The room was very still. The gaunt figure on the bed lay motionless save for a slight lifting of the chest at long intervals. The face was turned toward the wall, leaving a trail of thin gray hair-wisps across the pillow. Just outside the door two physicians talked together in low tones, with an occasional troubled glance toward the silent figure on the bed.
“If there could be something that would rouse her,” murmured one; “something that would prick her will-power and goad it into action! But this lethargy--this wholesale giving up!” he finished with a gesture of despair.
“I know,” frowned the other; “and I’ve tried--day after day I’ve tried. But there’s nothing. I’ve exhausted every means in my power. I didn’t know but you--” He paused questioningly.
The younger man shook his head.
“No,” he said. “If you can’t, I can’t. You’ve been her physician for years. If anyone knows how to reach her, you should know. I suppose you’ve thought of--her son?”
“Oh, yes. Jed was sent for long ago, but he had gone somewhere into the interior on a prospecting trip, and was very hard to reach. It is doubtful if word gets to him at all until--too late. As you know, perhaps, it is rather an unfortunate case. He has not been home for years, anyway, and the Nortons--James is Mrs. Darling’s nephew--have been making all the capital they can out of it, and have been prejudicing her against him--quite unjustly, in my opinion, for I think it’s nothing more nor less than thoughtlessness on the boy’s part.”
“Hm-m; too bad, too bad!” murmured the other, as he turned and led the way to the street door.
Back in the sick-room the old woman still lay motionless on the bed. She was wondering--as she had wondered so often before--why it took so long to die. For days now she had been trying to die, decently and in order. There was really no particular use in living, so far as she could see. Ella and Jim were very kind; but, after all, they were not Jed, and Jed was away--hopelessly away. He did not even want to come back, so Ella and Jim said.
There was the money, too. She did not like to think of the money. It seemed to her that every nickel and dime and quarter that she had painfully wrested from the cost of keeping soul and body together all these past years lay now on her breast with a weight that crushed like lead. She had meant that money for Jed. Ella and Jim were kind, of course, and she was willing they should have it; yet Jed--but Jed was away.
And she was so tired. She had ceased to rouse herself, either for the medicine or for the watery broths they forced through her lips. It was so hopelessly dragged out--this dying; yet it must be over soon. She had heard them tell the neighbors only yesterday that she was unconscious and that she did not know a thing of what was passing around her; and she had smiled--but only in her mind. Her lips, she knew, had not moved.
They were talking now--Ella and Jim--out in the other room. Their voices, even their words, were quite distinct, and dreamily, indifferently, she listened.
“You see,” said Jim, “as long as I’ve got ter go ter town ter-morrer, anyhow, it seems a pity not ter do it all up at once. I could order the coffin an’ the undertaker--it’s only a question of a few hours, anyway, an’ it seems such a pity ter make another trip--jest fer that!”
In the bedroom the old woman stirred suddenly. Somewhere, away back behind the consciousness of things, something snapped, and sent the blood tingling from toes to fingertips. A fierce anger sprang instantly into life and brushed the cobwebs of lethargy and indifference from her brain. She turned and opened her eyes, fixing them upon the oblong patch of light that marked the doorway leading to the room beyond where sat Ella and Jim.
“Jest fer that,” Jim had said, and “that” was her death. It was not worth, it seemed, even an extra trip to town! And she had done so much-- so much for those two out there!
“Let’s see; ter-day’s Monday,” Jim went on. “We might fix the fun’ral for Saturday, I guess, an’ I’ll tell the folks at the store ter spread it. Puttin’ it on Sat’day’ll give us a leetle extry time if she shouldn’t happen ter go soon’s we expect--though there ain’t much fear o’ that now, I guess, she’s so low. An’ it’ll save me ’most half a day ter do it all up this trip. I ain’t--what’s that?” he broke off sharply.
From the inner room had seemed to come a choking, inarticulate cry.
With a smothered ejaculation Jim picked up the lamp, hurried into the sick-room, and tiptoed to the bed. The gaunt figure lay motionless, face to the wall, leaving a trail of thin gray hair-wisps across the pillow.
“Gosh!” muttered the man as he turned away.
“There’s nothin’ doin’-but it did give me a start!”
On the bed the woman smiled grimly--but the man did not see it.
It was snowing hard when Jim got back from town Tuesday night. He came blustering into the kitchen with stamping feet and wide-flung arms, scattering the powdery whiteness in all directions.
“Whew! It’s a reg’lar blizzard,” he began, but he stopped short at the expression on his wife’s face. “Why, Ella!” he cried.
“Jim--Aunt Abby sat up ten minutes in bed ter-day. She called fer toast an’ tea.”
Jim dropped into a chair. His jaw fell open.
“S-sat up!” he stammered.
“Yes.”
“But she--hang it all, Herrick’s comin’ ter-morrer with the coffin!”
“Oh, Jim!”
“Well, I can’t help it! You know how she was this mornin’,” retorted Jim sharply. “I thought shewasdead once. Why, I ’most had Herrick come back with me ter-night, I was so sure.”
“I know it,” shivered Ella, “but you hadn’t been gone an hour ’fore she began to stir an’ notice things. I found her lookin’ at me first, an’ it give me such a turn I ’most dropped the medicine bottle in my hand. I was clearin’ off the little table by her bed, an’ she was followin’ me around with them big gray eyes. ‘Slickin’ up?’ she asks after a minute; an’ I could ‘a’ dropped right there an’ then, ’cause Iwasslickin’ up, fer her fun’ral. ‘Where’s Jim?’ she asks then. ’Gone ter town,’ says I, kind o’ faint-like. ‘Umph!’ she says, an’ snaps her lips tight shet. After a minute she opens ’em again. ’I think I’ll have some tea and toast,’ she says, casual-like, jest as if she’d been callin’ fer victuals ev’ry day fer a month past. An’ when I brought it, if she didn’t drag herself up in bed an’ call fer a piller to her back, so’s she could set up. An’ there she stayed, pantin’ an’ gaspin’, butsettin’ up--an’ she stayed there till the toast an’ tea was gone.”
“Gosh!” groaned Jim. “Who’d ‘a’ thought it? ’Course ’t ain’t that I grudge the old lady’s livin’,” he added hurriedly, “but jest now it’s so-- unhandy, things bein’ as they be. We can’t very well--” He stopped, a swift change coming to his face. “Say, Ella,” he cried, “mebbe it’s jest a spurt ’fore--’fore the last. Don’t it happen sometimes that way--when folks is dyin’?”
“I don’t know,” shuddered Ella. “Sh-h! I thought I heard her.” And she hurried across the hall to the sitting-room and the bedroom beyond.
It did not snow much through the night, but in the early morning it began again with increased severity. The wind rose, too, and by the time Herrick, the undertaker, drove into the yard, the storm had become a blizzard.
“I calc’lated if I didn’t git this ’ere coffin here purty quick there wouldn’t be no gettin’ it here yet awhile,” called Herrick cheerfully, as Jim came to the door.
Jim flushed and raised a warning hand.
“Sh-h! Herrick, look out!” he whispered hoarsely. “She ain’t dead yet. You’ll have ter go back.”
“Go back!” snorted Herrick. “Why, man alive, ’twas as much as my life’s worth to get here. There won’t be no goin’ back yet awhile fer me nor no one else, I calc’late. An’ the quicker you get this ’ere coffin in out of the snow, the better’t will be,” he went on authoritatively as he leaped to the ground.
It was not without talk and a great deal of commotion that the untimely addition to James Norton’s household effects was finally deposited in the darkened parlor; neither was it accomplished without some echo of the confusion reaching the sick-room, despite all efforts of concealment. Jim, perspiring, red-faced, and palpably nervous, was passing on tiptoe through the sitting-room when a quavering voice from the bedroom brought him to a halt.
“Jim, is that you?”
“Yes, Aunt Abby.”
“Who’s come?”
Jim’s face grew white, then red.
“C-ome?” he stammered.
“Yes, I heard a sleigh and voices. Who is it?”
“Why, jest-jest a man on--on business,” he flung over his shoulder, as he fled through the hall.
Not half an hour later came Ella’s turn. In accordance with the sick woman’s orders she had prepared tea, toast, and a boiled egg; but she had not set the tray on the bed when the old woman turned upon her two keen eyes.
“Who’s in the kitchen, Ella, with Jim?”
Ella started guiltily.
“Why, jest a--a man.”
“Who is it?”
Ella hesitated; then, knowing that deceit was useless, she stammered out the truth.
“Why, er--only Mr. Herrick.”
“Not William Herrick, the undertaker!” There was apparently only pleased surprise in the old woman’s voice.
“Yes,” nodded Ella feverishly, “he had business out this way, and--and got snowed up,” she explained with some haste.
“Ye don’t say,” murmured the old woman. “Well, ask him in; I’d like ter see him.”
“Aunt Abby!”--Ella’s teeth fairly chattered with dismay.
“Yes, I’d like ter see him,” repeated the old woman with cordial interest. “Call him in.”
And Ella could do nothing but obey.
Herrick, however, did not stay long in the sick-room. The situation was uncommon for him, and not without its difficulties. As soon as possible he fled to the kitchen, telling Jim that it gave him “the creeps” to have her ask him where he’d started for, and if business was good.
All that day it snowed and all that night; nor did the dawn of Friday bring clear skies. For hours the wind had swept the snow from roofs and hilltops, piling it into great drifts that grew moment by moment deeper and more impassable.
In the farmhouse Herrick was still a prisoner.
The sick woman was better. Even Jim knew now that it was no momentary flare of the candle before it went out. Mrs. Darling was undeniably improving in health. She had sat up several times in bed, and had begun to talk of wrappers and slippers. She ate toast, eggs, and jellies, and hinted at chicken and beefsteak. She was weak, to be sure, but behind her, supporting and encouraging, there seemed to be a curious strength--a strength that sent a determined gleam to her eyes, and a grim tenseness to her lips.
At noon the sun came out, and the wind died into fitful gusts. The two men attacked the drifts with a will, and made a path to the gate. They even attempted to break out the road, and Herrick harnessed his horse and started for home; but he had not gone ten rods before he was forced to turn back.
“’T ain’t no use,” he grumbled. “I calc’late I’m booked here till the crack o’ doom!”
“An’ ter-morrer’s the fun’ral,” groaned Jim. “An’ I can’t git nowhere--nowhereter tell ’em not ter come!”
“Well, it don’t look now as if anybody’d come--or go,” snapped the undertaker.
Saturday dawned fair and cold. Early in the morning the casket was moved from the parlor to the attic.
There had been sharp words at the breakfast table, Herrick declaring that he had made a sale, and refusing to take the casket back to town; hence the move to the attic; but in spite of their caution, the sick woman heard the commotion.
“What ye been cartin’ upstairs?” she asked in a mildly curious voice.
Ella was ready for her.
“A chair,” she explained smoothly; “the one that was broke in the front room, ye know.” And she did not think it was necessary to add that the chair was not all that had been moved. She winced and changed color, however, when her aunt observed:
“Humph! Must be you’re expectin’ company, Ella.”
It was almost two o’clock when loud voices and the crunch of heavy teams told that the road-breakers had come. All morning the Nortons had been hoping against hope that the fateful hour would pass, and the road be still left in unbroken whiteness. Someone, however, had known his duty too well--and had done it.
“I set ter work first thing on this road,” said the man triumphantly to Ella as he stood, shovel in hand, at the door. “The parson’s right behind, an’ there’s a lot more behind him. Gorry! I was afraid I wouldn’t git here in time, but the fun’ral wan’t till two, was it?”
Ella’s dry lips refused to move. She shook her head.
“There’s a mistake,” she said faintly. “There ain’t no fun’ral. Aunt Abby’s better.”
The man stared, then he whistled softly.
“Gorry!” he muttered, as he turned away.
If Jim and Ella had supposed that they could keep their aunt from attending her own “funeral”--as Herrick persisted in calling it--they soon found their mistake. Mrs. Darling heard the bells of the first arrival.
“I guess mebbe I’ll git up an’ set up a spell,” she announced calmly to Ella. “I’ll have my wrapper an’ my slippers, an’ I’ll set in the big chair out in the settin’-room. That’s Parson Gerry’s voice, an’ I want ter see him.”
“But, Aunt Abby--” began Ella, feverishly.
“Well, I declare, if there ain’t another sleigh drivin’ in,” cried the old woman excitedly, sitting up in bed and peering through the little window. “Must be they’re givin’ us a s’prise party. Now hurry, Ella, an’ git them slippers. I ain’t a-goin’ to lose none o’ the fun!” And Ella, nervous, perplexed, and thoroughly frightened, did as she was bid.
In state, in the big rocking-chair, the old woman received her guests. She said little, it is true, but she was there; and if she noticed that no guest entered the room without a few whispered words from Ella in the hall, she made no sign. Neither did she apparently consider it strange that ten women and six men should have braved the cold to spend fifteen rather embarrassed minutes in her sitting-room--and for this last both Ella and Jim were devoutly grateful. They could not help wondering about it, however, after she had gone to bed, and the house was still.
“What do ye s’pose she thought?” whispered Jim.
“I don’t know,” shivered Ella, “but, Jim, wan’t it awful?--Mis’ Blair brought a white wreath--everlastin’s!”
One by one the days passed, and Jim and Ella ceased to tremble every time the old woman opened her lips. There was still that fearsome thing in the attic, but the chance of discovery was small now.
“If sheshouldfind out,” Ella had said, “’twould be the end of the money--fer us.”
“But she ain’t a-goin’ ter find out,” Jim had retorted. “She can’t last long, ‘course, an’ I guess she won’t change the will now--unless some one tells her; an’ I’ll be plaguy careful there don’t no one do that!”
The “funeral” was a week old when Mrs. Darling came into the sitting-room one day, fully dressed.
“I put on all my clo’s,” she said smilingly, in answer to Ella’s shocked exclamation. “I got restless, somehow, an’ sick o’ wrappers. Besides, I wanted to walk around the house a little. I git kind o’ tired o’ jest one room.” And she limped across the floor to the hall door.
“But, Aunt Abby, where ye goin’ now?” faltered Ella.
“Jest up in the attic. I wanted ter see--” She stopped in apparent surprise. Ella and Jim had sprung to their feet.
“The attic!” they gasped.
“Yes, I--”
“But you mustn’t!--you ain’t strong enough!--you’ll fall!--there’s nothin’ there!” they exclaimed wildly, talking both together and hurrying forward.
“Oh, I guess ’t won’t kill me,” said the old woman; and something in the tone of her voice made them fall back. They were still staring into each other’s eyes when the hall door closed sharply behind her.
“It’s all--up!” breathed Jim.
Fully fifteen minutes passed before the old woman came back. She entered the room quietly, and limped across the floor to the chair by the window.
“It’s real pretty,” she said. “I allers did like gray.”
“Gray?” stammered Ella.
“Yes!--fer coffins, ye know.” Jim made a sudden movement, and started to speak; but the old woman raised her hand. “You don’t need ter say anythin’,” she interposed cheerfully. “I jest wanted ter make sure where ‘twas, so I went up. You see, Jed’s comin’ home, an’ I thought he might feel--queer if he run on to it, casual-like.”
“Jed--comin’ home!”
The old woman smiled oddly.
“Oh, I didn’t tell ye, did I? The doctor had this telegram yesterday, an’ brought it over to me. Ye know he was here last night. Read it.” And she pulled from her pocket a crumpled slip of paper. And Jim read:
Shall be there the 8th. For God’s sake don’t let me be too late.
J. D. Darling
The great chair, sumptuous with satin-damask and soft with springs, almost engulfed the tiny figure of the little old lady. To the old lady herself it suddenly seemed the very embodiment of the luxurious ease against which she was so impotently battling. With a spasmodic movement she jerked herself to her feet, and stood there motionless save for the wistful sweep of her eyes about the room.
A level ray from the setting sun shot through the window, gilding the silver of her hair and deepening the faint pink of her cheek; on the opposite wall it threw a sharp silhouette of the alert little figure--that figure which even the passage of years had been able to bend so very little to its will. For a moment the lace kerchief folded across the black gown rose and fell tumultuously; then its wearer crossed the room and seated herself with uncompromising discomfort in the only straight-backed chair the room contained. This done, Mrs. Nancy Wetherby, for the twentieth time, went over in her mind the whole matter.
For two weeks, now, she had been a member of her son John’s family--two vain, unprofitable weeks. When before that had the sunset found her night after night with hands limp from a long day of idleness? When before that had the sunrise found her morning after morning with a mind destitute of worthy aim or helpful plan for the coming twelve hours? When, indeed?
Not in her girlhood, not even in her childhood, had there been days of such utter uselessness--rag dolls and mud pies needsomecare! As for her married life, there were Eben, the babies, the house, the church--and how absolutely necessary she had been to each one!
The babies had quickly grown to stalwart men and sweet-faced women who had as quickly left the home nest and built new nests of their own. Eben had died; and the church--strange how long and longer still the walk to the church had grown each time she had walked it this last year! After all, perhaps it did not matter; there were new faces at the church, and young, strong hands that did not falter and tremble over these new ways of doing things. For a time there had been only the house that needed her--but how great that need had been! There were the rooms to care for, there was the linen to air, there were the dear treasures of picture and toy to cry and laugh over; and outside there were the roses to train and the pansies to pick.
Now, even the house was not left. It was October, and son John had told her that winter was coming on and she must not remain alone. He had brought her to his own great house and placed her in these beautiful rooms--indeed, son John was most kind to her! If only she could make some return, do something, be of some use!
Her heart failed her as she thought of the grave-faced, preoccupied man who came each morning into the room with the question, “Well, mother, is there anything you need to-day?” What possible service couldsherenderhim?Her heart failed her again as she thought of John’s pretty, new wife, and of the two big boys, men grown, sons of dear dead Molly. There was the baby, to be sure; but the baby was always attended by one, and maybe two, white-capped, white-aproned young women. Madam Wetherby never felt quite sure of herself when with those young women. There were other young women, too, in whose presence she felt equally ill at ease; young women in still prettier white aprons and still daintier white caps; young women who moved noiselessly in and out of the halls and parlors and who waited at table each day.
Was there not some spot, some creature, some thing, in all that place that needed the touch of her hand, the glance of her eye? Surely the day had not quite come when she could be of no use, no service to her kind! Her work must be waiting; she had only to find it. She would seek it out--and that at once. No more of this slothful waiting for the work to come to her! “Indeed, no!” she finished aloud, her dim eyes alight, her breath coming short and quick, and her whole frail self quivering with courage and excitement.
It was scarcely nine o’clock the next morning when a quaint little figure in a huge gingham apron (slyly abstracted from the bottom of a trunk) slipped out of the rooms given over to the use of John Wetherby’s mother. The little figure tripped softly, almost stealthily, along the hall and down the wide main staircase. There was some hesitation and there were a few false moves before the rear stairway leading to the kitchen was gained; and there was a gasp, half triumphant, half dismayed, when the kitchen was reached.
The cook stared, open-mouthed, as though confronted with an apparition. A maid, hurrying across the room with a loaded tray, almost dropped her burden to the floor. There was a dazed moment of silence, then Madam Wetherby took a faltering step forward and spoke.
“Good-morning! I--I’ve come to help you.”
“Ma’am!” gasped the cook.
“To help--to help!” nodded the little old lady briskly, with a sudden overwhelming joy at the near prospect of the realization of her hopes. “Pare apples, beat eggs, or--anything!”
“Indeed, ma’am, I--you--” The cook stopped helplessly, and eyed with frightened fascination the little old lady as she crossed to the table and picked up a pan of potatoes.
“Now a knife, please,--oh, here’s one,” continued Madam Wetherby happily. “Go right about something else. I’ll sit over there in that chair, and I’ll have these peeled very soon.”
When John Wetherby visited his mother’s rooms that morning he found no one there to greet him. A few sharp inquiries disclosed the little lady’s whereabouts and sent Margaret Wetherby with flaming cheeks and tightening lips into the kitchen.
“Mother!” she cried; and at the word the knife dropped from the trembling, withered old fingers and clattered to the floor. “Why, mother!”
“I--I was helping,” quavered a deprecatory voice.
Something in the appealing eyes sent a softer curve to Margaret Wetherby’s lips.
“Yes, mother; that was very kind of you,” said John’s wife gently. “But such work is quite too hard for you, and there’s no need of your doing it. Nora will finish these,” she added, lifting the pan of potatoes to the table, “and you and I will go upstairs to your room. Perhaps we’ll go driving by and by. Who knows?”
In thinking it over afterwards Nancy Wetherby could find no fault with her daughter-in-law. Margaret had been goodness itself, insisting only that such work was not for a moment to be thought of. John’s wife was indeed kind, acknowledged Madam Wetherby to herself, yet two big tears welled to her eyes and were still moist on her cheeks after she had fallen asleep.
It was perhaps three days later that John Wetherby’s mother climbed the long flight of stairs near her sitting-room door, and somewhat timidly entered one of the airy, sunlit rooms devoted to Master Philip Wetherby. The young woman in attendance respectfully acknowledged her greeting, and Madam Wetherby advanced with some show of courage to the middle of the room.
“The baby, I--I heard him cry,” she faltered.
“Yes, madam,” smiled the nurse. “It is Master Philip’s nap hour.”
Louder and louder swelled the wails from the inner room, yet the nurse did not stir save to reach for her thread.
“But he’s crying--yet!” gasped Madam Wetherby.
The girl’s lips twitched and an expression came to her face which the little old lady did not in the least understand.
“Can’t you--do something?” demanded baby’s grandmother, her voice shaking.
“No, madam. I--” began the girl, but she did not finish. The little figure before her drew itself to the full extent of its diminutive height.
“Well, I can,” said Madam Wetherby crisply. Then she turned and hurried into the inner room.
The nurse sat mute and motionless until a crooning lullaby and the unmistakable tapping of rockers on a bare floor brought her to her feet in dismay. With an angry frown she strode across the room, but she stopped short at the sight that met her eyes.
In a low chair, her face aglow with the accumulated love of years of baby-brooding, sat the little old lady, one knotted, wrinkled finger tightly elapsed within a dimpled fist. The cries had dropped to sobbing breaths, and the lullaby, feeble and quavering though it was, rose and swelled triumphant. The anger fled from the girl’s face, and a queer choking came to her throat so that her words were faint and broken.
“Madam--I beg pardon--I’m sorry, but I must put Master Philip back on his bed.”
“But he isn’t asleep yet,” demurred Madam Wetherby softly, her eyes mutinous.
“But you must--I can’t--that is, Master Philip cannot be rocked,” faltered the girl.
“Nonsense, my dear!” she said; “babies can always be rocked!” And again the lullaby rose on the air.
“But, madam,” persisted the girl--she was almost crying now--“don’t you see? I must put Master Philip back. It is Mrs. Wetherby’s orders. They-- they don’t rock babies so much now.”
For an instant fierce rebellion spoke through flashing eyes, stern-set lips, and tightly clutched fingers; then all the light died from the thin old face and the tense muscles relaxed.
“You may put the baby back,” said Madam Wetherby tremulously, yet with a sudden dignity that set the maid to curtsying. “I--I should not want to cross my daughter’s wishes.”
Nancy Wetherby never rocked her grandson again, but for days she haunted the nursery, happy if she could but tie the baby’s moccasins or hold his brush or powder-puff; yet a week had scarcely passed when John’s wife said to her:
“Mother, dear, I wouldn’t tire myself so trotting upstairs each day to the nursery. There isn’t a bit of need--Mary and Betty can manage quite well. You fatigue yourself too much!” And to the old lady’s denials John’s wife returned, with a tinge of sharpness: “But, really, mother, I’d rather you didn’t. It frets the nurses and--forgive me--but you know youwillforget and talk to him in ’baby-talk’!”
The days came and the days went, and Nancy Wetherby stayed more and more closely to her rooms. She begged one day for the mending-basket, but her daughter-in-law laughed and kissed her.
“Tut, tut, mother, dear!” she remonstrated. “As if I’d have you wearing your eyes and fingers out mending a paltry pair of socks!”
“Then I--I’ll knit new ones!” cried the old lady, with sudden inspiration.
“Knit new ones--stockings!” laughed Margaret Wetherby. “Why, dearie, they never in this world would wear them--and if they would, I couldn’t let you do it,” she added gently, as she noted the swift clouding of the eager face. “Such tiresome work!”
Again the old eyes filled with tears; and yet--John’s wife was kind, so very kind!
It was a cheerless, gray December morning that John Wetherby came into his mother’s room and found a sob-shaken little figure in the depths of the sumptuous, satin-damask chair. “Mother, mother,--why, mother!” There were amazement and real distress in John Wetherby’s voice.
“There, there, John, I--I didn’t mean to--truly I didn’t!” quavered the little old lady.
John dropped on one knee and caught the fluttering fingers. “Mother, what is it?”
“It--it isn’t anything; truly it isn’t,” urged the tremulous voice.
“Is any one unkind to you?” John’s eyes grew stern. “The boys, or-- Margaret?”
The indignant red mounted to the faded cheek. “John! How can you ask? Every one is kind, kind, so very kind to me!”
“Well, then, what is it?”
There was only a sob in reply. “Come, come,” he coaxed gently.
For a moment Nancy Wetherby’s breath was held suspended, then it came in a burst with a rush of words.
“Oh, John, John, I’m so useless, so useless, so dreadfully useless! Don’t you see? Not a thing, not a person needs me. The kitchen has the cook and the maids. The baby has two or three nurses. Not even this room needs me--there’s a girl to dust it each day. Once I slipped out of bed and did it first--I did, John; but she came in, and when I told her, she just curtsied and smiled and kept right on, and--she didn’t even skipone chair!John, dear John, sometimes it seems as though even my own self doesn’t need me. I--I don’t even put on my clothes alone; there’s always some one to help me!”
“There, there, dear,” soothed the man huskily. “I need you, indeed I do, mother.” And he pressed his lips to one, then the other, of the wrinkled, soft-skinned hands.
“You don’t--you don’t!” choked the woman. “There’s not one thing I can do for you! Why, John, only think, I sit with idle hands all day, and there was so much once for them to do. There was Eben, and the children, and the house, and the missionary meetings, and--”
On and on went the sweet old voice, but the man scarcely heard. Only one phrase rang over and over in his ears, “There’s not one thing I can do for you!” All the interests of now--stocks, bonds, railroads--fell from his mind and left it blank save for the past. He was a boy again at his mother’s knee. And what had she done for him then? Surely among all the myriad things there must be one that he might single out and ask her to do for him now! And yet, as he thought, his heart misgave him.
There were pies baked, clothes made, bumped foreheads bathed, lost pencils found; there were--a sudden vision came to him of something warm and red and very soft--something over which his boyish heart had exulted. The next moment his face lighted with joy very like that of the years long ago.
“Mother!” he cried. “I know what you can do for me. I want a pair of wristers--red ones, just like those you used to knit!”
It must have been a month later that John Wetherby, with his two elder sons, turned the first corner that carried him out of sight of his house. Very slowly, and with gentle fingers, he pulled off two bright red wristers. He folded them, patted them, then tucked them away in an inner pocket.
“Bless her dear heart!” he said softly. “You should have seen her eyes shine when I put them on this morning!”
“I can imagine it,” said one of his sons in a curiously tender voice. The other one smiled, and said whimsically, “I can hardly wait for mine!” Yet even as he spoke his eyes grew dim with a sudden moisture.
Back at the house John’s mother was saying to John’s wife: “Did you see them on him, Margaret?--John’s wristers? They did look so bright and pretty! And I’m to make more, too; did you know? Frank and Edward want some; John said so. He told them about his, and they wanted some right away. Only think, Margaret,” she finished, lifting with both hands the ball of red worsted and pressing it close to her cheek, “I’ve got two whole pairs to make now!”
For two months Cyrus Gregg and his wife Huldah had not spoken to each other, yet all the while they had lived under the same roof, driven to church side by side, and attended various festivities and church prayer-meetings together.
The cause of the quarrel had been an insignificant something that speedily lost itself in the torrent of angry words that burst from the lips of the irate husband and wife, until by night it would have been difficult for either the man or the woman to tell exactly what had been the first point of difference. By that time, however, the quarrel had assumed such proportions that it loomed in their lives larger than anything else; and each had vowed never to speak to the other until that other had made the advance.
On both sides they came of a stubborn race, and from the first it was a battle royally fought. The night of the quarrel Cyrus betook himself in solitary state to the “spare-room” over the parlor. After that he slept on a makeshift bed that he had prepared for himself in the shed-chamber, hitherto sacred to trunks, dried corn, and cobwebs.
For a month the two sat opposite to each other and partook of Huldah’s excellent cooking; then one day the woman found at her plate a piece--of brown paper on which had been scrawled:
If I ain’t worth speakin’ to I ain’t worth cookin’ for. Hereafter I’ll take care of myself.
A day later came the retort. Cyrus found it tucked under the shed-chamber door.
Huldah’s note showed her “schooling.” It was well written, carefully spelled, and enclosed in a square white envelope.
Sir[it ran stiffly]: I shall be obliged if you do not chop any more wood for me. Hereafter I shall use the oil stove. HULDAH PENDLETON GREGG.
Cyrus choked, and peered at the name with suddenly blurred eyes: the “Huldah Pendleton” was fiercely black and distinct; the “Gregg” was so faint it could scarcely be discerned.
“Why, it’s ’most like a d’vorce!” he shivered.
If it had not been so pitiful, it would have been ludicrous--what followed. Day after day, in one corner of the kitchen, an old man boiled his potatoes and fried his unappetizing eggs over a dusty, unblacked stove; in the other corner an old woman baked and brewed over a shining idol of brass and black enamel--and always the baking and brewing carried to the nostrils of the hungry man across the room the aroma of some dainty that was a particular favorite of his own.
The man whistled, and the woman hummed--at times; but they did not talk, except when some neighbor came in; and then they both talked very loud and very fast--to the neighbor. On this one point were Cyrus Gregg and his wife Huldah agreed; under no circumstances whatever must any gossiping outsider know.
One by one the weeks had passed. It was November now, and very cold. Outdoors a dull gray sky and a dull brown earth combined into a dismal hopelessness. Indoors the dull monotony of a two-months-old quarrel and a growing heartache made a combination that carried even less of cheer.
Huldah never hummed now, and Cyrus seldom whistled; yet neither was one whit nearer speaking. Each saw this, and, curiously enough, was pleased. In fact, it was just here that, in spite of the heartache, each found an odd satisfaction.
“By sugar--but she’s a spunky one!” Cyrus would chuckle admiringly, as he discovered some new evidence of his wife’s shrewdness in obtaining what she wanted with yet no spoken word.
“There isn’t another man in town who could do it--and stick to it!” exulted Huldah proudly, her eyes on her husband’s form, bent over his egg-frying at the other side of the room.
Not only the cause of the quarrel, but almost the quarrel itself, had now long since been forgotten; in fact, to both Cyrus and his wife it had come to be a sort of game in which each player watched the other’s progress with fully as much interest as he did his own. And yet, with it all there was the heartache; for the question came to them at times with sickening force--just when and how could it possibly end?
It was at about this time that each began to worry about the other. Huldah shuddered at the changeless fried eggs and boiled potatoes; and Cyrus ordered a heavy storm window for the room where Huldah slept alone. Huldah slyly left a new apple pie almost under her husband’s nose one day, and Cyrus slipped a five-dollar bill beneath his wife’s napkin ring. When both pie and greenback remained untouched, Huldah cried, and Cyrus said, “Gosh darn it!” three times in succession behind the woodshed door.
A week before Thanksgiving a letter came from the married daughter, and another from the married son. They were good letters, kind and loving; and each closed with a suggestion that all go home at Thanksgiving for a family reunion.
Huldah read the letters eagerly, but at their close she frowned and looked anxious. In a moment she had passed them to Cyrus with a toss of her head. Five minutes later Cyrus had flung them back with these words trailing across one of the envelopes:
Write um. Tell um we are sick--dead--gone away--anything! Only don’t let um come. A ifwewanted to Thanksgive!
Huldah answered the letters that night. She, too, wrote kindly and lovingly; but at the end she said that much as she and father would like to see them, it did not seem wise to undertake to entertain such a family gathering just now. It would be better to postpone it.
Both Huldah and Cyrus hoped that this would end the subject of Thanksgiving; but it did not. The very next day Cyrus encountered neighbor Wiley in the village store. Wiley’s round red face shone like the full moon.
“Well, well, Cy, what ye doin’ down your way Thanksgivin’--eh?” he queried.
Cyrus stiffened; but before he could answer he discovered that Wiley had asked the question, not for information, but as a mere introduction to a recital of his own plans.
“We’re doin’ great things,” announced the man. “Sam an’ Jennie an’ the hull kit on ’em’s comin’ home an’ bring all the chicks. Tell ye what, Cy, webea-Thanksgivin’ this year! Ain’t nothin’ like a good old fam’ly reunion, when ye come right down to it.”
“Yes, I know,” said Cyrus gloomily. “But we--we ain’t doin’ much this year.”
A day later came Huldah’s turn. She had taken some calf’s-foot jelly to Mrs. Taylor in the little house at the foot of the hill. The Widow Taylor was crying.
“You see, it’s Thanksgiving!” she sobbed, in answer to Huldah’s dismayed questions.
“Thanksgiving!”
“Yes. And last year I had--him!”
Huldah sighed, and murmured something comforting, appropriate; but almost at once she stopped, for the woman had turned searching eyes upon her.
“Huldah Gregg, do you appreciate Cyrus?”
Huldah bridled angrily, but there was no time for a reply, for the woman answered her own question, and hurried on wildly.
“No. Did I appreciate my husband? No. Does Sally Clark appreciate her husband? No. And there don’t none of us do it till he’s gone--gone-- gone!”
As soon as possible Huldah went home. She was not a little disconcerted. The “gone--gone--gone” rang unpleasantly in her ears, and before her eyes rose a hateful vision of unappetizing fried eggs and boiled potatoes. As to her not appreciating Cyrus--that was all nonsense; she had always appreciated him, and that, too, far beyond his just deserts, she told herself angrily.
There was no escaping Thanksgiving after that for either Huldah or Cyrus. It looked from every eager eye, and dropped from every joyous lip, until, of all the world Huldah and Cyrus came to regard themselves as the most forlorn, and the most abused.
It was then that to Huldah came her great idea; she would cook for Cyrus the best Thanksgiving dinner he had ever eaten. Just because he was obstinate was no reason why he should starve, she told herself; and very gayly she set about carrying out her plans. First the oil stove, with the help of a jobman, was removed to the unfinished room over the kitchen, for the chief charm of the dinner was to be its secret preparation. Then, with the treasured butter-and-egg money the turkey, cranberries, nuts, and raisins were bought and smuggled into the house and upstairs to the chamber of mystery.
Two days before Thanksgiving Cyrus came home to find a silent and almost empty kitchen. His heart skipped a beat and his jaw fell open in frightened amazement; then a step on the floor above sent the blood back to his face and a new bitterness to his heart.
“So I ain’t even good enough ter stay with!” he muttered. “Fool!--fool!” he snarled, glaring at the oblong brown paper in his arms. “As if she’d care for this--now!” he finished, flinging the parcel into the farthest corner of the room.
Unhappy Cyrus! To him, also, had come a great idea. Thanksgiving was not Christmas, to be sure, but if he chose to give presents on that day, surely it was no one’s business but his own, he argued. In the brown paper parcel at that moment lay the soft, shimmering folds of yards upon yards of black silk--and Huldah had been longing for a new black silk gown. Yet it was almost dark when Cyrus stumbled over to the corner, picked up the parcel, and carried it ruefully away to the shed-chamber.
Thanksgiving dawned clear and unusually warm. The sun shone, and the air felt like spring. The sparrows twittered in the treetops as if the branches were green with leaves.
To Cyrus, however, it was a world of gloom. Upstairs Huldah was singing-- singing!--and it was Thanksgiving. He could hear her feet patter, patter on the floor above, and the sound had a cheery self-reliance that was maddening. Huldah was happy, evidently--and it was Thanksgiving! Twice he had walked resolutely to the back stairs with a brown-paper parcel in his arms; and twice a quavering song of triumph from the room above had sent him back in defeat. As if she could care for a present of his!
Suddenly, now, Cyrus sprang forward in his chair, sniffing the air hungrily. Turkey! Huldah was roasting turkey, while he--
The old man dropped back in his seat and turned his eyes disconsolately on the ill-kept stove--fried eggs and boiled potatoes are not the most toothsome prospect for a Thanksgiving dinner, particularly when one has the smell of a New England housewife’s turkey in one’s nostrils.
For a time Cyrus sat motionless; then he rose to his feet, shuffled out of the house, and across the road to the barn.
In the room above the kitchen, at that moment, something happened. Perhaps the old hands slipped in their eagerness, or perhaps the old eyes judged a distance wrongly. Whatever it was, there came a puff of smoke, a sputter, and a flare of light; then red-yellow flames leaped to the flimsy shade at the window, and swept on to the century-seasoned timbers above.
With a choking cry, Huldah turned and stumbled across the room to the stairway. Out at the barn door Cyrus, too, saw the flare of light at the window, and he, too, turned with a choking cry.
They met at the foot of the stairway.
“Huldah!”
“Cyrus!”
It was as if one voice had spoken, so exactly were the words simultaneous. Then Cyrus cried:
“You ain’t hurt?”
“No, no! Quick--the things--we must get them out!”
Obediently Cyrus turned and began to work; and the first thing that his arms tenderly bore to safety was an oblong brown-paper parcel.
From all directions then came the neighbors running. The farming settlement was miles from a town or a fire-engine. The house was small, and stood quite by itself; and there was little, after all, that could be done, except to save the household goods and gods. This was soon accomplished, and there was nothing to do but to watch the old house burn.
Cyrus and Huldah sat hand in hand on an old stone wall, quite apart from their sympathetic neighbors, and--talked. And about them was a curious air of elation, a buoyancy as if long-pent forces had suddenly found a joyous escape.
“’T ain’t as if our things wan’t all out,” cried Cyrus; his voice was actually exultant.
“Or as if we hadn’t wanted to build a new one for years,” chirruped his wife.
“Now you can have that ’ere closet under the front stairs, Huldah!”
“And you can have the room for your tools where it’ll be warm in the winter!”
“An’ there’ll be the bow-winder out of the settin’ room, Huldah!”
“Yes, and a real bathroom, with water coming right out of the wall, same as the Wileys have!”
“An’ a tub, Huldah--one o’ them pretty white chiny ones!”
“Oh, Cyrus, ain’t it almost too good to be true!” sighed Huldah: then her face changed. “Why, Cyrus, it’s gone,” she cried with sudden sharpness.
“What’s gone?”
“Your dinner--I was cooking such a beautiful turkey and all the fixings for you.”
A dull red came into the man’s face.
“For--me?” stammered Cyrus.
“Y-yes,” faltered Huldah; then her chin came up defiantly.
The man laughed; and there was a boyish ring to his voice.
“Well, Huldah, I didn’t have any turkey, but I did have a tidy little piece o’ black silk for yer gown, an’ I saved it, too. Mebbe we could eat that!--eh?”
It was not until just as they were falling asleep that night in Deacon Clark’s spare bedroom that Mr. and Mrs. Gregg so much as hinted that there ever had been a quarrel.
Then, under cover of the dark, Cyrus stammered:
“Huldah, did ye sense it? Them ’ere words we said at the foot of the stairs was spoke--exactly--together!”
“Yes, I know, dear,” murmured Huldah, with a little break in her voice. Then:
“Cyrus, ain’t it wonderful--this Thanksgiving, for us?”
Downstairs the Clarks were talking of poor old Mr. and Mrs. Gregg and their “sad loss;” but the Clarks did not--know.