moved about aimlessly, for a time, careless ofsleep, because it seemed so far. Then a sudden resolve nerved her, andshe stole back again to the front door, and opened it. The night wasblossoming there, glowing now, abundant. It was so rich, so full! Themoonlight here, and star upon star above, hidden not by clouds but bythe light! Need she waste this one night out of all her unregardedlife? She stepped forth among the flower-beds, stooping, in apassionate fervor, to the blossoms she could reach; but, coming back tothe southernwood, she took it in her arms. She laid her face upon it, and crushed the soft leaves against her cheeks. It made all the worldsmell of its own balm and dew. The fragrance and beauty of the timepassed into her soul, and awakened corners there all unused to suchsweet incense. She was drunken with the wine that is not of grapes. Shecould not have found words for the passion that possessed her, thoughshe hugged it to her heart like another self; but it was elemental, springing from founts deeper than those of life and death. God made it, and, like all His making, it was divine. She sat there, thesouthernwood still gathered into her arms, and at last emotion stilleditself, and passed into thought; a wild temptation rose, and with itsfirst whisper drove a hot flush into her cheeks, and branded it there. Love! she had never named the name in its first natal significance. Shehad scarcely read it; for romance, even in books, had passed her by. But love! she knew it as the insect knows how to spread his newsun-dried wings in the air for which he was create. Sitting there, in ahappy drowse, she thought it all out. She was old, plain, unsought; theman she exalted was the flower of his kind. He would never look on heras if she might touch the hem of wifehood's mantle; so there would beno shame in choosing him. Just to herself, she might name the GreatName. He would not know. Only her own soul would know, and God who gaveit, and sent it forth fitted with delicate, reaching tentacles to touchthe rock set there to wound them. She began to feel blindly that Godwas not alone the keeper of eternal Sabbaths, but the germinant heat atthe heart of the world. If she were a young girl, like Phoebe, therewould be shame. Even a thought of him would be a stretching forth herhand to touch him, saying, "Look at me! I am here!" but for her it wasquite different. It would be like a dream, some grandmother dreamed inthe sun, of rosy youth and the things that never came to pass. No onewould be harmed, and the sleeper would have garnered one hour's joybefore she took up her march again on the lonesomest road of all, --solonesome, although it leads us, home! Thus she thought, half sleeping, until the night-dews clung in drops upon her hair; then she went in tobed, still wrapped about with the drapery of her dreams. 

Next morning, when Dorcas carried in her father's breakfast, she walkedwith a springing step, and spoke in a voice so full and fresh it madeher newly glad. 

"It's a nice day, father! There'll be lots of folks out to meeting. "

"That's a good girl!" This was his commendation, from hour to hour; itmade up the litany of his gratitude for what she had been to him. "ButI dunno's I feel quite up to preachin' to-day, Dorcas!"

"That'll be all right, father. We'll get somebody. "

"You bring me out my sermon-box after breakfast, an' I'll pick outone, " said he, happily. "Deacon Tolman can read it. "

But, alas! Deacon Tolman had been dead this many a year!

A little later, the parson sat up in bed, shuffling his manuscriptabout with nervous hands, and Dorcas, in the kitchen, stood washing herbreakfast dishes. That eager interest in living still possessed her. She began humming, in a timid monotone. Her voice had the clearness oftruth, with little sweetness; and she was too conscious of itsinadequacy to use it in public, save under the compelling force ofconscience. Hitherto, she had only sung in Sunday-school, moved, as ineverything, by the pathetic desire of "doing her part;" but thismorning seemed to her one for lifting the voice, though not in Sundayphrasing. After a little thought, she began thinly and sweetly, --

 "Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a maid sing in the valley below: 'O don't deceive me! O never leave me How could you use a poor maiden so?'"

A gruff voice from the, doorway broke harshly in upon a measure. 

"Yes! yes! Well! well! Tunin' up a larrady, ain't ye?"

Dorcas knew who it was, without turning round, --a dark, squat woman, broad all over; broad in the hips, the waist, the face, and stampedwith the race-mark of high cheekbones. Her thick, straight black hairwas cut "tin-basin style;" she wore men's boots, and her petticoatswere nearly up to her knees. 

"Good morning, Nancy!" called Dorcas, blithely, wringing out herdishcloth. "Come right in, and sit down. "

Nance Pete (in other words, Nancy the wife of Pete, whose surname wasunknown) clumped into the room, and took a chair by the hearth. Shedrew forth a short black pipe, looked into it discontentedly, and thensat putting her thumb in and out of the bowl. 

"You 'ain't got a mite o' terbacker about ye? Hey what?" she asked. 

Dorcas had many a time been shocked at the same demand. This morning, something humorous about it struck her, and she laughed. 

"You know I haven't, Nancy Pete! Did you mend that hole in your skirt, as I told you?"

Nance laboriously drew a back breadth of her coarse plaid skirt roundto the front, and displayed it, without a word. A three-cornered tearof the kind known as a barn-door had been treated by tying a whitestring well outside it, and gathering up the cloth, like a bag. Dorcas's sense of fitness forbade her to see anything humorous in sooriginal a device. She stood before the woman in all the moralexcellence of a censor fastidiously clad. 

"O Nancy Pete!" she exclaimed. "How could you?"

Nance put her cold pipe in her mouth, and began sucking at theunresponsive stem. 

"You 'ain't got a bite of anything t' eat, have ye?" she asked, indifferently. 

Dorcas went to the pantry, and brought forth pie, doughnuts and cheese, and a dish of cold beans. The coffee-pot was waiting on the stove. Onewould have said the visitor had been expected. Nance rose and trampedover to the table. But Dorcas stood firmly in the way. 

"No, Nancy, no! You wait a minute! Are you going to meeting to-day?"

"I 'ain't had a meal o' victuals for a week!" remarked Nance, addressing no one in particular. 

"Nancy, are you going to meeting?"

"Whose seat be I goin' to set in?" inquired Nance, rebelliously, yetwith a certain air of capitulation. 

"You can sit in mine. Haven't you sat there for the last five years?Now, Nancy, don't hinder me!"

"Plague take it, then! I'll go!"

At this expected climax, Dorcas stood aside, and allowed her visitor toserve herself with beans. When Nance's first hunger had been satisfied, she began a rambling monologue, of an accustomed sort to which Dorcasnever listened. 

"I went down to peek into the Poorhouse winders, this mornin'. Therethey all sut, like rats in a trap. 'Got ye, 'ain't they?' says I. OldSal Flint she looked up, an' if there'd been a butcher-knife handy, Iguess she'd ha' throwed it. 'It's that Injun!' says she to Mis' Giles. 'Don't you take no notice!' 'I dunno's I'm an Injun, ' says I, 'I dunnohow much Injun I be. I can't look so fur back as that. I dunno'sthere's any more Injun in me than there is devil in you!' I says. An'then the overseer he come out, an' driv' me off. 'You won't git me inthere, ' says I to him, 'not so long's I've got my teeth to chawsassafras, an' my claws to dig me a holler in the ground!' But when Icome along, he passed me on the road, an' old Sal Flint sut up by himon the seat, like a bump on a log. I guess he was carryin' her over tothat Pope-o'-Rome meetin' they've got over to Sudleigh. "

Dorcas turned about, in anxious interest. 

"Oh, I wonder if he was! How _can_ folks give up their own meeting forthat?"

Nance pushed her chair back from the table. 

"Want to see all kinds, I s'pose, " she said, slyly. "Guess I'll try itmyself, another Sunday!"

"Anybody to home?" came a very high and wheezy voice from the doorway. Dorcas knew that also, and so did Nance Pete. 

"It's that old haddock't lives up on the mountain, " said the latter, composedly, searching in her pocket, and then pulling out a stray bitof tobacco and pressing it tenderly into her pipe. 

An old man, dressed in a suit of very antique butternut clothes, stoodat the sill, holding forward a bunch of pennyroyal. He was weazened anddry; his cheeks were parchment color, and he bore the look of an activeyet extreme old age. He was totally deaf. Dorcas advanced toward him, taking a bright five-cent piece from her pocket. She held it out tohim, and he, in turn, extended the pennyroyal; but before taking it, she went through a solemn pantomime. She made a feint of accepting theherb, and then pointed to him and to the road. 

"Yes, yes!" said the old man, irritably. "Bless ye! of course I'm goin'to meetin'. I'll set by myself, though! Yes, I will! Las' Sunday, I setwith Jont Marshall, an' every time I sung a note, he dug into me withhis elbow, till I thought I should ha' fell out the pew-door. My voiceis jest as good as ever 'twas, an' sixty-five year ago come spring, Ibegun to set in the seats. "

The coin and pennyroyal changed ownership, and he tottered away, chattering to himself in his senile fashion. 

"Look here, you!" he shouted back, his hand on the gate. "Heerdanything o' that new doctor round here? Well, he's been a-pokin' intomy ears, an' I guess he'd ha' cured me, if anybody could. You know Idon't hear so well's I used to. He went a-peekin' an' a-pryin' round myears, as if he'd found a hornet's nest. I dunno what he see there; Iknow he shook his head. I guess we shouldn't ha' got no such a man tosettle down here if he wa'n't so asthmy he couldn't git along where hewas. That's the reason he come, they say. He's a bright one!"

Dorcas left her sweeping, and ran out after him. For the moment, sheforgot his hopeless durance in fleshly walls. 

"Did he look at 'em?" she cried. "Did he? Tell me what he said!"

"Why, of course I don't hear no better yit!" answered old Simeon, testily, turning to stump away, "but that ain't no sign I sha'n't! He'sa beauty! I set up now, when he goes by, so's I can hear him when herides back. I put a quilt down in the fore-yard, an' when the groundtrimbles a mite, I git up to see if it's his hoss. Once I laid theretill 'leven. He's a beauty, he is!"

He went quavering down the road, and Dorcas ran back to the house, elated afresh. An unregarded old man could give him the poor treasureof his affection, quite unasked. Why should not she?

Nance was just taking her unceremonious leave. Her pockets bulged withdoughnuts, and she had wrapped half a pie in the Sudleigh "Star, "surreptitiously filched from the woodbox. 

"Well, I guess I'll be gittin' along towards meetin', " she said, in atone of unconcern, calculated to allay suspicion. "I'm in hopes to gita mite o' terbacker out o' Hiram Cole, if he's settin' lookin' at hispigs, where he is 'most every Sunday. I'll have a smoke afore I go in. "

"Don't you be late!"

"I'm a-goin' in late, or not at all!" answered Nance, contradictorily. "My bunnit ain't trimmed on the congregation side, an' I want to give'em a chance to see it all round. I'm a-goin' up the aisle complete!"

Dorcas finished her work, and, having tidied her father's room, satdown by his bedside for the simple rites that made their Sabbath holy. With the first clanging stroke of the old bell, not half a mile away, they fell into silence, waiting reverently through the necessary pausefor allowing the congregation to become seated. Then they went throughthe service together, from hymn and prayer to the sermon. The parsonhad his manuscript ready, and he began reading it, in the pulpit-voiceof his prime. At that moment, some of his old vigor came back to him, and he uttered the conventional phrases of his church with consciouspower; though so little a man, he had always a sonorous delivery. Aftera page or two, his hands began to tremble, and his voice sank. 

"You read a spell, Dorcas, " he whispered, in pathetic apology. "I'llrest me a minute. " So Dorcas read, and he listened. Presently he fellasleep, and she still went on, speaking the words mechanically, andbusy with her own tumultuous thoughts. Amazement possessed her that theworld could be so full of joy to which she had long been deaf. Shecould hear the oriole singing in the elm; his song was almostarticulate. The trees waved a little, in a friendly fashion, throughthe open windows; friendly in the unspoken kinship of green things toour thought, yet remote in their own seclusion. One tall, delicatelocust, gowned in summer's finest gear, stirred idly at the top, as ifthrough an inward motion, untroubled by the wind. Dorcas's mind soughtout the doctor, listening to the sermon in her bare little church, andshe felt quite content. She had entered the first court of love, wherea spiritual possession is enough, and asks no alms of bodily nearness. When she came to the end of the sermon, her hands fell in her lap, andshe gave herself up without reserve to the idle delight of satisfieddreaming. The silence pressed upon her father, and he opened his eyeswide with the startled look of one who comprehends at once therequirements of time and place. Then, in all solemnity, he put forthhis hands; and Dorcas, bending her head, received the benediction forthe congregation he would never meet again. She roused herself to bringin his beef-tea, and at the moment of carrying away the tray, a stepsounded on the walk. She knew who it was, and smiled happily. Thelighter foot keeping pace beside it, she did not hear. 

"Dorcas, " said her father, "git your bunnit. It's time forSunday-school. "

"Yes, father. "

The expected knock came at the door. She went forward, tying on herbonnet, and her cheeks were pink. The doctor stood on the doorstone, and Phoebe was with him. He smiled at Dorcas, and put out his hand. This, according to Tiverton customs, was a warm demonstration at someaningless a moment; it seemed a part of his happy friendliness. Itwas Phoebe who spoke. 

"I'll stay outside while the doctor goes in. I can sit down here on thestep. Your father needn't know I am here any more than usual. I toldthe doctor not to talk, coming up the walk. "

The doctor smiled at her. Phoebe looked like a rose in her Sundaywhite, and the elder woman felt a sudden joy in her, untouched by envyof her youth and bloom. Phoebe only seemed a part of the beautiful newlaws to which the world was freshly tuned, Dorcas coveted nothing; sheenvied nobody. She herself possessed all, in usurping her one richkingdom. 

"All right, " she said. "The doctor can step in now, and see father. I'll hurry back, as soon as Sunday-school is over. " She walked away, glancing happily at the flowers on either side of the garden-path. Shewanted to touch all their leaves, because, last night, he had praisedthem. 

Returning, when her hour was over, she walked very fast; her heart waswaking into hunger, and she feared he might be gone. But he was there, sitting on the steps beside Phoebe, and when the gate swung open, theydid not hear. Phoebe's eyes were dropped, and she was poking herparasol into the moss-encrusted path; the doctor was looking into herface, and speaking quite eagerly. He heard Dorcas first, and sprang up. His eyes were so bright and forceful in the momentary gleam of meetinghers, that she looked aside, and tried to rule her quickening breath. 

"Miss Dorcas, " said he, "I'm telling this young lady she mustn't forgetto eat her dinner at school. I find she quite ignores it, if she hassums to do, or blots to erase. Why, it's shocking. "

"Of course she must eat her dinner!" said Dorcas, tenderly. "Why, yes, of course! Phoebe, do as he tells you. He knows. "

Phoebe blushed vividly. 

"Does he?" she answered, laughing. "Well, I'll see. Good-by, MissDorcas. I'll come in for Friday night meeting, if I don't before. Good-by. "

"I'll walk along with you, " said the doctor. "If you'll let me, " headded, humbly. 

Phoebe turned away with a little toss of her head, and he turned, too, breaking a sprig of southernwood. Dorcas was glad to treasure the lastsight of him putting to his lips the fragrant herb she had bruised forhis sake. It seemed to carry over into daylight the joy of the richernight; it was like seeing the silken thread on which her pearls werestrung. She called to them impetuously, --

"Pick all the flowers you want to, both of you!" Then she went in, butshe said aloud to herself, "They're all for you--" and she whisperedhis name. 

"Dorcas, " said her father, "the doctor's been here quite a spell. Hesays there was a real full meetin. ' Even Nancy Pete, Dorcas! I feel asif my ministration had been abundantly blessed. "

Then, in that strangest summer in Dorcas's life, time seemed to standstill. The happiest of all experiences had befallen her; not asuccession of joys, but a permanent delight in one unchanging mood. Theevening of his coming had been the first day; and the evening and themorning had ever since been the same in glory. He came often, sometimeswith Phoebe, sometimes alone; and, being one of the men on whom womenespecially lean, Dorcas soon found herself telling him all the poortrials of her colorless life. Nothing was too small for his notice. Heliked her homely talk of the garden and the church, and once gave up anhour to spading a plot where she wanted a new round bed. Dorcas hadmeant to put lilies there, but she remembered he lovedladies'-delights; so she gathered them all together from the nooks andcorners of the garden, and set them there, a sweet, old-fashionedcompany. "That's for thoughts!" She took to wearing flowers now, notfor the delight of him who loved them, but merely as a part of hersecret litany of worship. She slept deeply at night, and woke with calmcontent, to speak one name in the way that forms a prayer. He was herone possession; all else might be taken away from her, but the feelinginhabiting her heart must live, like the heart itself. 

By the time September had yellowed all the fields, there came a weekwhen Phoebe's aunt, down at the Hollow, was known to be very ill; soPhoebe no longer came to care for the parson through the Sunday-schoolhour. But the doctor appeared, instead. 

"I'm Phoebe, " he said, laughing, when Dorcas met him at the door. "Shecan't come; so I told her I'd take her place. "

These were the little familiar deeds which gilded his name among thepeople. Dorcas had been growing used to them. But on the' next Sundaymorning, when she was hurrying about her kitchen, making earlypreparations for the cold mid-day meal, a daring thought assailed her. Phoebe might come to-day, and if the doctor also dropped in, she wouldask them both to dinner. There was no reason for inviting him alone;besides, it was happier to sit by, leaving him to some one else. Thenthe two would talk, and she, with no responsibility, could listen andlook, and hug her secret joy. 

"I ain't a-goin' to meetin' to-day!" came Nance Pete's voice from thedoor. She stood there, smoking prosperously, and took out her pipe, with a jaunty motion, at the words. "I stopped at Kelup Rivers', on theway over, an' they gi'n me a good breakfast, an' last week, that youngdoctor gi'n me a whole paper o' fine-cut. I ain't a-goin' to meetin'!I'm goin' to se' down under the old elm, an' have a real good smoke. "

"O Nancy!" Dorcas had no dreams so happy that such an avalanche couldnot sweep them aside. "Now, do! Why, you don't want me to think you goto church just because I save you some breakfast!"

Nance turned away, and put up her chin to watch a wreath of smoke. 

"I dunno why I don't, " said she. "The world's nothin' but buy an' sell. You know it, an' I know it!' 'Tain't no use coverin' on't up. You heerdthe news? That old fool of a Sim Barker's dead. The doctor, sut up allnight with him, an' I guess now he's layin' on him out. I wouldn't ha'done it! I'd ha' wropped him up in his old coat, an' glad to git rid onhim! Well, he won't cheat ye out o' no more five-cent pieces, tosquander in terbacker. You might save 'em up for me, now he's donefor!" Nance went stalking away to the gate, flaunting a visible air offine, free enjoyment, the product of tobacco and a bright morning. Dorcas watched her, annoyed, and yet quite helpless; she was outwitted, and she knew it. Perhaps she sorrowed less deeply over the loss to herpensioner's immortal soul, thus taking holiday from spiritualdiscipline, than the serious problem involved in subtracting one fromthe congregation. Would a Sunday-school picnic constitute a bribe worthmentioning? Perhaps not, so far as Nance was concerned; but her ownclass might like it, and on that young blood she depended, to vivifythe church. 

A bit of pink came flashing along the country road. It was Phoebe, walking very fast. 

"Dear heart!" said Dorcas, aloud to herself, as the girl came hurriedlyup the path. She was no longer a pretty girl, a nice girl, as thecommendation went. Her face had gained an exalted lift; she wasbeautiful. She took Miss Dorcas by the arms, and laughed the laugh thatknows itself in the right, and so will not be shy. 

"Miss Dorcas, " she said, "I've got to tell you right out, or I can't doit at all. What should you say if I told you I was married?--to thedoctor?"

Dorcas looked at her as if she did not hear. 

"It's begun to get round, " went on Phoebe, "and I wanted to give youthe word myself. You see, auntie was sick, and when he was there somuch, she grew to depend on him, and one day, when we'd been engaged aweek, she said, why shouldn't we be married, and he come right to thehouse to live? He's only boarding, you know. And nothing to do but itmust be done right off, and so I--I said 'yes! And we were married, Thursday. Auntie's better, and O Miss Dorcas! I think we're going tohave a real good time together. " She threw her arms about Dorcas, andput down her shining brown head upon them. 

Dorcas tried to answer. When she did speak, her voice sounded thin andfaint, and she wondered confusedly if Phoebe could hear. 

"I didn't know--" she said. "I didn't know--"

"Why, no, of course not!" returned Phoebe, brightly. "Nobody did. You'dhave been the first, but I didn't want the engagement talked about tillauntie was better. Oh, I believe that's his horse's step! I'll run out, and ride home with him. You come, too, Miss Dorcas, and just say aword!"

Dorcas loosened the girl's arms about her, and, bending to the brighthead, kissed it twice. Phoebe, grown careless in her joy, ran down thewalk to stop the approaching wagon; and when she looked round, Dorcashad shut the door and gone in. She waited a moment for her to reappear, and then, remembering the doctor had had no breakfast, she stepped intothe wagon, and they drove happily away. 

Dorcas went to her bedroom, touching the walls, on the way, with hergroping hands. She sat down on the floor there, and rested her headagainst a chair. Once only did she rouse herself, and that was to gointo the kitchen and set away the great bowl of _blanc-mange_ she hadbeen making for dinner. She had not strained it all, and the sea-weedwas drying on the sieve. Then she went back into the bedroom, andpulled down the green slat curtains with a shaking hand. Twice herfather called her to bring his sermons, but she only answered, "Yes, father!" in dull acquiescence, and did not move. She was benumbed, sunken in a gulf of shame, too faint and cold to save herself bystruggling. Her poor innocent little fictions made themselves intolurid writings on her brain. She had called him hers while anotherwoman held his vows, and she was degraded. Her soul was wrecked astruly as if the whole world knew it, and could cry to her "Shame!" and"Shame!" The church-bells clanged out their judgment of her. A newthought awakened her to a new despair. She was not fit to teach inSunday-school any more. Her girls, her innocent, sweet girls! There wascontagion in her very breath. They must be saved from it; else whenthey were old women like her, some sudden vice of tainted blood mightrise up in them, no one would know why, and breed disease and shame. She started to her feet. Her knees trembling under her, she ran out ofthe house, and hid herself behind the great lilac-bush by the gate. 

Deacon Caleb Rivers came jogging past, late for church, but drivingnone the less moderately. His placid-faced wife sat beside him; andDorcas, stepping out to stop them, wondered, with a wild pang ofperplexity over the things of this world, if 'Mandy Rivers had everknown the feeling of death in the soul. Caleb pulled up. 

"I can't come to Sunday-school, to-day, " called Dorcas, stridently. "You tell them to give Phoebe my class. And ask her if she'll keep it. I sha'n't teach any more. "

"Ain't your father so well?" asked Mrs. Rivers, sympathetically, bending forward and smoothing her mitts. Dorcas caught at the reason. 

"I sha'n't leave him any more, " she said. "You tell 'em so. You fixit. "

Caleb drove on, and she went back into the house, shrinking under thebrightness of the air which seemed to quiver so before her eyes. Shewent into her father's room, where he was awake and wondering. 

"Seems to me I heard the bells, " he said, in his gentle fashion. "Orhave we had the 'hymns, an' got to the sermon?"

Dorcas fell on her knees by the bedside. 

"Father, " she began, with difficulty, her cheek laid on the bedclothesbeside his hand, "there was a sermon about women that are lost. Whatwas that?"

"Why, yes, " answered the parson, rousing to an active joy in his work. "'Neither do I condemn thee!' That was it. You git it, Dorcas! We mustremember such poor creatur's; though, Lord be praised! there ain't manyround here. We must remember an' pray for 'em. "

But Dorcas did not rise. 

"Is there any hope for them, father?" she asked, her voice muffled. "Can they be saved?"

"Why, don't you remember the poor creatur' that come here an' askedthat very question because she heard I said the Lord was pitiful? Herbaby was born out in the medder, an' died the next day; an' she got upout of her sickbed at the Poorhouse, an' come totterin' up here, to askif there was any use in her sayin', 'Lord, be merciful to me, asinner!' An' your mother took her in, an' laid her down on this verybed, an' she died here. An' your mother hil' her in her arms when shedied. You ask her if she didn't!" The effort of continuous talkingwearied him, and presently he dozed off. Once he woke, and Dorcas wasstill on her knees, her head abased. "Dorcas!" he said, and sheanswered, "Yes, father!" without raising it; and he slept again. Thebell struck, for the end of service. The parson was awake. He stretchedout his hand, and it trembled a moment and then fell on his daughter'slowly head. 

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ--" the parson said, and wentclearly on to the solemn close. 

"Father, " said Dorcas. "Father!" She seemed to be crying to One afar. "Say the other verse, too. What He told the woman. "

His hand still on her head, the parson repeated, with a wistfultenderness stretching back over the past, --

"'Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more. '"

NANCY BOYD'S LAST SERMON

It was the lonesome time of the year: not November, that accomplishmentof a gracious death, but the moment before the conscious spring, whenwatercourses have not yet stirred in awakening, and buds are onlydreamed of by trees still asleep but for the sweet trouble within theirwood; when the air finds as yet no response to the thrill beginning tocreep where roots lie blind in the dark; when life is at the one dull, flat instant before culmination and movement. I had gone downpost-haste to my well-beloved Tiverton, in response to the news sent meby a dear countrywoman, that Nancy Boyd, whom I had not seen since mylong absence in Europe, was dying of "galloping consumption. " Nancywanted to bid me good-by. Hiram Cole met me, lean-jawed, dust-colored, wrinkled as of old, with the overalls necessitated by his "sleddin'" atleast four inches too short. Not the Pyramids themselves were suchpotent evidence that time may stand still, withal, as this lank, stooping figure, line for line exactly what it had been five yearsbefore. Hiram helped me into the pung, took his place beside me, andthrew a conversational "huddup" to the rakish-looking sorrel colt. Wedashed sluing away down the country road, and then I turned to look atmy old friend. He was steadfastly gazing at the landscape ahead, thewhile he passed one wiry hand over his face, to smooth out itsbroadening smile. He was glad to see me, but his private code ofdecorum forbade the betrayal of any such "shaller" emotion. 

"Well, Hiram, " I began, "Tiverton looks exactly the same, doesn't it?And poor Nancy, how is she?"

"Nancy's pretty low, " said Hiram, drawing his mitten over the hand thathad been used to iron out his smile, and giving critical attention tothe colt's off hind-leg. "She hil' her own all winter, but now, comespring, she's breakin' up mighty fast. They don't cal'late she'll livemore'n a day or two. "

"Her poor husband! How will he get along without her!"

Hiram turned upon me with vehemence. 

"Why, don't you know?" said he. "'Ain't nobody told ye? She 'ain't gotno husband. "

"What? Is the Cap'n dead?"

"Dead? Bless ye, he's divorced from Nancy, an' married another woman, two year ago come this May!"

I was amazed, and Hiram looked at me with the undisguised triumph ofone who has news to sell, be it good or bad. 

"But Nancy has written me!" I said. "She told me the neighborhoodgossip; why didn't she tell me that?"

"Pride, I s'pose, pride, " said Hiram. "You can't be sure how misery'llstrike folks. It's like a September gale; the best o' barns'll blowdown, an' some rickety shanty'll stan' the strain. But there! Nancy'shad more to bear from the way she took her troubles than from thetroubles themselves. Ye see, 'twas this way. Cap'n Jim had his ownreasons for wantin' to git rid of her, an' I guess there was a timewhen he treated her pretty bad. I guess he as good's turned her out o'house an' home, an' when he sued for divorce for desertion, she neversaid a word; an' he got it, an' up an' married, as soon as the law'dallow, Nancy never opened her head, all through it. She jest settleddown, with a bed an' a chair or two, in that little house she owneddown by Wilier Brook, an' took in tailorin' an' mendin'. One spell, shebound shoes. The whole town was with her till she begun carryin' onlike a crazed creatur', as she did arterwards. "

My heart sank. Poor Nancy! if she had really incurred the public scorn, it must have been through dire extremity. 

"Ye see, " Hiram continued, "folks were sort o' tried with her from thebeginnin'. You know what a good outfit she had from her mother'sside, --bureaus, an' beddin', an' everything complete? Well, she left itall right there in the house, for Jim to use, an' when he brought hisnew woman home, there the things set jest the same, an' he never said aword. I don't deny he ought to done different, but then, if Nancywouldn't look out for her own interests, you can't blame him so much, now can ye? But the capsheaf come about a year ago, when Nancy had asmart little sum o' money left her, --nigh onto a hunderd dollars. Jimhe'd got into debt, an' his oxen died, an' one thing an' another, hewas all wore out, an' had rheumatic fever; an' if you'll b'lieve it, Nancy she went over an' done the work, an' let his wife nuss him. Shewouldn't step foot into the bedroom, they said; she never see Jim once, but there she was, slavin' over the wash-tub and ironin'-board, --an' asfor that money, I guess it went for doctor's stuff an' what all, forJim bought a new yoke of oxen in the spring. "

"But the man! the other wife! how could they?"

"Oh, Jim's wife's a pretty tough-hided creatur', an' as for him, Ial'ays thought the way Nancy behaved took him kind o' by surprise, an'he had to give her her head, an' let her act her pleasure. But it madea sight o' town talk. Some say Nancy ain't quite bright to carry on so, an' the women-folks seem to think she's a good deal to blame, one wayor another. Anyhow, she's had a hard row to hoe. Here we be, an'there's Hannah at the foreroom winder. You won't think o' goin' over toNancy's till arter supper, will ye?"

When I sat alone beside Nancy's bed, that night, I had several sides ofher sad story in mind, but none of them lessened the dreariness of thetragedy. Before my brief acquaintance with her, Nancy was widely knownas a travelling-preacher, one who had "the power. " She must have been astrangely attractive creature, in those early days, alert, intense, gifted with such a magnetic reaching into another life that it mightwell set her aside from the commoner phases of a common day, andcrowned, as with flame, by an unceasing aspiration for the highest. Atthirty, she married a dashing sailor, marked by the sea, even to therings in his ears; and when I knew them, they were solidly comfortableand happy, in a way very reassuring to one who could understand Nancy'stemperament; for she was one of those who, at every step, are flungaside from the world's sharp corners, bruised and bleeding. 

As to the storm and shipwreck of her life, I learned no particularsessentially new. Evidently her husband had suddenly run amuck, eitherfrom the monotony of his inland days, or from the strange passion hehad conceived for a woman who was Nancy's opposite. 

That night, I sat in the poor, bare little room, beside the billowingfeather-bed where Nancy lay propped upon pillows, and gazing withbright, glad eyes into my face, one thin little hand clutching minewith the grasp of a soul who holds desperately to life. And yet Nancywas not clinging to life itself; she only seemed to be, because sheclung to love. 

"I'm proper glad to see ye, " she kept saying, "proper glad. "

We were quite alone. The fire burned cheerily in the kitchen stove, anda cheap little clock over the mantel ticked unmercifully fast; itseemed in haste for Nancy to be gone. The curtains were drawn, lest thethrifty window-plants should be frostbitten, and several tumblers ofjelly on the oilcloth-covered table bore witness that the neighbors hadput aside their moral scruples and their social delicacy, and weregiving of their best, albeit to one whose ways were not their ways. ButNancy herself was the centre and light of the room, --so frail, soclean, with her plain nightcap and coarse white nightgown, and thesmall checked shawl folded primly over her shoulders. Thin as she was, she looked scarcely older than when I had seen her, five years ago; yetsince then she had walked through a blacker valley than the one beforeher. 

"Now don't you git all nerved up when I cough, " she said, lying backexhausted after a paroxysm. "I've got used to it; it don't trouble meno more'n a mosquiter. I want to have a real good night now, talkin'over old times. "

"You must try to sleep, " I said. "The doctor will blame me, if I letyou talk. "

"No, he won't, " said Nancy, shrewdly. "He knows I 'ain't got much timeafore me, an' I guess he wouldn't deny me the good on't. That's why Isent for ye, dear; I 'ain't had anybody I could speak out to in fiveyear, an' I wanted to speak out, afore I died. Do you remember how youused to come over an' eat cold b'iled dish for supper, that last summeryou was down here?"

"Oh, don't I, Nancy! there never was anything like it. Such coldpotatoes--"

"B'iled in the pot-liquor!" she whispered, a knowing gleam in her blueeyes. "That's the way; on'y everybody don't know. An' do you rememberthe year we had greens way into the fall, an' I wouldn't tell you whatthey was? Well, I will, now; there was chickweed, an' pusley, an'mustard, an' Aaron's-rod, an' I dunno what all. "

"Not Aaron's-rod, Nancy! it never would have been so good!"

"It's truth an' fact! I b'iled Aaron's-rod, an' you eat it. That wasthe year Mis' Blaisdell was mad because you had so many meals over tomy house, an' said it was the last time she'd take summer boarders an'have the neighbors feed 'em. "

"They were good old days, Nancy!"

"I guess they were! yes, indeed, I guess so! Now, dear, I s'pose you'veheard what I've been through, sence you went away?"

I put the thin hand to my cheek. 

"Yes, " I said, "I have heard. "

"Well, now, I want to tell you the way it 'pears to me. You'll hear theneighbors' side, an' arter I'm gone, they'll tell you I wasunder-witted or bold. They've been proper good to me sence I've beensick, but law! what do they know about it, goin' to bed at nineo'clock, an' gittin' up to feed the chickens an' ride to meetin' withtheir husbands? No more'n the dead! An' so I want to tell ye my story, myself. Now, don't you mind my coughing dear! It don't hurt, to speakof, an' I feel better arter it. 

"Well, I dunno where to begin. The long an' short of it was, dear, James he got kind o' uneasy on land, an' then he was tried with me, an'then he told me, one night, when he spoke out, that he didn't careabout me as he used to, an' he never should, an' we couldn't live nolonger under the same roof. He was goin' off the next day to sea, or tothe devil, he said, so he needn't go crazy seein' Mary Ann Worthen'sface lookin' at him all the time. It ain't any use tryin' to tell how Ifelt. Some troubles ain't no more 'n a dull pain, an' some are likecuts an' gashes. You can feel your heart drop, drop, like water off theeaves. Mine dropped for a good while arter that. Well, you see I'd beenthrough the fust stages of it. I'd been eat up by jealousy, an' I'dslaved like a dog to git him back; but now it had got beyond suchfolderol. He was in terrible trouble, an' I'd got to git him out. An' Iguess 'twas then that I begun to feel as if I was his mother, instid ofhis wife. 'Jim, ' says I, (somehow I have to Say 'James, ' now we'reseparated!) 'don't you fret. I'll go off an' leave ye, an' you can getclear o' me accordin' to law, if you want to. I'm sure you can. Isha'n't care. ' He turned an' looked at me, as if I was crazed or he washimself, 'You won't care?' he says. 'No, ' says I, 'I sha'n't care. ' Isaid it real easy, for 'twas true. Somehow, I'd got beyond carin'. Myheart dropped blood, but I couldn't bear to have him in trouble. 'Theyal'ays told me I was cut out for an old maid, " I says, 'an' I guess Ibe. Housekeepin' 's a chore, anyway. You let all the stuff set righthere jest as we've had it, an' ask Cap'n Fuller to come an' bring hischist; an' I'll settle down in the Willer Brook house an' makebutton-holes. It's real pretty work. ' You see, the reason I was so highfor it was 't I knew if he went to sea, he'd git in with a swearin', drinkin' set, as he did afore, an' in them days such carryin's-on weredretful to me. If I'd known he'd marry, I dunno what course I shouldha' took; for nothin' could ha' made that seem right to me, arter allhad come and gone. But I jest thought how James was a dretful handy manabout the house, an' I knew he set by Cap'n Fuller. The Cap'n 'ain't noreal home, you know, an' I thought they'd admire to bach it together. "

"Did you ever wonder whether you had done right? Did you ever think itwould have been better for him to keep his promises to you? For him tobe unhappy?"

A shade of trouble crossed her face. 

"I guess I did!" she owned. "At fust, I was so anxious to git out o'his way, I never thought of anything else; but when I got settled downhere, an' had all my time for spec'latin' on things, I was a good dealput to 't whether I'd done the best anybody could. But I didn't reasonmuch, in them days; I jest felt. All was, I couldn't bear to have Jamestied to me when he'd got so's to hate me. Well, then he married--"

"Was she a good woman?"

"Good enough, yes; a leetle mite coarse-grained, but well-meanin' allthrough. Well, now, you know the neighbors blamed me for lettin' herhave my things. Why, bless you, I didn't need 'em! An' Jim had used 'emso many years, he'd ha' missed 'em if they'd been took away. Then henever was forehanded, an' how could he ha' furnished a house all overag'in, I'd like to know? The neighbors never understood. The amount ofit was, they never was put in jest such a place, any of 'em. "

"O Nancy, Nancy!" I said, "you cared for just one thing, and it wasgone. You didn't care for the tables and chairs that were left behind!"

Two tears came, and dimmed her bright blue eyes. Her firm, delicatemouth quivered. 

"Yes, " she said, "you see how 'twas. I knew you would. Well, arter hewas married, there was a spell when 'twas pretty tough. Sometimes Icouldn't hardly help goin' over there by night an' peekin' into thewinder, an' seein' how they got along. I went jest twice. The fust timewas late in the fall, an' she was preservin' pears by lamplight. Ilooked into the kitchin winder jest as she was bendin' over the stove, tryin' the syrup, an' he was holdin' the light for her to see. I dunnowhat she said, but 'twas suthin' that made 'em both laugh out, an' thenthey turned an' looked at one another, proper pleased. I dunno why, butit took right hold o' me, an' I started runnin' an' I never stoppedtill I got in, here an' onto my own bed. I thought 'twould ha' beenmassiful if death had took me that night, but I'm glad it didn't, dear, I'm glad it didn't! I shouldn't ha' seen ye, if it had, an' there's agood many things I shouldn't ha' had time to study out. You jest put amite o' cayenne pepper in that cup, an' turn some hot water on it. Itkind o' warms me up. "

After a moment's rest, she began again. 

"The next time I peeked was the last, for that night they'd had somewords, an' they both set up straight as a mack'rel, an' wouldn't speakto one another. That hurt me most of anything. I never've got over thefeelin' that I was James's mother, an' that night I felt sort o'bruised all through, as if some stranger'd been hurtin' him. So I neverwent spyin' on 'em no more. I felt as if I couldn't stan' it. But whenI went to help her with the work, that time he was sick, I guess theneighbors thought I hadn't any sense of how a right-feelin' woman oughtto act. I guess they thought I was sort o' coarse an' low, an' didn'trealize what I'd, been through. Dear, don't you never believe it. Thefeelin' that's between husband an' wife's like a live creatur', an'when he told me that night that he didn't prize me no more, he woundedit; an' when he married the other woman, he killed it dead. If he'd ha'come back to me then, an' swore he was the same man I married, I couldha' died for him, jest as I would this minute, but he never should ha'touched me. But suthin' had riz up in the place o' the feelin' I hadfust, so't I never could ha' helped doin' for him, any more'n if he'dbeen my own child. "

"'In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage!'"

"I guess that's it, " said Nancy. "On'y you have to live through a gooddeal afore you understand it. Well, now, dear, I'm nearin' the end. There's one thing that's come to me while I've been livin' throughthis, that I 'ain't never heard anybody mention; an' I want you toremember it, so's you can tell folks that are in great trouble, the wayI've been. I've been thinkin' on't out that there's jest so much ofeverything in the world, --so much gold, so much silver, so manydi'monds. You can't make no more nor no less. All you can do is to pass'em about from hand to hand, so't sometimes here'll be somebody that'srich, an' then it'll slip away from him, an' he'll be poor. Now, accordin' to my lights, it's jes' so with love. There's jest so much, an' when it's took away from you, an' passed over to somebody else, it's alive, it's there, same as ever it was. So 't you ain't goin' tosay it's all holler an' empty, this world. You're goin' to say, 'Well, it's som'er's, if 'tain't with me!'"

Nancy had straightened herself, without the support of her pillows. Hereyes were bright. A faint flush had come upon her cheeks. A doctorwould have told me that my devoted friendship had not saved me frombeing a wretched nurse. 

"My home was broke up, " she went on, "but there's a nice, pretty housethere jest the same. There's a contented couple livin' in it, an' whatif the wife ain't me? It ain't no matter. P'r'aps it's a lot betterthat somebody else should have it, somebody that couldn't git alongalone; an' not me, that can see the rights o' things. Jest so muchlove, dear--don't you forgit that--no matter where 'tis! An' Jamescould take his love away from me, but the Lord A'mighty himself can'ttake mine from him. An' so 'tis, the world over. You can al'ays lovefolks, an' do for 'em, even if your doin' 's only breakin' your heartan' givin' 'em up. An' do you s'pose there's any sp'ere o' life whereI sha'n't be allowed to do somethin' for James? I guess not, dear, Iguess not, even if it's only keepin' away from him. "

Nancy lived three days, in a state of delighted content with us and ourpoor ministrations; and only once did we approach the subject of thatsolemn night. As the end drew near, I became more and more anxious toknow if she had a wish unfulfilled, and at length I ventured to ask hersoftly, when we were alone, --

"Would you like to see him?"

Her bright eyes looked at me, in a startled way. 

"No, dear, no, " she said, evidently surprised that I could ask it. "Bless you, no!"

STROLLERS IN TIVERTON

In Tiverton, when reminiscences are in order, we go back to one veryrich year; then the circus and strolling players came to town, and theusual camp-meeting was followed by an epidemic of scarlet fever, whichmight have stood forth as the judgment of heaven, save that the newlyconverted were stricken first and undoubtedly fared hardest. Hiram Colesaid it was because they'd "got all their nerve-juice used up, hollerin' hallelujah. " But that I know not. This theory of nerve-juice, was a favorite one with Hiram: he contended that it had a powerful handin determining the results of presidential elections; and, indeed, inswaying the balance of power among the nations of the earth. 

Even in the early spring, there had been several cases of fever atSudleigh; and so, when the circus made application for a license totake possession of the town, according to olden custom, the publicauthorities very wisely refused. Tiverton, however, was wroth at thisarbitrary restriction. For more years than I can say, she had drivenover to Sudleigh "to see the caravan;" and now, through somecrack-brained theory of contagion, the caravan was to be barred out. Wenever really believed that the town-fathers had taken their highhandedmeasure on account of scarlet fever. We saw in it some occult politicalsignificance, and referred ominously to the butter we carried there onSaturdays, and to the possibility that, if they cast us off, aseparation might affect them far more seriously than it would us. Butto our loud-voiced delight, the caravan, finding that it was to bewithin hailing distance, and unwilling to pass on without furthertribute, extended the sceptre to Tiverton herself; and Brad Freemanjoyfully discussed the project of making a circus ground of his oldrace-course, which, he declared, he had purposed planting with tobacco. We never knew whether to believe this or not, though we had many timespreviously gone over Brad's calculation, by which he figured that hecould sell at least three tons of fine-cut from one summer's produce. To that specious logic, we always listened with unwilling admiration;but when we could shake off the glamour inseparable from a problem madeto come out right, we were accustomed to turn to one another, demandingwith cold scepticism, "Where'd he git his seed?"

In spite of the loss of this potential crop, however, Brad wasmagnanimously willing to let his field; and Tiverton held her headhigh, in the prospect of having a circus of her own. We intimated thatit would undoubtedly be fair weather, owing to our superior moraldesert as compared with that of Sudleigh, which was annually afflictedwith what had long been known as "circus-weather. " For Sudleigh hadsinned, and Nature was thenceforth deputed to pay her back, in good oldHebrew style. One circus-day--before the war, as I believe--Sudleighfenced up the spring in a corner of her grounds, and with a foolishthrift sold ice-water to the crowd, at a penny a glass. Tiverton wasfurious, and so, apparently, were the just heavens; for everycircus-day thereafter it rained, in a fashion calculated to urge anyforehanded Noah into immediate action. We of Tiverton never allowed ourneighbor to forget her criminal lapse. When, on circus-afternoon, wemet one of the rival township, dripping as ourselves, we said, with allthe cheerfulness of conscious innocence, --

"Water enough for everybody, to-day! Guess ye won't have to peddle noneout!"

"Seems to be comin' down pretty fast! You better build a platfoam overthat spring! Go hard with ye if't overflowed!"

Strange to say, Sudleigh seemed to regard these time-licensed remarkswith little favor; she even intimated that they smacked of the past, and were wearisome in her nostrils. But not for that did we halt intheir distribution. Moreover, we flaunted our domestic loyalty bypartaking of no Sudleigh fluid within the grounds. We carried tea, coffee, lemonade, milk, an ambitious variety of drinks, in order thateven our children might be spared the public disgrace of tastingSudleigh water; and it was a part of our excellent fooling to inviteevery Sudleighian to drink with us. Even the virtues, however, sparetheir votaries no pang; and in every family, this unbending fealtyresulted in the individual members' betaking themselves to the pump orwell, immediately on getting home, even before attempting to unharness. About five o'clock, on circus-afternoon, there would be a generalrumbling of buckets and creaking of sweeps, while a chorus rose toheaven, "My! I was 'most choked!"

But our _fête_-day dawned bright and speckless. We rose before threeo'clock, every man, woman and child of us, to see the procession comeinto town. It would leave the railway at Sudleigh, and we had a fainthope of its forming in regulation style, and sweeping into Tiverton, ablaze of glittering chariots surmounted by queens of beauty, of lazybeasts of the desert sulking in their cages, and dainty-steppinghorses, ridden by bold amazons. For a time, the expectation kept usbright and hopeful, although most of us had only taken a "cold bite"before starting; but as the eastern saffron pencilled one line of lightand the bird chorus swelled in piercing glory, we grew cross and allunbefitting the smiling morn. Only Dilly Joyce looked sunshiny as ever, for she had no domestic cares to beckon her; she and Nance Pete, whowas in luck that day, having a full pipe. Dilly had nestled into arock, curved in the form of a chair, and lay watching the eastern sky, a faint smile of pleasure parting her lips when the saffron hardenedinto gold. 

"Nice, dear, ain't it?" she said, as I paused a moment near her, "Ial'ays liked the side o' the road. But it's kind o' disturbin' to haveso much talk. I dunno's you can help it, though, where there's so manypeople. Most o' the time, I'm better on't to home, but I did want tosee an elephant near to!"

The sky broadened into light, and the birds jeered at us, poor, draggled folk who lived in boxes and were embarrassed by the morn. Themen grew nervous, for milking-time was near, and in imagination I haveno doubt they heard the lowing of reproachful kine. 

"Well, 'tain't no use, " said Eli Pike, rising from the stone-wall, andstretching himself, with decision. "I've got to 'tend to them cows, whether or no!" And he strolled away on the country-road, without alook behind. Most of the other men, as in honor bound, followed him;and the women, with loud-voiced protest against an obvious necessity, trailed after them, to strain the milk. Only we who formed the gypsyelement were left behind. 

"I call it a real shame!" announced Mrs. Pike, gathering her summershawl about her shoulders, and stepping away with an offended dignitysuch as no delinquent elephant could have faced. "I warrant ye, theywouldn't ha' treated Sudleigh so. They wouldn't ha' dared!"

"I dunno's Sudleigh's any more looked up to'n we be, " said CalebRivers, who had been so tardy in bestirring himself that he formed apart of the women's corps. "I guess, if the truth was known, Tivertoncovers more land'n Sudleigh does, on'y Sudleigh's all humped uptogether into a quart bowl. I guess there's countries that 'ain't heardo' Sudleigh, an' wouldn't stan' much in fear if they had!"

And so Tiverton dispersed, unamiably, and with its public pride hurt tothe quick. I tried to take pattern by Dilly Joyce, and steal fromnature a little of the wonderful filial enjoyment which came to herunsought. When Dilly watched the sky, I did, also; when she brightenedat sound of a bird hitherto silent, I tried to set down his notes in mymemory; and when she closed her eyes, and shut out the world, to thinkit over, I did the same. But the result was different. Probably Dillyopened hers again upon the lovely earth, but I drifted off intodreamland, and only awoke, two hours after, to find the scenesmarvellously changed. It was bright, steady morning, the morning cometo stay. Tiverton had performed its dairy rites, and returned again, enlivened by a cup of tea; and oh, incredible joy! there was a gruntingand panting, a swaying of mighty flanks. The circus was approaching, from Sudleigh way. Instantly I was alert and on my feet, for it wouldhave been impossible to miss the contagion of the general joy. I knewhow we felt, not as individuals, but as Tivertonians alone. We weretolerant potentates, waiting, in gracious majesty, to receive adeputation from the farther East. It grieves me much to stop here andconfess, with a necessary honesty, that this was but a sorry circus, gauged by the conventional standards; else, I suppose, it had nevercome to Tiverton at all. The circus-folk had evidently dressed fortravelling, not for us. The chariots, some of them still hooded incanvas, were very small and tarnished. There were but three elephants, two camels, and a most meagre display of those alluring cages made toafford even the careless eye a sudden, quickening glimpse of restless, tawny form, or slothful hulk within. Yet why depreciate the rawmaterial whereof Fancy has power divine to build her altogether perfectheights? Here was the plain, homely setting of our plainer lives, andright into the midst of it had come the East. The elephants affected usmost; we probably thought little about the immemorial mystery, thevague, occult tradition wrapped in that mouse-colored hide; but even toour dense Western imagination such quickening suggestion was vividlyapparent. We knew our world; usually it seemed to us the only one, evenwhen we looked at the stars. But at least one other had been created, and before us appeared its visible sign, --my lord the elephant! Therehe was, swaying along, conscious philosopher, conscious might, yetholding his omniscience in the background, and keeping a wary eye outfor the peanuts with which we simple country souls had not providedourselves. There was one curious thing about it all. We had seen thecircus at Sudleigh, as I have said, yet the fact of entertaining itwithin our borders made it seem exactly as if we had never laid eyesupon it before. This was our caravan, and God Almighty had created theelephant for us. Dilly Joyce slipped her hand quickly in mine andpressed it hard. She was quite pale. Yet it was she who acted upon thefirst practical thought. She recovered herself before my lord went by, took a ginger cookie from her pocket, and put it into Davie Tolman'shand. 

"Here, " she said, pushing him forward, "you go an' offer it to him. He'll take it. See'f he don't!"

Davie accepted the mission with joy, and persisted in it until he foundhimself close beside that swaying bulk, and saw the long trunk curvedenticingly toward him. Then he uttered one explosive howl, and fellback on the very toes of us who were pressing forward to partake, byright of sympathy, in the little drama. 

"Lordy Massy, keep still!" cried out Nance Pete; and she snatched himup bodily, and held him out to the elephant. I believe my own pang atthat moment to have been general. I forgot that elephants are notcarnivorous, and shuddered back, under the expectation of seeing Daviedevoured, hide and hair. But Nance had the address to stiffen thelittle arm, and my lord took the cookie, still clutched in thedespairing hand, and passed on. Then Davie wiped his eyes, afterpeeping stealthily about to see whether any one was disposed to jeer athim, and took such courage that he posed, ever after, as the hero ofthe day. 

The procession had nearly passed us when we saw a sight calculated toanimate us anew with a justifiable pride. Sudleigh itself, its youngmen and maidens, old men and children, was following the circus intoour town. It would not have a circus of its own, forsooth, but it wouldshare in ours! We, as by one consent, assumed an air of dignifiedself-importance. We were the hosts of the day; we bowed graciously tosuch of our guests as we knew, and, with a mild tolerance, looked overthe heads of those who were unfamiliar. Yet nothing checked our happycompanionship with the caravan; still we followed by the side of theprocession, through tangles of blackberry vine, and over ditch andstubble. Some of the boys mounted the walls, and ran wildly, dislodgingstones as they went, and earning no reproof from the fathers who, onany other day, would have been alive to a future mowing and theclashing of scythe and rock. There was, moreover, an impression abroadthat our progress could by no means be considered devoid of danger. 

"S'pose that fellar should rise up, an' wrench off them bars!"suggested Heman Blaisdell, pointing out one cage where a greatcreature, gaudy in stripes, paced back and forth, throwing us anoccasional look of scorn and great despite. "I wouldn't give much formy chances! Nor for anybody else's!"

"My soul an' body!" ejaculated a woman. "I hope they don't forgit tolock them cages up! Folks git awful careless when they do a thing everyday! I forgot to shet up the hins last week, an' that was the night theskunk got in. "

"I'm glad Brad brought his gun, " said another, in the tone of one whowould have crossed herself had there been a saint to help. Andthereafter we kept so thickly about Brad, walking with his long freestride, that his progress became impeded, and he almost fell over us. Suddenly, from the front, a man's voice rose in an imperative cry, --

"Turn round! turn round!"

Quite evidently the mandate was addressed to us, and we turned in amass, fleeing back into Sudleigh's very arms. For a moment, it was likeSparta and Persia striving in the Pass; then Sudleigh turned also, suchas were on foot, and fled with us. We pressed up the bank, as soon aswe could collect our errant wits; some of us, with a sense of comingcalamity, mounted the very wall, and there we had a moment to lookabout us. The caravan was keeping steadily on, like fate and taxes, andfacing it stood a carryall attached to a frightened horse. On the frontseat, erect in her accustomed majesty, sat Aunt Melissa Adams; andUncle Hiram, ever a humble charioteer, was by her side. They, too, haddriven out to see the circus, but alas! it had not struck them thatthey might meet it midway, with no volition of drawing up at the sideof the road and allowing it to pass. The old horse, hardened to thevicissitudes of many farming seasons, had necessarily no acquaintancewith the wild beasts of the Orient; no past experience, tucked away inhis wise old head, could explain them in the very least. He plunged andreared; he snorted with fear, and Aunt Melissa began to emit shrieks ofsuch volume and quality that the mangy lion, composing himself to sleepin his cage, rose, and sent forth a cry that Tiverton will longremember. We did not stop to explain our forebodings, but we were surethat, in some mysterious way, Aunt Melissa was doomed, and that she hadbrought her misfortune on herself. A second Daniel, she had no specialintegrity to stand her in need. And still the circus advanced, and thehorse snorted and backed. He was a gaunt old beast, but in his terror, one moment of beauty dignified him beyond belief. His head was high, his eyes were starting. 

"Turn round!" cried the men, but Uncle Hiram was paralyzed, and thereins lay supine in his hands, while he screamed a wheezy "Whoa!" ThenBrad Freeman, as usual in cases outside precedent, became the goodangel of Tiverton. He forced his gun on the person nearest at hand--whoproved to be Nance Pete--and dashed forward. Seizing the frightenedhorse by the head, he cramped the wheel scientifically, and turned himround. Then he gave him a smack on the flank, and the carryall wentreeling and swaying back into Tiverton, the _avant-courrier_ of thecircus. You should have heard Aunt Melissa's account of that ride, anepic moment which she treasured, in awe, to the day of her death. According to her, it asked no odds from the wild huntsman, or theGabriel hounds. Well, we cowards came down from the wall, assuring eachother, with voices still shaking a little, that we knew it was nothing, after all, and that nobody but Aunt Melissa would make such a fuss. Howshe did holler! we said, with conscious pride in our ownself-possession when brought into unexpectedly close relations withwild beasts; and we trudged happily along through the dust stirred byalien trampling, back to Tiverton Street, and down into Brad Freeman'sfield. It would hardly be possible to describe our joy in watching theoperation of tent-raising, nor our pride in Brad Freeman, when heassumed the character of host, and not only made the circus-folk freeof the ground they had hired, but hurried here and there, helping withsuch address and muscular vigor that we felt defrauded in never havingknown how accomplished he really was. The strollers recognized histype, in no time; they were joking with him and clapping him on theback before the first tent had been unrolled. Now, none of us had everseen a circus performer, save in the ring; and I think we weredisappointed, for a moment, at finding we had in our midst no spangledangels in rosy tights, no athletes standing on their heads by choice, and quite preferring the landscape upside down, but a set of shabbilydressed, rather jaded men and women, who were, for all the world, justlike ourselves, save that they walked more gracefully, and spoke insofter voice. But when the report went round that the cook was gettingbreakfast ready--out of doors, too!--we were more than compensated forthe loss of such tinsel joys. Chattering and eager, we ran over to thedining-tent, and there, close beside it, found the little kitchen, itsovens smoking hot, and a man outside, aproned and capped, cutting upchops and steaks, with careless deftness, and laying them in the greatiron pans, preparatory to broiling. 

"By all 't's good an' bad!" swore Tom McNeil, a universal and sweepingoath he much affected, "they've got a whole sheep an' a side o' beef!Well, it's high livin', an' no mistake!"

We who considered a few pies a baking, watched this wholesale cookeryin bewildered fascination. A savory smell arose to heaven. I never wasso hungry in my life, and I believe all Tiverton would own to the samecraving. Perhaps some wild instinct sprang up in us with the scent ofmeat in out-door air, but at any rate, we became much exhilarated, andour attention was only turned from the beguiling chops by Mrs. Wilson'ssaying, in a low tone, to her husband, --

"Lothrop, if there ain't Lucindy, an' that Molly McNeil with her!What's Lucindy got? My sake alive! you might ha' known she'd do suthin'to make anybody wish they'd stayed to home. If you can git near her, you keep a tight holt on her, or she'll be jumpin' through a hoop!"

I turned, with the rest. Yes, there was Miss Lucindy, tripping happilyacross the level field. Molly McNeil hastened beside her, and betweenthem they carried a large clothes-basket, overflowing with flamingorange-red; a basket heaped with sunset, not the dawn! They were verynear me when I guessed what it was; so near that I could see the happysmile on Lucindy's parted lips, and note how high the rose flush hadrisen in her delicate cheek, with happiness and haste. 

"Stortions!" broke out a voice near me, in virile scorn, --NancePete's, --"stortions! Jes' like her! Better picked 'em a mess o' pease!"

It was, indeed, a basket of red nasturtiums, and the sun had touchedthem into a glory like his own. For one brief moment, we were ashamedof Lucindy's "shallerness" and irrelevancy; but the circus peopleinterpreted her better. They rose from box and hamper where they hadbeen listlessly awaiting their tardy breakfast, and crowded forward tomeet her. They knew, through the comradeship of all Bohemia, exactlywhat she meant. 

"My!" said Miss Lucindy, smiling full at them as they came, --her old, set smile had been touched, within a year, by something glad andfree, --"set 'em down now, Molly. My! are you the folks? Well, I thoughtyou'd seem different, somehow, but anyway, we brought you over a fewblooms. We thought you couldn't have much time, movin' round so, towork in your gardins, especially the things you have to sow every year. Yes, dear, yes! Take a good handful. Here's a little mignonette I putin the bottom, so't everybody could have a sprig. Yes, there's enoughfor the men, too. Why, yes, help yourself! Law, dear, why don't youtake off your veil? Hot as this is!" for the bearded lady, closelymasked in black _barège_, had come forward and hungrily stretched out agreat hand for her share. 

We never knew how it all happened, but during this clamor of happyvoices, the chops were cooked and the coffee boiled; the circus peopleturned about, and trooped into the tent where the tables were set, andthey took Miss Lucindy with them. Yes, they did! Molly McNeil stayedcontentedly outside; for though she had brought her share of thetreasure, quite evidently she considered herself a friendly helper, nota partner in the scheme. But Miss Lucindy was the queen of thecarnival. We heard one girl say to another, as our eccentric townswomanswept past us, in the eager crowd, "Oh, the dear old thing!" We saw asad-eyed girl bend forward, lift a string of Miss Lucindy's apron(which, we felt, should have been left behind in the kitchen) and giveit a hearty kiss. Later, when, by little groups, we peeped into thedining-tent, we saw Miss Lucindy sitting there at the table, betweentwo women who evidently thought her the very nicest person that hadever crossed their wandering track. There she was, an untouched rolland chop on her plate, a cup of coffee by her side. She was nottalking. She only smiled happily at those who talked to her, and hereyes shone very bright. We were ashamed; I confess it. For was notSudleigh, also, there to see?

"Oh, my soul!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilson, in fretful undertone. "I wish theold Judge was here!"

Her husband turned and looked at her, and she quailed; not with fear ofhim, but at the vision of the outraged truth. 

"Well, no, " she added, weakly, "I dunno's I wish anything so bad asthat, but I do declare I think there ought to be somebody to keep atight grip on Lucindy!"

Who shall deem himself worthy to write the chronicle of that gloriousday? There were so many incidents not set down in the logical drama; somany side-shows of circumstance! We watched all the mysteriouspreparations for the afternoon performance, so far as we were allowed, with the keenness of the wise, who recognize a special wonder and willnot let it pass unproved. We surrounded Miss Lucindy, when she cameaway from her breakfast party, and begged for an exact account of allher entertainers had said; but she could tell us nothing. She onlyreiterated, with eyes sparkling anew, that they were "proper nicefolks, proper nice! and she must go home and get Ellen. If she'd knownthey were just like other folks she'd have brought Ellen this morning;but she'd been afraid there'd be talk that little girls better nothear. "

At noon, we sat about in the shade of the trees along the wall, and atedelicious cold food from the butter-boxes and baskets our men-folks hadbrought over during the forenoon lull; and we assiduously offeredSudleigh a drink, whenever it passed the counter where barrels of freespring-water had been set. And then, at the first possible moment, wepaid our fee, and went inside the tent to see the animals. That scrubbymenagerie had not gained in dignity from its transference to canvaswalls. The enclosure was very hot and stuffy; there was a smell of dustand straw. The lion stretched himself, from time to time, and gave anangry roar for savage, long-lost joys. One bear, surely new to thebusiness, kept walking up and down, up and down, moaning, in an abandonof homesickness. Brad Freeman stood before the cage when I was there. 

"Say, Brad, " said the Crane boy, slipping his arm into the hunter's, ina good-fellowship sure to be reciprocated. "Davie Tolman said you'sgoin' to fetch over your fox, an' sell him to the circus. Be you?"

"My Lord!" answered Brad, very violently for him, the ever-tolerant. "No! I'm goin' to let him go. _Look at that!_" And while the Crane boy, unconcerned, yet puzzled, gave his full attention to the bear, Bradpassed on. 

There was a wolf, I remember, darting about his cage, slinking, furtive, ever on a futile prowl. He especially engaged the interest ofTom McNeil, who said admiringly, as I, too, looked through the bars, "Ain't he a prompt little cuss?" I felt that with Tom it was thefascination of opposites; he never could understand superlative energy. 

Just as we were trooping into the larger tent (there were no threerings, I beg to say, maliciously calculated to distract the attention!One, of a goodly size, was quite enough for us!) a little voice pipedup, "The snake's got loose!" How we surged and panted, and fought oneanother for our sacred lives! In vain were we urged to stand still; westrove the more. And when a bit of rope perversely and maliciouslycoiled itself round Rosa Tolman's ankle, she gave a shriek so loud anddespairing that it undid us anew. If Sheriff Holmes had not comeforward and sworn at us, I believe we should have trampled one anotherout of existence; but he seemed so palpably the embodiment ofauthority, and his oath the oath undoubtedly selected by legislaturefor that very occasion, that we paused, and on the passionateasseveration of a circus man that the snake was safely in his cage, consented to be calm. But Aunt Melissa Adams, unstrung by her earlierexperience, would trust no doubtful circumstance. She plodded back intothe animal-tent, assured herself, with her own eyes, of the snake'spresence at his own hearthstone, and came back satisfied, just as theclown entered the ring. The performance needs no bush. We had palmleaffans offered us, pop-corn, and pink lemonade. We sweltered under theblazing canvas, laughed at the clown's musty fooling, which deservedrather the reverence due old age, and wondered between whiles if therewould be a shower, and if tent-poles were ever struck. Then it was allover, and we trailed out, in great bodily discomfort and spiritual joy, to witness, quite unlooked for, the most vivid drama of the day. YoungDana Marden was there, he and his wife who lived down in TivertonHollow. Dana was a nephew of Josh, of hapless memory, and "folks said"that, like Josh, he had "all the Marden setness, once git him riled. "But Mary Worthen had not been in the least afraid of that when shemarried him. Before their engagement, some one had casually mentionedDana's having inherited "setness" for his patrimony. 

"I know it, " she said, "and if I had anything to do with him, I'd breakhim of it, or I'd break his neck!"

Tiverton had been very considerate in never repeating that speech toDana; and his wife, in all their five years of married life, had notfulfilled her threat. As we were making ready to leave the grounds, that day, and those who had horses were "tacklin up, " we became awarethat Dana, a handsome, solid, fresh-colored fellow, sat in his wagonwith pretty Mary beside him, and that they evidently had no intentionof moving on. Of course we approached, to find out what the troublemight be. 

"We can send word to have Tom Bunker milk the cows, " said Dana, withdistinct emphasis, "an' we can stay for the evenin' performance. Or wecan go now. Only, you've got to say which!"

"I don't want to say, " returned Mary, placidly, "because I don't knowwhich you'd rather have. You just tell me _so_ much!"

A frown contracted his brow; he looked a middle-aged man. When hespoke, his voice grated. 

"You tell which, or we'll set here all night, an' I don't speak anotherword to you till you do!"

But Mary said nothing. 

"My soul!" whispered Mrs. Rivers to me. "She's got herself into it now, jest as they say Lyddy Ann Marden done, with Josh. She'll have to backdown!"

Several more of those aimless on-lookers, ever ready for the making ofcrowds, surged forward. The wagon was blocking the way. We realisedwith shame that Sudleigh, too, was here, to say nothing of sister townsless irritating to our pride. It was Uncle Eli Pike who stepped intothe breach. 

"Here, Dana!" he called, and, as we were glad to remember, all thealiens in the crowd could hear, "I guess that hoss o' yourn's gittin' amite balky. I'll lead him a step, if you say so. " And without a word ofassent from Dana, he guided the horse out of the grounds, and startedhim on the road. We watched the divided couple, on their common way. Dana was driving, it is true; but we knew, with a heavy certainty, thathe was not speaking to his wife. He was a Marden, and nothing wouldmake him speak. 

This slight but very significant episode sent us home in a soberer mindthan any of us had anticipated, after the gaudy triumphs of the day. Wecould not quell our curiosity over the upshot of it all, and thatnight, after the chores were done, we sat in the darkness, interspersing our comments on the spangled butterflies of horse andhoop with an awed question, now and then, while the minute-hand sped, "S'pose they've spoke yit?"

Alas! the prevailing voice was still against it; and when we went tomarket, and met there the people from the Hollow (who were somewhatmore bucolic than we), they passed about the open secret. Dana did notspeak to his wife. Again we knew he never would. The summer waned; thecows were turned into the shack, and the most "forehanded" among usbegan to cut boughs for banking up the house, and set afoot otherpreparations for winter's cold. Still Dana had not spoken. But theeffect on Mary was inexplicable to us all. We knew she loved himdeeply, and that the habits of their relationship were very tender; weexpected her to sink and fail under the burden of this sudden exile ofthe heart, just as Lyddy Ann had done, so many years ago. But Mary heldher head high, and kept her color. She even "went abroad" more thanusual; ostentatiously so, we thought, for she would come over toTiverton to pass the afternoon, after the good, old-fashioned style, with women whom she knew but slightly. And, most incredible of all, though Dana would not speak to her, she spoke to him! Once, in drivingpast, I heard her clear voice (it seemed now a dauntless voice!)calling, --

"Dana, dinner's ready!" Dana dropped the board he was carrying, andwent in, a fierce yet dogged look upon his face, as if it needed hourlyschooling to mirror his hard heart. Then the agent of the Sudleigh"Star, " who was canvassing for a new domestic paper, had also his storyto tell. He went to the Mardens', and Mary, who admitted him, put downher name, and then called blithely into the kitchen, --

"Dana, I'm all out o' change. Will you hand me a dollar 'n' a quarter?"

Dana, flushed red and overwhelmed by a pitiable embarrassment, came tothe door and gave the money; and Mary, with that proud unconsciousnesswhich made us wonder anew every time we saw it in her, thanked him, anddismissed the visitor, as if nothing were wrong. The couple went asusual to church and sociable. Certain lines deepened in Dana's face, but Mary grew every day more light-heartedly cheerful. Yet theone-sided silence lived, with the terrible tenacity of evil. 

So the days went on until midwinter snows began to blow, and then welearned, with a thrill of pride, that the International DramaticCompany proposed coming to our own little hall, for a two weeks'engagement. Some said Sudleigh Opera House was too large for it, andtoo expensive; but we, the wiser heads, were grandly aware that, withunusual acumen, the drama had at last recognized the true emporium oftaste. We resolved that this discriminating company should not repentits choice. A week before the great first night, magnificent posters inred and blue set before us, in very choice English, the dramaticperformances, "Shakespearean and otherwise, " destined to take placeamong us. The leading parts were to be assumed by Mr. And Mrs. VanRensellaer Wilde, "two of the foremost artists in the stellar world, supported by an adequate company. "

The announcement ended with the insinuating alliteration, "Popularprices prevail. " The very first night, we were at the door, an excitedcrowd, absolutely before it was open; but early as we went, thehospitable pianist held the field before us; the hall resounded withhis jocund banging at the very moment when the pioneer among us setfoot within. I have never seen anywhere, either on benefit or farewellnight, a cordiality to be compared with that which presided over ourown theatre in Tiverton Hall. Mr. Van Rensellaer Wilde himself stoodwithin the doorway, to greet us as we came; a personable man, with thesmooth, individual face of his profession, a moist and beery eye, acatholic smile, tolerant enough to include the just and the unjust, arusty, old-fashioned stock, and the very ancientest brown Prince Albertcoat still in reputable existence, --a strange historical epitome ofbrushings and spongings, of camphor exile and patient patching. Quiteevidently he was not among the prosperous, even in his stellar world. But not for that would he repine. This present planet was an admirableplot of ground, and here he stood, cheerfully ready to induct us, thePuritan-born, into the fictitious joys thereof. And popular pricesprevailed; the floor of the hall itself confirmed it. It was divided, by chalk-lines, into three sections. Enter the first division, and alegend at your feet indicated the ten-cent territory. Advance a little, and "twenty-five cents" met the eye; and presently, approaching theplatform, you were in the seats of the scornful, thirty-five centseach. The latter, by common consent, were eschewed by the very firstcomers, not alone for reasons of thrift, but because we thought theyought to be left for old folks, "a leetle mite hard o' hearin', " or theunfortunates who were "not so fur-sighted" as we. So we seatedourselves in delight already begun, for was not Mr. Gad Greenfieldperforming one of the "orchestral pieces" which the programme had ledus to expect? The piano was an antique, accustomed to serve as victimat Sudleigh's dancing-school and sociables. I have never heard itscondition described, on its return to Sudleigh; I only know that, fromsome eccentric partiality, Gad Greenfield's music was all _fortissimo_. Sally Flint, brought thither by the much-enduring overseer, for thesake of domestic peace, seemed to be the only one who did not regardGad's performance with unquestioning awe. She was heard to say aloud, in a penetrating voice, --

"My soul an' body! what a racket!"

Whereupon she deliberately pulled some wool from the tassel of herchinchilla cloud, and stuffed a little wad into each ear. We were sorryfor the overseer, thus put to shame by his untutored charge, anddelicately looked away, after making sure Sally had "r'ared as high" asshe proposed doing. She was the overseer's cross; no one could help himbear it. 

And now the curtain went up, --though not on the play, let me tell you!On slighter joys, a fillip to the taste. A juggler, "all complete" inblack small-clothes and white kid gloves, stood there ready to burn upour handkerchiefs, change our watches into rabbits, and make omelets inour best go-to-meeting hats. I cannot remember all the wonderful thingshe did (everything, I believe, judging from the roseate glow left in mymind, everything that juggler ever achieved short of the Hindoo marvelof cutting up maidens and splicing them together again, or planting themagic tree); I only know we were too crafty to help him, and though heagain and again implored a volunteer from the audience to come and playthe willing victim, we clung to our settees the more, so that Gad ofthe piano was obliged to fill the gap. And when the curtain came down, and went up again on a drawing-room, with a red plush chair in it, anda lady dressed in a long-tailed white satin gown, where were we? InTiverton? Nay, in the great world of fashion and of crime. I remembervery little now about the order of the plays; very little of theirnames and drift. I only know we were swept triumphantly through thewidest range ever imagined since the "pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, " of old Polonius. And in all, fat, middle-aged Wilde was thedashing hero, the deep-dyed villain; and his wife, middle-aged as he, and far, oh, far more corpulent! played the lovely heroine, theblooming victim, the queen of hearts. And she was truly beautiful tous, that blowsy dame, through the beguiling witchery of her art. Thesmarting tears came into our eyes when, in "Caste, " she staggered back, despairing, lost in grief, unable to arm her soldier for the march. Melodrama was her joy, and as we watched her lumbering about the stagein a white muslin dress, with the artificial springiness of a youththat would never return, we could have risen as one man, to snatch herfrom the toils of villany. She was a cool piece, that swiftlydescending star! She had a way of deliberately stepping outside thescenes and letting down her thin black hair, before the tragic moment;then would she bound back again, and tear every passion to tatters, ingood old-fashioned style. In "The Octoroon" especially she tore ourhearts with it, so that it almost began to seem as if political issueswere imminent. For between the acts, men bent forward to theirneighbors, and put their heads together, recalling abolition times; andone poor, harmless old farmer from Sudleigh way was glared at in afashion to which he had once been painfully accustomed, while murmursof "Copperhead! Yes, Copperhead all through the war!" must havepenetrated where he sat. But he was securely locked up in his fortressof deaf old age, and met the hostile glances benignly, quiteunconscious of their meaning. In one particular, we felt, for a time, that we had been deceived. The Shakespearean drama had not been touchedon as we had been led to expect; but at last, in the middle of thesecond week, we were rejoiced by the announcement that "Othello" wouldthat night be appropriately set forth. The Moor of Venice! He wouldnever have recognized himself--his great creator would never haveguessed his identity--as presented by Mr. Van Rensellaer Wilde. I giveyou my word for that! From beginning to end of the performance, Tiverton groped about, in a haze of perplexity, rendered ever the moredense by the fact that none of the actors knew their parts. I aminclined to think they had enriched their announcement by this allusionto the Shakespearean drama in a moment of wild ambition, as we gladlycommit ourselves to issues far-off and vague; and then, with achivalrous determination to vindicate their written word; they hadembarked on a troublous sea for which they had "neither mast nor sail, nor chart nor rudder. " So they went bobbing about in a tub, and we, with a like paucity of equipment, essayed to follow them. 

Othello himself was a veiled mystery in our eyes. 

"Ain't he colored?" whispered Mrs. Wilson to me; and while I hesitated, seeking to frame an answer both terse and true, she continued, althoughhe was at that moment impressing the Senate with his great apology, "Ishe free?"

I assured her on that point, and she settled down to a troubled studyof the part, only to run hopelessly aground when Desdemona, in herstiff white satin gown, announced her intention of cleaving to therobust blackamoor, in spite of fate and father. That seemed apraiseworthy action, "taken by and large, " but we could not altogetherapplaud it. "Abolition, " as we were, the deed wounded some raceprejudice in us, and Mrs. Hiram Cole voiced the general sentiment whenshe remarked audibly, --

"One color's as good as another, come Judgment Day, but let 'em marryamong themselves, _I_ say!"

The poverty of the scenery had something to do with our dulness infollowing the dramatic thread, for how should we know that our ownlittle stage, disguised by a slender tree-growth, was the island ofCyprus, and that Desdemona, tripping through a doorway, in the samesatin gown, had just arrived from a long and perilous voyage? "Theriches of the ship" had "come on shore, " but for all we knew, it hadbeen in the next room, taking a nap, all the while. In the crucialscene between Cassio and Iago, we got the impression that one was asdrunk as the other, and that Cassio acted the better man of the two, chiefly because of his grandiloquent apostrophe relative to thethieving of brains. We approved of that, and looked meaningly round atold Cap'n Fuller, who was at that time taking more hard cider than weconsidered good for him. But when the final catastrophe came, we, having missed the logical sequence, were totally unprepared. Mr. Wilde, with a blackamoor fury irresistibly funny to one who has seen a citycoal-man cursing another for not moving on, smothered his shriekingspouse in a pillow brought over for that purpose from the Blaisdells', where most of the actors were boarding. We were not inclined to endurethis quietly. The more phlegmatic among us moved uneasily in our seats, and one or two men, excitable beyond the ordinary, sprang up, with anoath. Mrs. Wilson dragged her husband down again. 

"For massy sake, do set still!" she urged. "He 'ain't killed her. Don'tyou see them toes a-twitchin'?"

No, Mrs. Wilde was not dead, as her weary appearance in the afterpieceattested; but she had been cruelly abused, and the murmurs, here andthere, as we left the hall, went far to show that Othello had done wellin voluntarily paying the debt of nature, and that Emilia thought nonetoo ill of him. 

"Ought to ha' been strong up, by good rights, " growled Tiverton. "youcan't find a jury't would acquit _him_!"

Night after night, we conscientiously sat out the aforesaid afterpiece, innocently supposed to be our due because it had formed a part of theinitial performance. However long our weary strollers might delay it, in the empty hope of our going home content, there we waited until thecurtain went up. It was a dreary piece of business, varied byhorse-play considered "kind o' rough" by even the more boisterous amongus. Sometimes it was given, minstrel-wise, in the time-honored panoplyof burnt cork; again, poor weary souls! they lacked even the spirit toblacken themselves, and clinging to the same dialogue, played boldly inCaucasian fairness, with the pathetically futile disguise of a Teutonaccent. And last of all, Mr. Wilde would appear before the curtain, and"in behalf of Mrs. Wilde, self and company" thank us movingly for ourkind attention, and announce the next night's bill. 

The last half hour was my chosen time for leaning back against thewall, and allowing thought and glance to dwell lovingly on Tivertonfaces. O worn and rugged features of the elder generation to whosekinship we are born! What solution, even of Time, the all-potent, shallwash your meaning from the heart? An absolute lack ofself-consciousness had quite transformed the gaze they bent upon thestage. A veil had been swept aside, and the true soul shone forth; thatsoul which ever dwells apart, either from the dignity of its estate or, being wrought of fibre more delicate than air, because it fears recoiland hurt. There were Roxy and her husband, he too well content withlife as it is, to be greatly moved by its counterfeit; she sparklingback some artless reply to the challenge of feeble romance and winglesswit. There was Uncle Eli, a little dazed by these strange doings, thehand on his knee shaking, from time to time, under the stimulus ofunshared thought. There was Miss Lucindy, with Ellen and all theMcNeils, a care-free, happy phalanx, smiling joyously at everything setbefore them, with that spontaneous rapture so good to see. One night, Nance Pete appeared, and established herself, with great importance, inthe first row of the ten-cent seats; but she fell asleep, and snoredwith embarrassing volume and precision. She never came again, andannounced indifferently, to all who cared to hear, that when she"wanted to see a passel o' monkeys, she'd go to the circus, an' donewith it. " There, too, one night when Comedy burlesqued her own raptself, was Dana Marden; but he came alone. Mary had a cold, we heard, and "thought she'd better stay in. " Dana sat through the foolish play, unmoved. His brow loomed heavy, like Tragedy's own mask, and it grewever blacker while the scene went on. Hiram Cole whispered me, --

"He'll kill himself afore he's done with it. He's gone in for the wholehog, but he 'ain't growed to it, as Old Josh had. The Marden blood runemptin's afore it got to him. "

The last night came of all our blissful interlude, and on that night, by some stroke of fate, the bill was "Oliver Twist. " Of thatperformance let naught be spoken, save in reverence. For, by divineleading it might seem, and not their own good wit, those poor playershad been briefly touched by the one true fire. Shakespeare had beckonedthem, and they had passed him by; Comedy and Tragedy had been theirinnocent sport. How funny their tragedy had been, how sad their comedy, Momus only might tell. But to-night some gleaming wave from a greatersea had lifted them, and borne them on. Still they played, jarringly, for that was their untutored wont. Their speech roared, loud defianceto grammar's idle saws, their costumes were absurd remnants of anantique past; but a certain, rude, and homely dignity had transfiguredthem, and enveloped, too, this poor drama which, after all, goes verydeep, down to the springs of life and love. There was a dirty andwicked abomination of a Fagin. Wilde himself played Sykes, and we ofTiverton, who know little about the formless monster dwelling under thegarnished pavement of every great city, and rising, once in a centuryor so, to send red riot and ruin through the streets, --even we couldread the story of his word and glance. Unconsciously to ourselves, weguessed at Whitechapel and the East End "tough, " and shuddered underthe knowledge of evil. Mrs. Wilde, her heavy face many a shade sincererthan when she walked in dirty white satin, was Nancy; and in her death, culminated the grand moment of Tiverton's looking the drama in theface, and seeing it for what it is, --the living sister of life itself. Sykes really killed her alarmingly well. Round the stage he draggedher, bruised and speechless, with such cruel realism that we womencrouched and shivered; and when she staggered to her knees, and toldher pitiful lie for the brute she loved, the general shudder of worshipand horror thrilled us into a mighty reverence for the tie strongerthan death and hell, binding the woman to the man, and lifting Lovetriumphant on his cross of pain. With Nancy's final sigh, another sweptthrough the hall, like breath among the trees, and, drawn by whatthread I know not, I looked about me, and all unwittingly was presentat another great last act. Dana Marden and his wife were in front ofme, not three seats away. Mary was very pale, and sat quite motionless, looking down into her lap; but Dana bent forward, gripping the seat infront of him with white and straining hands. His face, drawn andknotted, was a mirror of such anguish as few of us imagine; we onlylearn its power when it steals upon us in the dark, and our soulswrestle with it for awful mastery. He seemed to be suffering anextremity of physical pain. After that, I gave little heed to thestage. I was only conscious that the curtain had gone down, and thatMr. Wilde was thanking us for our kind attention, and expressing aflattering hope that another year would find him again in our midst. Wedid not want the farce, that night, even as our rightful due. We gotup, and filed out in silence. I was just behind Dana and Mary; so nearthat I could have touched him when, half-way, down the hall, he put outa clumsy hand and drew her shawl closer about her shoulders. Then heset his face straight forward again, but not before I had noticed howthe lips were twitching still, in that dumb protest against the fettersof his birth. Again he turned to her, as suddenly as if a blow hadforced his face about. I heard his voice, abrupt, explosive, full ofthe harshness so near at hand to wait on agony, --

"You got your rubbers on?"

Mary started a little, and a tremor like that of cold, went over her;but she kept her head firmly erect. 

"Yes, Dana, " she said, clearly, just as she had spoken to him all thosemonths, "I've got 'em on. "

Before eleven o'clock, the next morning, the news had spread all overjoyful Tiverton. Dana had spoken at last! But Mary! Within a week, shetook to her bed, quite overmastered by a lingering fever. She "came outall right, " as we say among ourselves, though after Dana had sufferedsuch agonies of tenderness over her as few save mothers can know, orthose who have injured their beloved. But she has never since beenquite so dauntless, quite so full of the joy of life. As Hiram Coleagain remarked, it is a serious thing to draw too heavily on thenerve-juice. 

THE END.