Mrs. Thaddeus Clayton came softly into the room and looked with apprehensive eyes upon the little old man in the rocking-chair.
“How be ye, dearie? Yer hain’t wanted fer nothin’, now, have ye?” she asked.
“Not a thing, Harriet,” he returned cheerily. “I’m feelin’ real pert, too. Was there lots there? An’ did Parson Drew say a heap o’ fine things?”
Mrs. Clayton dropped into a chair and pulled listlessly at the black strings of her bonnet.
“’T was a beautiful fun’ral, Thaddeus--a beautiful fun’ral. I--I ’most wished it was mine.”
“Harriet!”
She gave a shamed-faced laugh.
“Well, I did--then Jehiel and Hannah Jane would ‘a’ come, an’ I could ‘a’ seen ’em.”
The horrified look on the old man’s face gave way to a broad smile.
“Oh, Harriet--Harriet!” he chuckled, “how could ye seen ’em if you was dead?”
“Huh? Well, I--Thaddeus,”--her voice rose sharply in the silent room,-- “every single one of them Perkins boys was there, and Annabel, too. Only think what poor Mis’ Perkins would ‘a’ given ter seen ’em ’fore she went! But they waited--waited,Thaddeus, jest as everybody does, till their folks is dead.”
“But, Harriet,” demurred the old man, “surely you’d ‘a’ had them boys come ter their own mother’s fun’ral!”
“Come! I’d ‘a’ had ’em come before, while Ella Perkins could ‘a’ feasted her eyes on ’em. Thaddeus,”--Mrs. Clayton rose to her feet and stretched out two gaunt hands longingly,--“Thaddeus, I get so hungry sometimes for Jehiel and Hannah Jane, seems as though I jest couldn’t stand it!”
“I know--I know, dearie,” quavered the old man, vigorously polishing his glasses.
“Fifty years ago my first baby came,” resumed the woman in tremulous tones; “then another came, and another, till I’d had six. I loved ’em, an’ tended ’em, an’ cared fer ’em, an’ didn’t have a thought but was fer them babies. Four died,”--her voice broke, then went on with renewed strength,--“but I’ve got Jehiel and Hannah Jane left; at least, I’ve got two bits of paper that comes mebbe once a month, an’ one of ’em’s signed ‘your dutiful son, Jehiel,’ an’ the other, ’from your loving daughter, Hannah Jane.’”
“Well, Harriet, they--they’re pretty good ter write letters,” ventured Mr. Clayton.
“Letters!” wailed his wife. “I can’t hug an’ kiss letters, though I try to, sometimes. I want warm flesh an’ blood in my arms, Thaddeus; I want ter look down into Jehiel’s blue eyes an’ hear him call me ’dear old mumsey!’ as he used to. I wouldn’t ask ’em ter stay--I ain’t unreasonable, Thaddeus. I know they can’t do that.”
“Well, well, wife, mebbe they’ll come--mebbe they’ll come this summer; who knows?”
She shook her head dismally.
“You’ve said that ev’ry year for the last fifteen summers, an’ they hain’t come yet. Jehiel went West more than twenty years ago, an’ he’s never been home since. Why, Thaddeus, we’ve got a grandson ’most eighteen, that we hain’t even seen! Hannah Jane’s been home jest once since she was married, but that was nigh on ter sixteen years ago. She’s always writin’ of her Tommy and Nellie, but--I want ter see ’em, Thaddeus; I want ter see ’em!”
“Yes, yes; well, we’ll ask ’em, Harriet, again--we’ll ask ’em real urgent-like, an’ mebbe that’ll fetch ’em,” comforted the old man. “We’ll ask ’em ter be here the Fourth; that’s eight weeks off yet, an’ I shall be real smart by then.”
Two letters that were certainly “urgent-like” left the New England farmhouse the next morning. One was addressed to a thriving Western city, the other to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
In course of time the answers came. Hannah Jane’s appeared first, and was opened with shaking fingers.
Dear Mother[read Mrs. Clayton aloud]: Your letter came two or three days ago, and I have hurried round to answer it, for you seemed to be so anxious to hear. I’m real sorry, but I don’t see how we can get away this summer. Nathan is real busy at the store; and, some way, I can’t seem to get up energy enough to even think of fixing up the children to take them so far. Thank you for the invitation, though, and we should enjoy the visit very much; but I guess we can’t go just yet. Of course if anything serious should come up that made it necessary-- why, that would be different: but I know you are sensible, and will understand how it is with us.
Nathan is well, but business has been pretty brisk, and he is in the store early and late. As long as he’s making money, he don’t mind; but I tell him I think he might rest a little sometimes, and let some one else do the things he does.
Tom is a big boy now, smart in his studies and with a good head for figures. Nellie loves her books, too; and, for a little girl of eleven, does pretty well, we think.
I must close now. We all send love, and hope you are getting along all right. Was glad to hear father was gaining so fast.
Your loving daughter
Hannah Jane
The letter dropped from Mrs. Clayton’s fingers and lay unheeded on the floor. The woman covered her face with her hands and rocked her body back and forth.
“There, there, dearie,” soothed the old man huskily; “mebbe Jehiel’s will be diff’rent. I shouldn’t wonder, now, if Jehiel would come. There, there! don’t take on so, Harriet! don’t! I jest know Jehiel’ll come.”
A week later Mrs. Clayton found another letter in the rural delivery box. She clutched it nervously, peered at the writing with her dim old eyes, and hurried into the house for her glasses.
Yes, it was from Jehiel.
She drew a long breath. Her eager thumb was almost under the flap of the envelope when she hesitated, eyed the letter uncertainly, and thrust it into the pocket of her calico gown. All day it lay there, save at times-- which, indeed, were of frequent occurrence--when she took it from its hiding-place, pressed it to her cheek, or gloried in every curve of the boldly written address.
At night, after the lamp was lighted, she said to her husband in tones so low he could scarcely hear:
“Thaddeus, I--I had a letter from Jehiel to-day.”
“You did--and never told me? Why, Harriet, what--” He paused helplessly.
“I--I haven’t read it, Thaddeus,” she stammered. “I couldn’t bear to, someway. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t. You read it!” She held out the letter with shaking hands.
He took it, giving her a sharp glance from anxious eyes. As he began to read aloud she checked him.
“No; ter yerself, Thaddeus--ter yerself! Then--tell me.”
As he read she watched his face. The light died from her eyes and her chin quivered as she saw the stern lines deepen around his mouth. A minute more, and he had finished the letter and laid it down without a word.
“Thaddeus, ye don’t mean--he didn’t say--”
“Read it--I--I can’t,” choked the old man.
She reached slowly for the sheet of paper and spread it on the table before her.
Dear Mother[Jehiel had written]: Just a word to tell you we are all O. K. and doing finely. Your letter reminded me that it was about time I was writing home to the old folks. I don’t mean to let so many weeks go by without a letter from me, but somehow the time just gets away from me before I know it.
Minnie is well and deep in spring sewing and house-cleaning. I know-- because dressmaker’s bills are beginning to come in, and every time I go home I find a carpet up in a new place!
Our boy Fred is eighteen to-morrow. You’d be proud of him, I know, if you could see him. Business is rushing. Glad to hear you’re all right and that father’s rheumatism is on the gain.
As ever, your affectionate and dutiful son, JEHIEL
Oh, by the way--about that visit East. I reckon we’ll have to call it off this year. Too bad; but can’t seem to see my way clear.
Bye-bye, J.
Harriet Clayton did not cry this time. She stared at the letter long minutes with wide-open, tearless eyes, then she slowly folded it and put it back in its envelope.
“Harriet, mebbe-” began the old man timidly.
“Don’t, Thaddeus--please don’t!” she interrupted. “I--I don’t want ter talk.” And she rose unsteadily to her feet and moved toward the kitchen door.
For a time Mrs. Clayton went about her work in a silence quite unusual, while her husband watched her with troubled eyes. His heart grieved over the bowed head and drooping shoulders, and over the blurred eyes that were so often surreptitiously wiped on a corner of the gingham apron. But at the end of a week the little old woman accosted him with a face full of aggressive yet anxious determination.
“Thaddeus, I want ter speak ter you about somethin’. I’ve been thinkin’ it all out, an’ I’ve decided that I’ve got ter kill one of us off.”
“Harriet!”
“Well, I have. A fun’ral is the only thing that will fetch Jehiel and--”
“Harriet, are ye gone crazy? Have ye gone clean mad?”
She looked at him appealingly.
“Now, Thaddeus, don’t try ter hender me, please. You see it’s the only way. A fun’ral is the--”
“A ’fun’ral’--it’s murder!” he shuddered.
“Oh, not ter make believe, as I shall,” she protested eagerly. “It’s--”
“Make believe!”
“Why, yes, of course.You’llhave ter be the one ter do it, ‘cause I’m goin’ ter be the dead one, an’--”
“Harriet!”
“There, there,please,Thaddeus! I’ve jest got ter see Jehiel and Hannah Jane ’fore I die!”
“But--they--they’ll come if--”
“No, they won’t come. We’ve tried it over an’ over again; you know we have. Hannah Jane herself said that if anythin’ ‘serious’ came up it would be diff’rent. Well, I’m goin’ ter have somethin’ ‘serious’ come up!”
“But, Harriet--”
“Now, Thaddeus,” begged the woman, almost crying, “you must help me, dear. I’ve thought it all out, an’ it’s easy as can be. I shan’t tell any lies, of course. I cut my finger to-day, didn’t I?”
“Why--yes--I believe so,” he acknowledged dazedly; “but what has that to do--”
“That’s the ‘accident,’ Thaddeus. You’re ter send two telegrams at once-- one ter Jehiel, an’ one ter Hannah Jane. The telegrams will say: ‘Accident to your mother. Funeral Saturday afternoon. Come at once.’ That’s jest ten words.”
The old man gasped. He could not speak.
“Now, that’s all true, ain’t it?” she asked anxiously. “The ‘accident’ is this cut. The ‘fun’ral’ is old Mis’ Wentworth’s. I heard ter-day that they couldn’t have it until Saturday, so that’ll give us plenty of time ter get the folks here. I needn’t say whose fun’ral it is that’s goin’ ter be on Saturday, Thaddeus! I want yer ter hitch up an’ drive over ter Hopkinsville ter send the telegrams. The man’s new over there, an’ won’t know yer. You couldn’t send ’em from here, of course.”
Thaddeus Clayton never knew just how he allowed himself to be persuaded to take his part in this “crazy scheme,” as he termed it, but persuaded he certainly was.
It was a miserable time for Thaddeus then. First there was that hurried drive to Hopkinsville. Though the day was warm he fairly shivered as he handed those two fateful telegrams to the man behind the counter. Then there was the homeward trip, during which, like the guilty thing he was, he cast furtive glances from side to side.
Even home itself came to be a misery, for the sweeping and the dusting and the baking and the brewing which he encountered there left him no place to call his own, so that he lost his patience at last and moaned:
“Seems ter me, Harriet, you’re a pretty lively corpse!”
His wife smiled, and flushed a little.
“There, there, dear! don’t fret. Jest think how glad we’ll be ter see ’em!” she exclaimed.
Harriet was blissfully happy. Both the children had promptly responded to the telegrams, and were now on their way. Hannah Jane, with her husband and two children, were expected on Friday evening; but Jehiel and his wife and boy could not possibly get in until early on the following morning.
All this brought scant joy to Thaddeus. There was always hanging over him the dread horror of what he had done, and the fearful questioning as to how it was all going to end.
Friday came, but a telegram at the last moment told of trains delayed and connections missed. Hannah Jane would not reach home until nine-forty the next morning. So it was with a four-seated carryall that Thaddeus Clayton started for the station on Saturday morning to meet both of his children and their families.
The ride home was a silent one; but once inside the house, Jehiel and Hannah Jane, amid a storm of sobs and cries, besieged their father with questions.
The family were all in the darkened sitting-room--all, indeed, save Harriet, who sat in solitary state in the chamber above, her face pale and her heart beating almost to suffocation. It had been arranged that she was not to be seen until some sort of explanation had been given.
“Father, what was it?” sobbed Hannah Jane. “How did it happen?”
“It must have been so sudden,” faltered Jehiel. “It cut me up completely.”
“I can’t ever forgive myself,” moaned Hannah Jane hysterically. “She wanted us to come East, and I wouldn’t. ’Twas my selfishness--’twas easier to stay where I was; and now--now--”
“We’ve been brutes, father,” cut in Jehiel, with a shake in his voice; “all of us. I never thought--I never dreamed-father, can--can we see-- her?”
In the chamber above a woman sprang to her feet. Harriet had quite forgotten the stove-pipe hole to the room below, and every sob and moan and wailing cry had been woefully distinct to her ears. With streaming eyes and quivering lips she hurried down the stairs and threw open the sitting-room door.
“Jehiel! Hannah Jane! I’m here, right here--alive!” she cried. “An’ I’ve been a wicked, wicked woman! I never thought how bad ‘twas goin’ ter makeyoufeel. I truly never, never did. ’Twas only myself--I wanted yer so. Oh, children, children, I’ve been so wicked--so awful wicked!”
Jehiel and Hannah Jane were steady of head and strong of heartland joy, it is said, never kills; otherwise, the results of that sudden apparition in the sitting-room doorway might have been disastrous.
As it was, a wonderfully happy family party gathered around the table an hour later; and as Jehiel led a tremulous, gray-haired woman to the seat of honor, he looked into her shining eyes and whispered:
“Dear old mumsey, now that we’ve found the way home again, I reckon we’ll be coming every year--don’t you?”
The Heath twins, Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia, rose early that morning, and the world looked very beautiful to them--one does not buy a black silk gown every day; at least, Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia did not. They had waited, indeed, quite forty years to buy this one.
The women of the Heath family had always possessed a black silk gown. It was a sort of outward symbol of inward respectability--an unfailing indicator of their proud position as members of one of the old families. It might be donned at any time after one’s twenty-first birthday, and it should be donned always for funerals, church, and calls after one had turned thirty. Such had been the code of the Heath family for generations, as Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia well knew; and it was this that had made all the harder their own fate--that their twenty-first birthday was now forty years behind them, and not yet had either of them attained thiscachetof respectability.
To-day, however, there was to come a change. No longer need the carefully sponged and darned black alpaca gowns flaunt their wearers’ poverty to the world, and no longer would they force these same wearers to seek dark corners and sunless rooms, lest the full extent of that poverty become known. It had taken forty years of the most rigid economy to save the necessary money; but it was saved now, and the dresses were to be bought. Long ago there had been enough for one, but neither of the women had so much as thought of the possibility of buying one silk gown. It was sometimes said in the town that if one of the Heath twins strained her eyes, the other one was obliged at once to put on glasses; and it is not to be supposed that two sisters whose sympathies were so delicately attuned would consent to appear clad one in new silk and the other in old alpaca.
In spite of their early rising that morning, it was quite ten o’clock before Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia had brought the house into the state of speckless nicety that would not shame the lustrous things that were so soon to be sheltered beneath its roof. Not that either of the ladies expressed this sentiment in words, or even in their thoughts; they merely went about their work that morning with the reverent joy that a devoted priestess might feel in making ready a shrine for its idol. They had to hurry a little to get themselves ready for the eleven o’clock stage that passed their door; and they were still a little breathless when they boarded the train at the home station for the city twenty miles away--the city where were countless yards of shimmering silk waiting to be bought.
In the city that night at least six clerks went home with an unusual weariness in their arms, which came from lifting down and displaying almost their entire stock of black silk. But with all the weariness, there was no irritation; there was only in their nostrils a curious perfume as of lavender and old lace, and in their hearts a strange exaltation as if they had that day been allowed a glad part in a sacred rite. As for Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia, they went home awed, yet triumphant: when one has waited forty years to make a purchase one does not make that purchase lightly.
“To-morrow we will go over to Mis’ Snow’s and see about having them made up,” said Miss Priscilla with a sigh of content, as the stage lumbered through the dusty home streets.
“Yes; we want them rich, but plain,” supplemented Miss Amelia, rapturously. “Dear me, Priscilla, but I am tired!”
In spite of their weariness the sisters did not get to bed very early that night. They could not decide whether the top drawer of the spare-room bureau or the long box in the parlor closet would be the safer refuge for their treasure. And when the matter was decided, and the sisters had gone to bed, Miss Priscilla, after a prolonged discussion, got up and moved the silk to the other place, only to slip out of bed later, after a much longer discussion, and put it back. Even then they did not sleep well: for the first time in their lives they knew the responsibility that comes with possessions; they feared--burglars.
With the morning sun, however, came peace and joy. No moth nor rust nor thief had appeared, and the lustrous lengths of shimmering silk defied the sun itself to find spot or blemish.
“It looks even nicer than it did in the store, don’t it?” murmured Miss Priscilla, ecstatically, as she hovered over the glistening folds that she had draped in riotous luxury across the chair-back.
“Yes,--oh, yes!” breathed Miss Amelia. “Now let’s hurry with the work so we can go right down to Mis’ Snow’s.”
"Blacksilk-blacksilk!” ticked the clock to Miss Priscilla washing dishes at the kitchen sink.
“You’ve got a blacksilk!You’vegota blacksilk!"chirped the robins to Miss Amelia looking for weeds in the garden.
At ten o’clock the sisters left the house, each with a long brown parcel carefully borne in her arms. At noon--at noon the sisters were back again, still carrying the parcels. Their faces wore a look of mingled triumph and defeat.
“As if wecouldhave that beautiful silk put into aplaitedskirt!” quavered Miss Priscilla, thrusting the key into the lock with a trembling hand. “Why, Amelia, plaits always crack!”
“Of course they do!” almost sobbed Miss Amelia. “Only think of it, Priscilla, our silk--cracked!”
“We will just wait until the styles change,” said Miss Priscilla, with an air of finality. “They won’t always wear plaits!”
“And we know all the time that we’ve really got the dresses, only they aren’t made up!” finished Miss Amelia, in tearful triumph.
So the silk was laid away in two big rolls, and for another year the old black alpaca gowns trailed across the town’s thresholds and down the aisle of the church on Sunday. Their owners no longer sought shadowed corners and sunless rooms, however; it was not as if one wereobligedto wear sponged and darned alpacas!
Plaits were “out” next year, and the Heath sisters were among the first to read it in the fashion notes. Once more on a bright spring morning Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia left the house tenderly bearing in their arms the brown-paper parcels--and once more they returned, the brown parcels still in their arms. There was an air of indecision about them this time.
“You see, Amelia, it seemed foolish--almost wicked,” Miss Priscilla was saying, “to put such a lot of that expensive silk into just sleeves.”
“I know it,” sighed her sister.
“Of course I want the dresses just as much as you do,” went on Miss Priscilla, more confidently; “but when I thought of allowing Mis’ Snow to slash into that beautiful silk and just waste it on those great balloon sleeves, I--I simply couldn’t give my consent!--and ’tisn’t as though we hadn’tgotthe dresses!”
“No, indeed!” agreed Miss Amelia, lifting her chin. And so once more the rolls of black silk were laid away in the great box that had already held them a year; and for another twelve months the black alpacas, now grown shabby indeed, were worn with all the pride of one whose garments are beyond reproach.
When for the third time Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia returned to their home with the oblong brown parcels there was no indecision about them; there was only righteous scorn.
“And do you really think that Mis’ Snowexpectedus to allow that silk to be cut up into those skimpy little skin-tight bags she called skirts?” demanded Miss Priscilla, in a shaking voice. “Why, Amelia, we couldn’t ever make them over!”
“Of course we couldn’t! And when skirts got bigger, what could we do?” cried Miss Amelia. “Why, I’d rather never have a black silk dress than to have one like that--that just couldn’t be changed! We’ll go on wearing the gowns we have. It isn’t as if everybody didn’t know we had these black silk dresses!”
When the fourth spring came the rolls of silk were not even taken from their box except to be examined with tender care and replaced in the enveloping paper. Miss Priscilla was not well. For weeks she had spent most of her waking hours on the sitting-room couch, growing thiner, weaker, and more hollow-eyed.
“You see, dear, I--I am not well enough now to wear it,” she said faintly to her sister one day when they had been talking about the black silk gowns; “but you--” Miss Amelia had stopped her with a shocked gesture of the hand.
“Priscilla--as if I could!” she sobbed. And there the matter had ended.
The townspeople were grieved, but not surprised, when they learned that Miss Amelia was fast following her sister into a decline. It was what they had expected of the Heath twins, they said, and they reminded one another of the story of the strained eyes and the glasses. Then came the day when the little dressmaker’s rooms were littered from end to end with black silk scraps.
“It’s for Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia,’” said Mrs. Snow, with tears in her eyes, in answer to the questions that were asked.
“It’s their black silk gowns, you know.”
“But I thought they were ill--almost dying!” gasped the questioner.
The little dressmaker nodded her head. Then she smiled, even while she brushed her eyes with her fingers.
“They are--but they’re happy. They’re even happy in this!” touching the dress in her lap. “They’ve been forty years buying it, and four making it up. Never until now could they decide to use it; never until now could they be sure they wouldn’t want to--to make it--over.” The little dressmaker’s voice broke, then went on tremulously: “There are folks like that, you know--that never enjoy a thing for what it is, lest sometime they might want it--different. Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia never took the good that was goin’; they’ve always saved it for sometime--later.”
The haze of a warm September day hung low over the house, the garden, and the dust-white road. On the side veranda a gray-haired, erect little figure sat knitting. After a time the needles began to move more and more slowly until at last they lay idle in the motionless, withered fingers.
“Well, well, Abby, takin’ a nap?” demanded a thin-chested, wiry old man coming around the corner of the house and seating himself on the veranda steps.
The little old woman gave a guilty start and began to knit vigorously.
“Dear me, no, Hezekiah. I was thinkin’.” She hesitated a moment, then added, a little feverishly: “--it’s ever so much cooler here than up ter the fair grounds now, ain’t it, Hezekiah?”
The old man threw a sharp look at her face. “Hm-m, yes,” he said. “Mebbe ’t is.”
From far down the road came the clang of a bell. As by common consent the old man and his wife got to their feet and hurried to the front of the house where they could best see the trolley-car as it rounded a curve and crossed the road at right angles.
“Goes slick, don’t it?” murmured the man.
There was no answer. The woman’s eyes were hungrily devouring the last glimpse of paint and polish.
“An’ we hain’t been on ’em ’t all yet, have we, Abby?” he continued.
She drew a long breath.
“Well, ye see, I--I hain’t had time, Hezekiah,” she rejoined apologetically.
“Humph!” muttered the old man as they turned and walked back to their seats.
For a time neither spoke, then Hezekiah Warden cleared his throat determinedly and faced his wife.
“Look a’ here, Abby,” he began, “I’m agoin’ ter say somethin’ that has been ‘most tumblin’ off’n the end of my tongue fer mor’n a year. Jennie an’ Frank are good an’ kind an’ they mean well, but they think ’cause our hair’s white an’ our feet ain’t quite so lively as they once was, that we’re jest as good as buried already, an’ that we don’t need anythin’ more excitin’ than a nap in the sun. Now, Abby,didn’tye want ter go ter that fair with the folks ter-day? Didn’t ye?”
A swift flush came into the woman’s cheek.
“Why, Hezekiah, it’s ever so much cooler here, an’--” she paused helplessly.
“Humph!” retorted the man, “I thought as much. It’s always ‘nice an’ cool’ here in summer an’ ‘nice an’ warm’ here in winter when Jennie goes somewheres that you want ter go an’ don’t take ye. An’ when ’t ain’t that, you say you ‘hain’t had time.’ I know ye! You’d talk any way ter hide their selfishness. Look a’ here, Abby, did ye ever ride in them ’lectric-cars? I mean anywheres?”
“Well, I hain’t neither, an’, by ginger, I’m agoin’ to!”
“Oh, Hezekiah, Hezekiah, don’t--swear!”
“I tell ye, Abby, I will swear. It’s a swearin’ matter. Ever since I heard of ’em I wanted ter try ’em. An’ here they are now ’most ter my own door an’ I hain’t even been in ’em once. Look a’ here, Abby, jest because we’re ’most eighty ain’t no sign we’ve lost int’rest in things. I’m spry as a cricket, an’ so be you, yet Frank an’ Jennie expect us ter stay cooped up here as if we was old--really old, ninety or a hundred, ye know--an’ ’t ain’t fair. Why, wewillbe old one of these days!”
“I know it, Hezekiah.”
“We couldn’t go much when we was younger,” he resumed. “Even our weddin’ trip was chopped right off short ’fore it even begun.”
A tender light came into the dim old eyes opposite.
“I know, dear, an’ what plans we had!” cried Abigail; “Boston, an’ Bunker Hill, an’ Faneuil Hall.”
The old man suddenly squared his shoulders and threw back his head.
“Abby, look a’ here! Do ye remember that money I’ve been savin’ off an’ on when I could git a dollar here an’ there that was extra? Well, there’s as much as ten of ’em now, an’ I’m agoin’ ter spend ’em--all of ’em mebbe. I’magoin’ter ride in them ‘lectric-cars, an’ so be you. An’ I ain’t goin’ ter no old country fair, neither, an’ no more be you. Look a’ here, Abby, the folks are goin’ again ter-morrer ter the fair, ain’t they?”
Abigail nodded mutely. Her eyes were beginning to shine.
“Well,” resumed Hezekiah, “when they go we’ll be settin’ in the sun where they say we’d oughter be. But we ain’t agoin’ ter stay there, Abby. We’re goin’ down the road an’ git on them ‘lectric-cars, an’ when we git ter the Junction we’re agoin’ ter take the steam cars fer Boston. What if ’tis thirty miles! I calc’late we’re equal to ’em. We’ll have one good time, an’ we won’t come home until in the evenin’. We’ll see Faneuil Hall an’ Bunker Hill, an’ you shall buy a new cap, an’ ride in the subway. If there’s a preachin’ service we’ll go ter that. They have ’em sometimes weekdays, ye know.”
“Oh, Hezekiah, we--couldn’t!” gasped the little old woman.
“Pooh! ’Course we could. Listen!” And Hezekiah proceeded to unfold his plans more in detail.
It was very early the next morning when the household awoke. By seven o’clock a two-seated carryall was drawn up to the side-door, and by a quarter past the carryall, bearing Jennie, Frank, the boys, and the lunch baskets, rumbled out of the yard and on to the highway.
“Now, keep quiet and don’t get heated, mother,” cautioned Jennie, looking back at the little gray-haired woman standing all alone on the side veranda.
“Find a good cool spot to smoke your pipe in, father,” called Frank, as an old man appeared in the doorway.
There followed a shout, a clatter, and a cloud of dust--then silence. Fifteen minutes later, hand in hand, a little old man and a little old woman walked down the white road together.
To most of the passengers on the trolley-car that day the trip was merely a necessary means to an end; to the old couple on the front seat it was something to be remembered and lived over all their lives. Even at the Junction the spell of unreality was so potent that the man forgot things so trivial as tickets, and marched into the car with head erect and eyes fixed straight ahead.
It was after Hezekiah had taken out the roll of bills--all ones--to pay the fares to the conductor that a young man in a tall hat sauntered down the aisle and dropped into the seat in front.
“Going to Boston, I take it,” said the young man genially.
“Yes, sir,” replied Hezehiah, no less genially. “Ye guessed right the first time.”
Abigail lifted a cautious hand to her hair and her bonnet. So handsome and well-dressed a man would notice the slightest thing awry, she thought.
“Hm-m,” smiled the stranger. “I was so successful that time, suppose I try my luck again.--You don’t go every day, I fancy, eh?”
“Sugar! How’d he know that, now?” chuckled Hezekiah, turning to his wife in open glee. “So we don’t, stranger, so we don’t,” he added, turning back to the man. “Ye hit it plumb right.”
“Hm-m! great place, Boston,” observed the stranger. “I’m glad you’re going. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
The two wrinkled old faces before him fairly beamed.
“I thank ye, sir,” said Hezekiah heartily. “I call that mighty kind of ye, specially as there are them that thinks we’re too old ter be enj’yin’ of anythin’.”
“Old? Of course you’re not too old! Why, you’re just in the prime to enjoy things,” cried the handsome man, and in the sunshine of his dazzling smile the hearts of the little old man and woman quite melted within them.
“Thank ye, sir, thank ye sir,” nodded Abigail, while Hezekiah offered his hand.
“Shake, stranger, shake! An’ I ain’t too old, an’ I’m agoin’ ter prove it. I’ve got money, sir, heaps of it, an’ I’m goin’ ter spend it--mebbe I’ll spend it all. We’re agoin’ ter see Bunker Hill an’ Faneuil Hall, an’ we’re agoin’ ter ride in the subway. Now, don’t tell me we don’t know how ter enj’y ourselves!”
It was a very simple matter after that. On the one hand were infinite tact and skill; on the other, innocence, ignorance, and an overwhelming gratitude for this sympathetic companionship.
Long before Boston was reached Mr. and Mrs. Warden and “Mr. Livingstone” were on the best of terms, and when they separated at the foot of the car-steps, to the old man and woman it seemed that half their joy and all their courage went with the smiling man who lifted his hat in farewell before being lost to sight in the crowd.
“There, Abby, we’re here!” announced Hezekiah with an exultation that was a little forced. “Gorry! There must be somethin’ goin’ on ter-day,” he added, as he followed the long line of people down the narrow passage between the cars.
There was no reply. Abigail’s cheeks were pink and her bonnet-strings untied. Her eyes, wide opened and frightened, were fixed on the swaying, bobbing crowds ahead. In the great waiting-room she caught her husband’s arm.
“Hezekiah, we can’t, we mustn’t ter-day,” she whispered. “There’s such a crowd. Let’s go home an’ come when it’s quieter.”
“But, Abby, we--here, let’s set down,” Hezekiah finished helplessly.
Near one of the outer doors Mr. Livingstone--better known to his friends and the police as “Slick Bill”--smiled behind his hand. Not once since he had left them had Mr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Warden been out of his sight.
“What’s up, Bill? Need assistance?” demanded a voice at his elbow.
“Jim, by all that’s lucky!” cried Livingstone, turning to greet a dapper little man in gray. “Sure I need you! It’s a peach, though I doubt if we get much but fun, but there’ll be enough of that to make up. Oh, he’s got money--’heaps of it,’ he says,” laughed Livingstone, “and I saw a roll of bills myself. But I advise you not to count too much on that, though it’ll be easy enough to get what there is, all right. As for the fun, Jim, look over by that post near the parcel window.”
“Great Scott! Where’d you pick ’em?” chuckled the younger man.
“Never mind,” returned the other with a shrug. “Meet me at Clyde’s in half an hour. We’ll be there, never fear.”
Over by the parcel-room an old man looked about him with anxious eyes.
“But, Abby, don’t ye see?” he urged. “We’ve come so fer, seems as though we oughter do the rest all right. Now, you jest set here an’ let me go an’ find out how ter git there. We’ll try fer Bunker Hill first, ’cause we want ter see the munurmunt sure.”
He rose to his feet only to be pulled back by his wife.
“Hezekiah Warden!” she almost sobbed. “If you dare ter stir ten feet away from me I’ll never furgive ye as long as I live. We’d never find each other ag’in!”
“Well, well, Abby,” soothed the man with grim humor, “if we never found each other ag’in, I don’t see as ’twould make much diff’rence whether ye furgived me or not!”
For another long minute they silently watched the crowd. Then Hezekiah squared his shoulders.
“Come, come, Abby,” he said, “this ain’t no way ter do. Only think how we wanted ter git here an’ now we’re here an’ don’t dare ter stir. There ain’t any less folks than there was--growin’ worse, if anythin’--but I’m gittin’ used ter ’em now, an’ I’m goin’ ter make a break. Come, what would Mr. Livin’stone say if he could see us now? Where’d he think our boastin’ was about our bein’ able ter enj’y ourselves? Come!” And once more he rose to his feet.
This time he was not held back. The little woman at his side adjusted her bonnet, tilted up her chin, and in her turn rose to her feet.
“Sure enough!” she quavered bravely. “Come, Hezekiah, we’ll ask the way ter Bunker Hill.” And, holding fast to her husband’s coat sleeve, she tripped across the floor to one of the outer doors.
On the sidewalk Mr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Warden came once more to a halt. Before them swept an endless stream of cars, carriages, and people. Above thundered the elevated railway cars.
“Oh-h,” shuddered Abigail and tightened her grasp on her husband’s coat.
It was some minutes before Hezekiah’s dry tongue and lips could frame his question, and then his words were so low-spoken and indistinct that the first two men he asked did not hear. The third man frowned and pointed to a policeman. The fourth snapped: “Take the elevated for Charlestown or the trolley-cars, either;” all of which served but to puzzle Hezekiah the more.
Little by little the dazed old man and his wife fell back before the jostling crowds. They were quite against the side of the building when Livingstone spoke to them.
“Well, well, if here aren’t my friends again!” he exclaimed cordially.
There was something of the fierceness of a drowning man in the way Hezekiah took hold of that hand.
"Mr. Livin’stone!"he cried; then he recollected himself. “We was jest goin’ ter Bunker Hill,” he said jauntily.
“Yes?” smiled Livingstone. “But your luncheon--aren’t you hungry? Come with me; I was just going to get mine.”
“But you--I--” Hezekiah paused and looked doubtingly at his wife.
“Indeed, my dear Mrs. Warden, you’ll say ‘Yes,’ I know,” urged Livingstone suavely. “Only think how good a nice cup of tea would taste now.”
“I know, but--” She glanced at her husband.
“Nonsense! Of course you’ll come,” insisted Livingstone, laying a gently compelling hand on the arm of each.
Fifteen minutes later Hezekiah stood looking about him with wondering eyes.
“Well, well, Abby, ain’t this slick?” he cried.
His wife did not reply. The mirrors, the lights, the gleaming silver and glass had filled her with a delight too great for words. She was vaguely conscious of her husband, of Mr. Livingstone, and of a smooth-shaven little man in gray who was presented as “Mr. Harding.” Then she found herself seated at that wonderful table, while beside her chair stood an awesome being who laid a printed card before her. With a little ecstatic sigh she gave Hezekiah her customary signal for the blessing and bowed her head.
“There!” exulted Livingstone aloud. “Here we--” He stopped short. From his left came a deep-toned, reverent voice invoking the divine blessing upon the place, the food, and the new friends who were so kind to strangers in a strange land.
“By Jove!” muttered Livingstone under his breath, as his eyes met those of Jim across the table. The waiter coughed and turned his back. Then, the blessing concluded, Hezekiah raised his head and smiled.
“Well, well, Abby, why don’t ye say somethin’?” he asked, breaking the silence. “Ye hain’t said a word. Mr. Livin’stone’ll be thinkin’ ye don’t like it.”
Mrs. Warden drew a long breath of delight.
“I can’t say anythin’, Hezekiah,” she faltered. “It’s all so beautiful.”
Livingstone waited until the dazed old eyes had become in a measure accustomed to the surroundings, then he turned a smiling face on Hezekiah.
“And now, my friend, what do you propose to do after luncheon?” he asked.
“Well, we cal’late ter take in Bunker Hill an’ Faneuil Hall sure,” returned the old man with a confidence that told of new courage imbibed with his tea. “Then we thought mebbe we’d ride in the subway an’ hear one of the big preachers if they happened ter be holdin’ meetin’s anywheres this week. Mebbe you can tell us, eh?”
Across the table the man called Harding choked over his food and Livingstone frowned.
“Well,” began Livingstone slowly.
“I think,” interrupted Harding, taking a newspaper from his pocket, “I think there are services there,” he finished gravely, pointing to the glaring advertisement of a ten-cent show, as he handed the paper across to Livingstone.
“But what time do the exercises begin?” demanded Hezekiah in a troubled voice. “Ye see, there’s Bunker Hill an’--sugar! Abby, ain’t that pretty?” he broke off delightedly. Before him stood a slender glass into which the waiter was pouring something red and sparkling.
The old lady opposite grew white, then pink. “Of course that ain’t wine, Mr. Livingstone?” she asked anxiously.
“Give yourself no uneasiness, my dear Mrs. Warden,” interposed Harding. “It’s lemonade--pink lemonade.”
“Oh,” she returned with a relieved sigh. “I ask yer pardon, I’m sure. You wouldn’t have it, ‘course, no more’n I would. But, ye see, bein’ pledged so, I didn’t want ter make a mistake.”
There was an awkward silence, then Harding raised his glass.
“Here’s to your health, Mrs. Warden!” he cried gayly. “May your trip----”
“Wait!” she interrupted excitedly, her old eyes alight and her cheeks flushed. “Let me tell ye first what this trip is ter us, then ye’ll have a right ter wish us good luck.”
Harding lowered his glass and turned upon her a gravely attentive face.
“‘Most fifty years ago we was married, Hezekiah an’ me,” she began softly. “We’d saved, both of us, an’ we’d planned a honeymoon trip. We was comin’ ter Boston. They didn’t have any ’lectric-cars then nor any steam-cars only half-way. But we was comin’ an’ we was plannin’ on Bunker Hill an’ Faneuil Hall, an’ I don’t know what all.”
The little lady paused for breath and Harding stirred uneasily in his chair. Livingstone did not move. His eyes were fixed on a mirror across the room. Over at the sideboard the waiter vigorously wiped a bottle.
“Well, we was married,” continued the tremulous voice, “an’ not half an hour later mother fell down the cellar stairs an’ broke her hip. Of course that stopped things right short. I took off my weddin’ gown an’ put on my old red caliker an’ went ter work. Hezekiah came right there an’ run the farm an’ I nursed mother an’ did the work. ’T was more’n a year ’fore she was up ‘round, an’ after that, what with the babies an’ all, there didn’t never seem a chance when Hezekiah an’ me could take this trip.
“If we went anywhere we couldn’t seem ter manage ter go tergether, an’ we never stayed fer no sight-seein’. Late years my Jennie an’ her husband seemed ter think we didn’t need nothin’ but naps an’ knittin’, an’ somehow we got so we jest couldn’t stand it. We wanted ter go somewhere an’ see somethin’, so.”
Mrs. Warden paused, drew a long breath, and resumed. Her voice now had a ring of triumph.
“Well, last month they got the ’lectric-cars finished down our way. We hadn’t been on ’em, neither of us. Jennie an’ Frank didn’t seem ter want us to. They said they was shaky an’ noisy an’ would tire us all out. But yesterday, when the folks was gone, Hezekiah an’ me got ter talkin’ an’ thinkin’ how all these years we hadn’t never had that honeymoon trip, an’ how by an’ by we’d be old--real old, I mean, so’s we couldn’t take it--an’ all of a sudden we said we’d take it now, right now. An’ we did. We left a note fer the children, an’--an’ we’re here!”
There was a long silence. Over at the sideboard the waiter still polished his bottle. Livingstone did not even turn his head. Finally Harding raised his glass.
“We’ll drink to honeymoon trips in general and to this one in particular,” he cried, a little constrainedly.
Mrs. Warden flushed, smiled, and reached for her glass. The pink lemonade was almost at her lips when Livingstone’s arm shot out. Then came the tinkle of shattered glass and a crimson stain where the wine trailed across the damask.
“I beg your pardon!” exclaimed Livingstone, while the other men lowered their glasses in surprise. “That was an awkward slip of mine, Mrs. Warden. I must have hit your arm.”
“But, Bill,” muttered Harding under his breath, “you don’t mean--”
“But I do,” corrected Livingstone quietly, looking straight into Harding’s amazed eyes.
“Mr. and Mrs. Warden are my guests. They are going to drive to Bunker Hill with me by and by.”
When the six o’clock accommodation train pulled out from Boston that night it bore a little old man and a little old woman, gray-haired, weary, but blissfully content.
“We’ve seen ’em all, Hezekiah, ev’ry single one of ’em,” Abigail was saying. “An’ wan’t Mr. Livingstone good, a-gittin’ that carriage an’ takin’ us ev’rywhere; an’ it bein’ open so all ’round the sides, we didn’t miss seein’ a single thing!”
“He was, Abby, he was, an’ he wouldn’t let me pay one cent!” cried Hezekiah, taking out his roll of bills and patting it lovingly. “But, Abby, did ye notice? ‘Twas kind o’ queer we never got one taste of that pink lemonade. The waiter-man took it away.”