"Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll,Freshening and fluttering in the wind."
"Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll,Freshening and fluttering in the wind."
It was May Meeting Sunday. Nobody could come to use the chart, and she and John were riding together. A redbird carolled to its mate in the top of a wayside elm, and she laughed like a child.
"Listen to that sweet bird!" she exclaimed. "Why, it can almost talk. Don't you hear the words it's singing?
"'Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!Withyou!Withyou!'"
"'Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!Withyou!Withyou!'"
"Smart bird," said John. "Sees you and me together and makes a song about it." And Mary laughed and blushed as her eyes met John's.
"Oh!" she sighed, "I almost wish we could ride on and on and never come to the church. It seems a pity to lose any of this sunshine and wind."
"Just say the word," said John, "and we'll keep right on and have a May Meetin' all to ourselves out at Blue Spring, or anywhere else you say. May Meetin's just a Sunday picnic, anyway."
But Mary's conscience forbade such Sabbath breaking. It was all right to have a picnic after you had been to preaching, but to have the picnic without the previous church-going was not to be thought of.
It was a Sunday of great events. Not only was it May Meeting Sunday, but the Sawyer twins were to be baptized, and Sidney Harris and his bride were to make their first appearance in public that day. Sidney had married a young girl from the upper part of the State, and it was rumored that her wedding clothes had been made in New York, that they were worth "a small fortune." One costume in particular, it was said, had cost "a cool hundred", and every woman in the church had a secret hope of seeing the gown at the May Meeting.
According to custom, every one wore her freshest, newest raiment in honor of the day and the month.Mary usually felt an innocent pleasure in looking at the new apparel of her friends, but to-day, as she glanced around, she was moved by a strange feeling of irritation, weariness, and dissatisfaction. That she was wearing old clothes while every one else wore new ones gave her little concern; but just in front of her sat Ellen McElrath in the blue and white gingham waist that she and Ellen had cut out that dreadful afternoon when the sponge cake burnt up, and Ellen's little boy pulled up all her clove pinks. The back of the waist was cut on the bias, and the stripes did not hit. How she had worked and worried over those stripes and lain awake at night, wondering if she ought not to buy Ellen enough goods to cut a new back. She turned away her eyes, and there, across the aisle, was little May Johnson in the pink blouse that recalled the morning when Mary had left her churning and baking six times to show May's mother the working of that mysterious chart. And there was Aunt Amanda Bassett, ambling heavily down to the "amen corner" in the black alpaca skirt that would wrinkle over her ample hips in spite of all the letting out and taking up that had been done for it that hot afternoon when the bread burned to a crisp, while Marywas down on the floor turning up Aunt Amanda's hem and trying to make both sides of the skirt the same length. And here came Annie Matthews in the brown and white shirt waist, that was an all-around misfit because Annie had thought that three fourths of sixteen inches was eight inches, Mary blamed herself for not staying by Annie and watching her more closely. And was that a wrinkle in the broad expanse of gingham across Nanny McElrath's shoulders? It was; and Mary knew there would be some ripping and altering next week.
Oh! if she could only shut out the sight of those hateful garments! How could she ever get herself into a reverent frame of mind surrounded by these dismal reminders of all the work and worry of the past month?
She glanced over at the old Parrish pew and Aunt Mary's countenance of smiling peace rebuked her. If Aunt Mary could smile, sitting lonely in the old church thronged with memories of her dead, surely, with John by her side and the heart of youth beating strong in her breast, she ought not to feel like crying, especially at May Meeting service.
The church was filling rapidly, and every new arrival roused a fresh train of vexatious memories. There wasa rustle and flutter all over the church, a great turning of heads, and good cause for it; for down the aisle came Sam and Maria Sawyer, Sam bearing the twins, one on each arm, their long white clothes reaching far below his knees and giving him the appearance of an Episcopal clergyman in full vestments. And close behind these came Sidney and his bride, the latter smiling and blushing under a hat of white lace trimmed with bunches of purple violets, and gowned in a suit of violet cloth, whose style carried to every mind the conviction that it was indeed the hundred-dollar gown.
Mary touched John on the arm. She tried to speak, and could not; but there was no need for speech. John understood the pallor of her face and the imploring look in her eyes. He whispered a word to the children, then he and Mary rose and passed out unnoticed.
"What's the matter?" said John in a low voice, as soon as they were fairly outside the door.
But Mary only shook her head and walked faster toward the old rockaway, which was standing in the shade of a tall chestnut tree. There she sank on the ground and began laughing and sobbing, while John,thoroughly alarmed, knelt by her, patting her on the back and saying: "There, there, Honey; don't cry," as if he were talking to a frightened child.
The touch of his kind hands and the fresh, sweet air on her face were quick restoratives, and in a moment or two Mary was able to speak.
"Don't look so scared, John," she gasped faintly. "There's nothing much the matter; I'll be all right in a minute or two. I haven't been feeling very well lately, and I'm afraid I ought to have stayed at home to-day. It was too warm in the church; and I got to looking at the clothes the people had on, and nearly everything new was cut out by my chart, and it seemed so funny, and I felt all at once as if I wanted to cry or laugh, I didn't know which, but I'm better now."
John was listening with keen attention. Nearly all the new clothes in the church made by Mary's chart, and she so tired and nervous that she could not stay inside the church! His face grew grave and stern, but when he spoke, his voice had its usual gentleness.
"You come along with me, Mary," he said, "We'll have our Sunday meetin' out of doors, after all."
He lifted the cushions and robes from the rockaway and started towards the woods at the back ofthe church, Mary following with the docility of utter weariness. It was wrong, of course, to miss the May Meeting sermon, but how could she worship God with that striped shirt waist in front of her? Her temples throbbed, and there was a queer feeling at the back of her head.
John laid the cushions on the ground and folded the robes into a pillow.
"Now, Mary, lay right down here," he commanded. "Sunday's a day of rest, and you've got to rest. Don't you worry about the children. If they get tired listenin' to the sermon, they've got sense enough to get up and come out here; and nobody's goin' to know whether you and me are in church or not. They're too much taken up with the baptizin' and the bride."
And with these assurances Mary closed her eyes, and surrendered herself to the sweet influence of the day and hour. The sunshine lay warm on her shoulders and hands, the breath of May fanned her aching head, and John, like a strong angel, was watching beside her. She heard the twitter of birds in the top branches of the giant oaks, the voices of the choir came to her softened by the distance, and her brain took up the rhythm of the hymn they were singing:
"This is the day the Lord hath made,He calls the hours his own;Let heaven rejoice, let earth be glad,And praise surround the throne."
"This is the day the Lord hath made,He calls the hours his own;Let heaven rejoice, let earth be glad,And praise surround the throne."
But before the last stanza had been sung, the tension of brain and body relaxed. John saw that she slept and thanked God. He looked at her sleeping face, and the anxiety in his own deepened. For five years he had borne the cross of a peevish, invalid wife, and then he had known the bliss of living with a perfectly sound woman. He had never analyzed the nature of his love for Mary,—as soon would he have torn away the petals of Mary's budding roses to see what was at their heart,—and he did not know that the charm that had drawn him to her and kept him her lover through three years of married life, was not alone her sweet, unselfish nature, but the exquisite health that made work a pleasure, the perfect equilibrium of nerve and brain that kept a song on her lips, that made her step like a dance, and her mere presence a spell to soothe and heal. His heart sank at the thought of her losing these. He had always shielded her from the heavy drudgery that farm life brings to a woman, and now he called memory to the witness stand and sternlyquestioned her concerning the cause of this sudden change. She had been having a good deal of company lately, but then Mary enjoyed company. She had never complained about the unusual number of callers, but who ever heard Mary complain about anything? She was not the complaining kind. John was not a psychologist, and could not know the danger to nerve and brain that lies in enforced—even self-enforced—submission to unpleasant circumstances, but his brow darkened as he thought of her words: "Nearly everything new was cut out by my chart." And yet, what right had he to blame the neighbors for their thoughtlessness? If he, Mary's husband, had not been considerate of her health and happiness, why should he expect the neighbors to be so?
"It's all my fault at last," he thought remorsefully, as he leaned over the sleeping woman and brushed away an insect that had lighted on her gold-brown hair.
Yes, there were faint lines around her mouth and under her eyes, and the contour of her cheek was not as girlish as it had been a month ago.
"If that chart was at the bottom of the trouble—" But again why should he blame the chart or the agent, when the main fault was his?
Taking off his coat, he laid it gently over her shoulders and seated himself so that the shadow of his body would screen her from a ray of sun that lay across her closed eyelids.
The minister's voice rose and fell in earnest exhortation. He was preaching an unusually long sermon that morning, and John was glad, for the longer his sermon, the longer would be Mary's sleep. As for himself, he needed no sermon within church walls. He was listening to the voice of his conscience preaching to him of things undone and of judgment to come.
"It's curious," he said to himself, "that a man can't see a thing that's goin' on right under his own eyes and in his own house and that concerns his own wife."
Suddenly a new sound was heard from the church, a duet of infant wails that drowned the minister's words, the voices of two young protestants making known their objections to the rite of infant baptism. John smiled as he pictured the scene within.
"I wouldn't be in Sam Sawyer's place now for ten dollars," he mentally declared; "holdin' them squallin' young ones, and everybody in church laughin' in their sleeves."
The lamentations of the twins gradually subsided. The notes of the organ sounded, and the choir sang joyfully. There was a hush, then the moving of many feet as the congregation rose for the benediction; another hush, then a murmur of voices growing louder as the little crowd crossed the threshold of the church, and came into the freedom of God's great out-of-doors.
Mary opened her eyes and started up with an exclamation of self-reproach at the sight of John in his shirt sleeves and the realization that she had slept all through the minister's sermon.
"Take it easy," said John, smiling at her and putting on his coat with more than his usual deliberation. "Your hair's all right, and you look fifty per cent brighter than you did an hour ago. You needed that nap worse'n you need Brother Smith's sermon. Now sit still and let me do the talkin' and explainin'."
"Yes, Mis' Morrison," as the neighbors came hastening up with kindly inquiries, "Mary wasn't feelin' very well when we started this mornin', but she's all right now. She's been workin' a little too hard lately, and I'm afraid I haven't been as careful of her as I ought to 'a' been."
"Bless her soul!" said Aunt Tabby McElrath, giving Mary a motherly pat on the head. "You did just right to come out here. There's nothin' like a hot church for makin' a body feel faint; and a day like this it'd be better for us all if we'd have the preachin' outdoors as well as the eatin'. Now, don't you stir, Mary. You're always waitin' on other people; let other people wait on you for once. And, John, you come with me, and I'll give you a waiter of nice things for Mary. Nobody can cook better'n Mary; that I know. But when a person ain't feelin' very well, they'd rather eat somebody else's cookin' than their own."
"Well, it depends on who the somebody is," said her niece, Sally McElrath. "I'd rather eat anybody else's cookin' than my own, whether I'm feelin' well or not; but for mercy's sake don't get anything from my basket on that waiter you're fixin' up for Mary. My cake ain't as light as it might be, and the icin' didn't cook long enough; and when it comes to bread, you all know a ten-year-old child could beat me."
The May Meeting dinners in Goshen neighborhood had long been famous. Town people who were so fortunate as to partake of one were wont to talk of it for years afterward, for the standards of housewiferyin this part of the country were of the highest, and the consciences of the housewives made them live sternly up to their ideals, all but Sally. Her cooking and her housekeeping were always below the mark. But she had the wisdom to ward off censure by a prompt and cheerful admission of her failures, and none but a professional critic like Ma Harris cared to find fault with the delinquent who frankly said of herself the worst that could be said.
May Meeting in the country is like Easter Sunday in town, a gala occasion, and it was an idyllic scene around the little country church as the congregation gathered under the trees. Stalwart men, matronly women, and youth and maiden clad in fresh apparel that matched the garb of Nature. They had worshipped God in prayer and song within church walls, and now they were to enjoy the gifts of God under the arch of his blue sky and in the green aisles of his first temple. The old earth had yielded a bountiful tribute to man's toil, and on the damask cloths spread over the sward lay the fruits and grains of last year's harvest, changed by woman's skill into the viands that are the symbols of Southern hospitality, as salt is the symbol of the Arab's.
The minister stood, and turning his face heavenward, said grace, his words blending with the soft twitter of birds and the murmur of wind in the young leaves. Then arose a crescendo of voices, the bass of the men, the treble of the women, and the shrill chatter of children, glad with the gladness of May, but softened and subdued because it was Sunday. And now and then the Sawyer twins lifted up their voices and wept, not because there was any cause for weeping, but because weeping was as yet their only means of communication with the strange new world into which they had lately come. The Master who proclaimed that the Sabbath was made for man, and who walked through the cornfield on that holy day, might have been an honored guest at such a feast.
When John returned with the laden tray, Mary was holding a little levee, and her sparkling eyes and happy smile told of rested nerves and brain refreshed. "For so He giveth to His beloved while they are sleeping." The minister had come up to shake hands with her and tell her that he had missed her face from the congregation. Sidney had brought his bride over and introduced her, and Mary was getting a near view of the violet dress. Her spirits mountedas she ate the delicious food Aunt Tabby had selected for her. She was surprised to find that she could look at the stripes in Ellen McElrath's shirt waist without wanting to cry, and when the meal was over she insisted on helping to clear off the tables.
"My goodness!" said Aunt Tabby McElrath, as she placed in her basket the remains of her bread, ham, chicken, pickles, cake, pie, and jelly. "It looks to me like there'd been another miracle of the loaves and fishes, for I'm surely takin' home more'n I brought here. What a pity there ain't some poor family around here that we could give all this good food to."
"I don't know as we'd be called a poor family," said Sally McElrath, "but if you've got more than you know what to do with, just hand it over to me. It'll save me from cookin' supper to-night."
"Yes, Aunt Tabby," said Dan, "don't be afraid to offer us some of the leavin's. Jest cut me a slab o' that jelly-cake and one or two slices o' your good bread. I ain't forgot the supper I had last May Meetin' Sunday. Sally had a sick headache and couldn't cook a thing, and all I could find in the basket was a pickle and a hard boiled egg."
There was a general laugh, in which Sally joined heartily. Aunt Tabby made generous contributions from her basket to Sally's, Dan watching the operation with hungry eyes, and then she looked around for a convenient tree trunk against which she might rest her ample back and bear a part in the general conversation.
In rural communities the church is the great social center. After the period of worship, though the hours are God's own, it is not deemed a profanation of the day to spend a little time in friendly intercourse, and only the unregenerate youth of the congregation consider it a hardship to listen to a second sermon in the afternoon.
"Now look yonder, will you?" exclaimed an elderly matron; "them young folks are fixin' to go off ridin' instead of stayin' to second service. You, Percival! You, Matty! Don't you stir a step from here, Preachin's goin' to begin again before you can get back."
Matty's right foot was on the step. Her right hand grasped the top of the buggy, and her left was firmly held by a handsome youth whose energies were divided between helping her into his "rig" and managing his horse.
"You, Matty!" The second warning came in strong tones and with a threatening accent.
Matty turned with a bird-like motion of the head. She darted a glance and a smile over her shoulder; the glance was for her mother, the smile for the young man. The latter had failed twice in Greek and Latin, but he understood the language of the eye and lip, and the delicate pressure of the girl's fingers on his. He, too, threw a glance and a smile backward, and the next instant the two were spinning down the road in the direction of the Iron Bridge.
There was a burst of good-natured laughter from the fathers. They remembered the days of their youth and rather wished themselves in the young man's place. "Pretty well done," chuckled Uncle Mose Bascom. "I've always said that when it comes to holdin' a spirited horse and at the same time helpin' a pretty girl into a buggy, a man ought to have four hands, but Percival did the thing mighty well with jest two."
The young girls who lacked Matty's daring looked down the road with envy in their eyes. How much better that ride in the wooded road to the bridge than another dull sermon in that hot church! But the mothers ofthe virtuous damsels smiled complacently, thanking God that their daughters were not as other women's, and Ma Harris "walled" her eyes and sighed piously.
"In my day," she said, "children honored their parents and obeyed 'em."
"No, they didn't," retorted Matty's mother, her face crimson with shame and vexation. "Children never honored their parents in your day nor in Moses's day, either. If they had, there wouldn't be but nine commandments. Didn't your mother run off and marry, and haven't I heard you say that that youngest boy o' yours was bringin' your gray hairs in sorrow to the grave? Matty's headstrong, I know, but she ain't a bit worse than other girls."
"That's so," said Sally McElrath, whose own girlhood gave her a fellow feeling for the absent Matty. "I say, let the young folks alone. We all were young once. For my part, I wish I was in Matty's place. Here, Dan, can't you take me ridin' like you used to do before we got married?"
"I can take you ridin' all right, Sally," agreed Dan placidly. "Yonder's the same old buggy and the same old horse and the same old road, but the ridin' would be mighty different from the ridin' we had beforewe got married. Before we started, we'd have to canvass this crowd and find somebody to take care of the children, and after we started, we'd both be wonderin' if Sarah wasn't drowned in the creek, and if Daniel hadn't been kicked by somebody's horse, and I don't believe there'd be much pleasure in such a ride."
"I reckon you're right," said Sally, laughing with the rest. "And that's why I say let young people alone; they're seein' their best days. Dan courted for me six months, and if I had to live my life over again, I'd make it six years."
Sally was one of those daring spirits who do not hesitate to say what others scarce venture to think.
"Maybe I wouldn't 'a' held out," observed Dan. "Courtin's mighty wearin' work, and I ain't a Jacob by any manner o' means."
"Well, if you hadn't held out," said Sally recklessly, "somebody else would 'a' taken it up where you left off. Oh! you women needn't say a word. If you want to pretend you like dish-washin' and cookin' and mendin' better than courtin', you're welcome to do it. But if I was just young again, I wouldn't get married till I was too old to be courted, for courtin'time's the only time a woman sees any peace and happiness. You, Daniel! You, Sally! Get up out of that dusty road."
"Mary," said John Crawford, in a low voice, "you get your things together, and we'll follow Matty's example."
Mary hesitated. Conscience said, "Stay to preaching"; but the laughing and talk had grown wearisome to her, and the strange feeling in her head had returned. So before the hour for the second service came, they stole quietly away, their rockaway wheels cutting the trail left by the erring young people who had gone before them.
The way to the bridge was a shady avenue, the trees in that rich alluvial soil growing to extraordinary height and grandeur, and in the comfortable homes and well-tilled farms there was a cheerful presentment of the legendary "Man with the Hoe." Only one melancholy spot by the roadside marred the traveler's pleasure. It was a country graveyard, walled around with stone, surmounted with an iron railing to protect it from the desecrating tread of beast or man. Nearly a century ago the hand of some woman had planted on one of the graves a spray of myrtle and a lily of thevalley, and Nature had laid her leveling touch on each grassy mound and changed the place outwardly to a garden of flowers. But neither spring's white glory of lilies and azure of myrtle, the rich foliage of summer, the crimson splendor of autumn, nor winter's deepest snow could hide from the passer-by the secret of the place. Young lovers like Matty and Percival might go by with laughter and smiles unchecked; not yet for them the thought of death. But John touched the horse to a quicker pace and looked to the other side of the road where sunny fields of grain spoke of life more abundantly, and Mary drew closer to John's side, saying in her heart: "I wish there was no death in this world."
In the middle of the bridge they paused for a moment to look up and down the shining river, and John recalled the tale, still told by the oldest inhabitants, of the spring of '65, when the river rose forty-five feet in nine hours and washed the bridge away. Beyond the bridge the road turned to the right, following the stream in a friendly way, and terminating at a fording place opposite a large sand bar known as "The Island." A giant sycamore in the middle cast a welcome shadow in the brilliant sunshine, and a fringe of willowsencircled it. Under these, near the water's edge, lay heaps of mussel shells,—white, pink, yellow, and purple,—the gift of the river to the land, and a reminder of the April freshet. The carriage wheels grated on the sand-bar, and as they caught sight of the treasures the children gave a cry of delight, for no shells from a tropic ocean are more beautiful in color than the common mussel shells of Kentucky rivers, and not infrequently a pearl is found within the tinted casket.
"Now, gather all the shells you want," said John, "while your mother and me sit down here and rest in the shade."
Again he made a bed of the cushions from the carriage, and closing her eyes Mary fell into blissful half-consciousness. The minister had read David's psalm of rejoicing at the morning service, and one line of it, "He leadeth me beside the still waters; He restoreth my soul," floated through her brain like a slumber song, with an obbligato of rippling water and the faint whispering of willows. Once she drifted to the very shores of sleep, to be gently called back by the laughter of the children; and when they turned homeward in the late afternoon, she felt strong for the next day's burden,only she hoped that no one would come to use the chart, until she had time to finish the spring cleaning. She wanted to get back into the old peaceful routine of work, in which each day had its duties and every duty brought with it time and strength for its performance.
Monday morning passed without any interruption, and by half-past twelve o'clock the work belonging to the day was done and dinner was over. But just as she began washing the dishes, there was a noise of wheels on the 'pike. Mary gave a start and almost dropped the dish she was holding.
"Oh, John!" she exclaimed, "see who it is." John stepped out on the back porch and looked up the road. "It looks like Sally and Dan McElrath and the two children," he said, coming back into the kitchen.
Mary compressed her lips to keep back a sigh of dismay. "Yes," she said quietly, "Sally told me yesterday she would be over some time this week to cut out a tea jacket by my chart, but I didn't expect her this soon. I was just thinking I'd go up-stairs and take a nap as soon as I got through with the dishes. But it's all right. You put a stick of wood in the stove, John, to keep my dish-water hot, and I'll go out and ask Sally in."
John was looking at her very earnestly.
"Honey," he said, "your hair looks as if you hadn't combed it to-day. You run up-stairs and fix yourself, and I'll see to Sally and Dan."
And while Mary darted up the back stairs, John hurried softly into the parlor. He could hear Sally's high, clear voice, and the wagon was almost at the gate. It was a bold emprise on which he was bent, and the time was short. On the top shelf of the old cherry secretary that had belonged to Mary's grandfather lay the chart. Looking fearfully around, he seized it, tiptoed to the kitchen, opened the stove door, and dropped the hateful thing on a bed of glowing hickory coals. Then he put in a stick of wood, according to Mary's behest, and the next moment he was at the front door, placing chairs on the porch and calling out a welcome to the alighting guests.
"Come right in, Dan. Glad to see you both. Mary's been looking for you. Sit down here on the porch where it's cool. Here, Lucy Ellen, here's Sarah and Daniel come to play with you."
"What on earth did John mean by saying my hair needed combing?" soliloquized Mary up-stairs, as she looked in the glass at the shining braids of herhair; "I fixed it just before dinner, and it's as smooth and nice as it can be." She hurried down to see that her guests lacked no attention demanded by hospitality. John was likely to be forgetful about such matters.
"I was just saying, Mary," Sally called out as soon as she caught sight of her hostess, "that Dan was on his way to town, and I'm going to stay here with the children till he comes back. But I want to lay the chart on my goods right away, for I'm afraid I've got a scant pattern for that tea jacket, and if I have, I can give Dan a sample of the goods, and he can bring me an extra yard from town. And if you'll bring the chart out, I'll lay off my goods right here and now, so Dan won't lose any time on my account."
"Oh! never mind about me," said Dan, with the air and accent of one who has suffered long and given up hope. "I've been losin' time on your account for the last fifteen years, and this trip ain't goin' to be an exception."
Every one laughed, for Sally's weakness was known of all men. Aunt Tabby McElrath once said that if the road from Dan's place to town was ten miles long, and there was a house every quarter of a mile, Sally would make just forty visits going and coming.
"Get the chart, John," said Mary, "and it won't take us two minutes to find out whether there's enough goods. It's on the top shelf of the old secretary in the parlor."
John went obediently. "Where did you say that chart was?" he called back.
"On the old secretary. I saw it there just before dinner," answered Mary.
"I saw it there, too," responded John, "but it ain't there now."
Mary hastened to the parlor. "Why no, it isn't here," she exclaimed in dismay. "Who could have taken it?"
"Ask the children," suggested Sally from the porch, where she sat cheerfully rocking and fanning herself. "Whenever there's anything missing at our house, some of the children can tell who's mislaid it." But Lucy Ellen and little John with one voice made haste to defend themselves against the visitor's accusation. By this time Dan had come into the parlor, and the three stood looking at each other in silent perplexity.
Dan was openly worried over the delay, Mary was sympathetically distressed, and John's face expressed nothing but the deepest concern over the situation.
"Maybe it's up-stairs," he said. "Suppose you and Sally run up there and search while Dan and myself'll search down here. That'll save time."
"What sort of a lookin' thing is that chart?" asked Dan, as he got down on his knees and made a dive under the sofa.
"Well, I'd recognize it if I saw it," said John, "but, come to think of it, I don't know as I could tell anybody exactly how it looks. It's something done up in a roll and tied with red tape."
"Done up in a roll and tied with red tape," repeated Dan, meditatively, opening closet doors and peering into corners, while he tried to keep in his mind an image of the lost chart as described by his fellow searcher. "Is this it?"
"Well, now that's something like it," said John. "I'll ask Mary. Here, Mary, is this it?"
Mary leaned over the railing with hopeful expectancy in her glance.
"Why, John, that's my gossamer case with the gossamer in it. I thought you knew my chart better than that. Tell the children to look, too. They'd know it if they saw it."
"I'm lookin' as hard as I can," piped Lucy Ellenfrom the closet under the stairs, while little John seized a long stick, ran to the henhouse, poked the setting hens off their eggs, and searched diligently in every nest for Mother's lost chart.
"Don't stand on ceremony, Dan. Open every door you come to," commanded John, as he rummaged in the sideboard and tumbled the piles of snowy damask. Thus encouraged, Dan walked into the pantry and gazed helplessly at the jars of preserves and jelly on the top shelf. He lifted the top from Mary's buttermilk jar. No chart there.
"Done up in a roll and tied with red tape," he muttered, opening a tin box and disclosing a loaf of bread and a plate of tea-cakes.
"Here, John," he exclaimed, "this prowlin' around in other people's houses don't suit me at all. Makes me feel like a thief and a robber. I'll go out and see to my horses, and you keep on lookin'."
And John continued to look, as the shepherd looked for the lost sheep, as the woman looked for the piece of silver. Now and then he uttered an ejaculation of wonder and regret, and raised his voice to inquire of Mary if the lost had been found.
Mary's search up-stairs was greatly hindered by Sally's digressions. Some minds move in straight lines, others in curves, but Sally's mental processes were all in the nature of tangents.
"You look in the closet, Sally," said Mary, "and I'll go through the bureau drawers."
But the novelty of being up-stairs in Mary's house made Sally forget the cause of her being there.
"Gracious! Mary, how do you keep your room so nice? This is what I call a young girl's room. I used to be able to have things clean and pretty before I was married, but Daniel and Sarah make the whole house look like a hurrah's nest. And there's your great-grandmother's counterpane on the bed, white as the driven snow, too. I wonder how many generations that's going to wear. My, what a pretty view you've got from this window. Ain't that Pilot Knob over yonder, just beyond that clump of cedars? Yes, that must be old Pilot. I've heard my grandfather tell many a time how his father camped at the foot of the knob, and sat up all night to keep the bears and wolves away."
Mary was opening doors and drawers in a hasty but conscientious search.
"You'd better help me look for the chart, Sally," she said gently. "Two pairs of eyes are better than one, and you know Dan's in a hurry." But Sally did not move. Her eyes were fixed on the purple haze that hung over old Pilot, and her mind was lost in memories of her grandfather's legends.
"Dan's always in a hurry," she remarked placidly. "I tell him he gets mighty little pleasure out of life, rushin' through it the way he does. That white spot over on that tallest knob must be the stone quarry. If it was a clear day, I believe you could see the big rocks. And here comes a locomotive. How pretty the white smoke looks streamin' back and settlin' in the valleys."
"We might as well go down," said Mary. "There's no use looking in the spare room; that hasn't been opened for a week."
"Sally!" cried Dan, putting his head in at the front door and giving a backward glance at his restless horse, "if that note I've got in the bank is protested, you and your jacket'll be to blame. It's after two o'clock, and I can't wait any longer."
"All right," said Sally, "me and the children will go to town with you."
"Where are the children?" asked Mary.
"My gracious! have we lost the chart and the children, too?" laughed Sally. "No, there they are, 'way down by the duck pond. Sarah! Daniel! Come right here! We're goin' to town."
"Hurry up!" shouted their father, "or I'll leave you here."
The prospect of a trip to town and the fear of being left behind doubled the children's speed and brought them breathless and excited to the front gate. Dan tossed them into the wagon, as if each had been a sack of meal, and Sally clambered in without assistance.
"As soon as I find the chart, Sally, I'll send it over to you by the first person that passes," said Mary. The loss of the chart seemed a breach of hospitality, a discourtesy to her guest, and she wanted to make amends.
"That wouldn't be a bit of use," said Sally, "for I can't tell head nor tail of the thing unless you show me. I'll drop in again in a day or so and do my cuttin' and fittin' here."
"Yes," said John heartily, "that'll be the best way. If Mary was to send you the chart, the person she sentit by might lose it, and that'd be a pity, as it's the only one in the neighborhood. You come over and bring the children with you and spend the day, and you and Mary can have a good time sewin' and talkin'."
"That's what I'll do. Look for me day after to-morrow or the day after that. I reckon the chart'll certainly turn up by that time."
"I'm sure it will," said John, "for I'm goin' to spend all my spare time lookin' for it."
Dan clucked to the horse and shook the reins over its back.
"Well, good-by," cried Sally blithely, "I'll be certain to—"
But the rest of her words were drowned in the rattle of wheels and clatter of hoofs, for Dan was laying on the whip in a desperate resolve to get to town before the bank closed.
Mary stood silent with a hurt look on her face. How could John ask Sally to spend the day when he knew how tired she was? It was all she could do to keep the tears back.
"It's my opinion," said John, "that we'll never see that chart again. I believe it's gone like grandfather Ervin's beaver hat."
Mary knew the story of the beaver hat. It was a family legend of the supernatural that John was fond of telling. But she had little faith that her chart had gone the way of grandfather Ervin's hat, and she went back to the kitchen, wondering how John could have been so thoughtless, and dreading the day after to-morrow that would bring Sally and those troublesome children. John followed her, and opening the stove door, he gently stirred the ashes within, thus effacing the last trace of the chart; then he took his way to the barn, where he sank down on a pile of fodder and laughed till the tears ran down his face.
"Edwin Booth couldn't 'a' done it better," he gasped. "I reckon I'll have to quit farmin' and go on the stage. Didn't know I was such a born actor. It was actin' a lie, too, but it's put a stop to Mary's troubles, and I don't feel like repentin' yet. I reckon you might call it a lie of 'necessity and mercy', like the work that's allowed on the Sabbath day."
And at that precise moment Sally was saying to Dan:
"Did you ever see a man so put out over anything as John Crawford was over not findin' that chart? If he'd lost his watch or his purse, he couldn't have puthimself to more pains to find it. There never was a more accommodatin' neighbor than Mary, and John's just like her. You don't often see a couple as well matched. Generally, if one's accommodatin' and neighborly, the other's stingy and mean. But Mary wasn't a bit more anxious to find that chart for me than John was."
That night after supper John seated himself on the front porch. The warm spring air was sweet with the perfume of May bloom, and from every pond there was a chorus of joy over the passing of winter. He heard the voices of his children and his wife talking together as Mary washed the dishes, Lucy Ellen wiped them, and little John placed them on the table. Home, wife, children, and the spring of the year! The heart of the man was glad and he smiled at the thought of the deed he had done that afternoon.
"John," said Mary, coming out on the porch with the dish towel over her arm, "hadn't you better be looking for that chart? You know you promised Sally, and I don't want her to be disappointed again."
The light from one of the front windows shone full on John's face, and something about his eyes and mouth gave Mary a sudden revelation.
"John," she said severely, "do you know where that chart is?"
John returned her gaze with unflinching eyes. "Mary," he said slowly and deliberately, "I do not know where that chart is."
Another lie? Oh, no! When a thing is dust and ashes, who knows where it is?
But the answer did not satisfy Mary. She continued to look at him as a mother might look at a naughty child.
"John," she said, "did you—I believe—yes, I know you did. Oh, John! How could you? What made you do it?"
"Yes, I did, and I'd do it again," said John doggedly. "Do you think I'm goin' to have the neighbors tormentin' the life out of you on account of that—"
He stopped short, for a damp towel was against his face, and Mary's bare arms were around his neck.
"Oh, John! And that was the reason you asked Sally to come back. I've been feeling so hurt, for I thought it looked as if you didn't care for me. I might have known better. Please forgive me. I'll never think such a thing of you again."
There was something damp on the other side of his face now, and reaching around John drew the tired wife down on the bench beside him and let her sob out her joy and her weariness on his shoulder.
"But it was a help," she sighed at last, wiping her eyes on her kitchen apron. "And I don't know how I'm going to do my spring sewing without it."
John stretched out his right leg, thrust his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a ragged leather purse, not too well filled.
"What's mine's yours, Mary," he said, tossing it into her lap. "Get a seamstress to do your sewing. If I catch you at that machine again, I'll make kindlin' wood and old iron out of it, and if that agent ever comes on the place again with his blamed charts, there's a loaded shotgun waitin' for him."
"Come in, Maria Marvin, come in. No, it ain't too early for visitors. I've jest finished sweepin' and dustin', and that's exactly the time I want to see company; and when company comes at exactly the right time, they get a double welcome from me. Have this chair, and I'll lay your bonnet right here on the table.
"Yes, I've been refurnishin' some. Got rid o' all the old plunder that 'd been accumulatin' under this roof ever since Noah built his ark, and bought a spick and span new outfit, golden oak every bit of it, and right up to day before yesterday, and to-day, and day after to-morrow, when it comes to style. I reckon Mother and grandmother and great-grandmother have turned over in their graves, but I can't help it. That old mahogany furniture has been my cross, and I've borne it faithfully from a child up, and when I saw a chance o' layin' it down, I didn't stop to think what my ancestors would say about it; I jest dropped the cross and drew one good, long breath.
"You'd think I'd hate to part with the family belongin's? Well, you wouldn't think so if you knew how much trouble these same belongin's have been to me all my born days. You know everybody has idols. Some women make idols of their children, and now and then you'll find a woman bowin' down and worshippin' her husband, but Mother's idols were chairs and tables and bedsteads. You've noticed, haven't you, that there's always one child in a family that'll get nearly everything belongin' to the family? They'll claim this and that and the other, and the rest o' the children will give in to 'em jest to keep from havin' a quarrel. Well, Mother was the claimin' one in our family, and whatever she claimed she got, and whatever she got she held on to it. If Mother'd been content with the things that her mother handed down to her, it wouldn't 'a' been so bad, but there never was a member o' the family died that Mother didn't manage to get hold o' some of the belongin's. If there was a sale, she was the first one there, and she'd take her seat right under the auctioneer's hammer, and if she made up her mind to have an old chair or an old table, why, nobody ever could outbid her; and in the course o' time the housegot to be more like an old junk shop than a home. I used to tell Mother she got everything belongin' to her dead kinfolks except their tombstones, and I wouldn't 'a' been surprised any day to come home and find one or two nice old gravestones settin' up on the mantel-piece for ornaments, or propped up handy in a corner.
"And every piece of that old mahogany, Maria, was polished till you could see your face in it. The first thing after breakfast, Mother'd get a piece o' chamois skin or an old piece o' flannel, and she'd go around rubbin' up her chairs and tables and lookin' for scratches on 'em; and as soon as I was old enough to hold a rag, I had to do a certain amount o' polishin' every day, and when Mother's rheumatism settled in her arms, all the polishin' fell to me. It looked like the furniture was on Mother's mind night and day, and it was: 'Samantha, have you polished your grandfather's secretary?' 'Samantha, don't forget to rub off the parlor center-table.' No matter what I wanted to do, I couldn't do it till that old furniture was attended to. When I look back, Maria, it seems to me I've been livin' all my life in the valley of the shadow of old mahogany. You know how it is whenthe sun comes out after a long spell of cloudy weather. Well, that's jest the way it was the day that old mahogany furniture went out o' the house, and this pretty yellow furniture came in. I really believe that was the happiest day of my life.
"Yes, there's a heap of associations connected with old furniture, and Mother's old furniture had more associations than most anybody's. I believe there was enough associations to 'a' filled every one o' the bureau drawers, and if you'd put the associations on the tables or on the beds, there wouldn't 'a' been room there for anything else. And that's exactly why I wanted to get rid o' that mahogany furniture. I believe I could 'a' stood the furniture, if it hadn't been for the associations. What good did it do me to look at that old four-poster that used to stand in the front room up-stairs and think o' the time I laid on that bed six mortal weeks, when I had typhoid fever? What pleasure could I get out o' that old secretary that used to stand yonder, when every time I looked at it I could see Grandfather Stearns sittin' there writin' a mile-long sermon on election and predestination, and me—a little child then—knowin' I'd have to sit up in church the nextSunday and listen to that sermon, when I wanted to be out-doors playin'?
"And besides my own associations, there was Mother's. She'd point out that old armchair that used to stand by the west window and tell how Uncle Abner Stearns set in that chair for six years after he was paralyzed; and that old haircloth sofa,—you remember that, don't you?—she'd tell how Grandmother Stearns was sittin' on that when she had her stroke o' apoplexy; and betwixt the furniture and the associations, it was jest like livin' in a cemetery. I told Mother one day that I was tired o' sittin' in my great-grandfather's chairs, and sleepin' on my great-grandfather's bed, and eatin' out o' my great-grandmother's china and silver, and Mother says: 'Samantha, you never did have proper respect for your family.' But, Maria Marvin, I tell you as I told Mother, I'm somethin' more than a Member of the Family: I'm Myself, and I want to live my own life, and I've found out that if people live their own lives, they've got to get from under the shadow of their ancestors' tombstones.
"What did I do with the old mahogany? Sold it. That's what I did. And if you've got any old stuffup in the garret or down in the cellar or out in the woodshed, get it out right away, for no matter how old and battered and broken up it is, you can sell it for a good price. They tell me, Maria, that new-fashioned things is all out o' fashion, and old-fashioned things is in the fashion. Curious, ain't it? All my life I been findin' fault with Mother because she was always hoardin' up old family relics, and now all the rich folks are huntin' around in every crack and corner for old mahogany and old cherry and old walnut,—anything, jest so it's old.
"You've heard about that rich lady that's bought the old Schuyler place? Here's her card with her name on it:
Mrs. Edith A. Van Arnheim.
"Well, last Monday mornin' about this time, jest as I was finishin' up my mornin' work, I heard a knockin' at the front door, and when I opened it there stood a strange lady all dressed in silks and satins and a young girl with her. I said 'Good mornin',' and she said: 'Does Miss Samantha Mayfield live here?' And I says: 'It's Samantha Mayfieldyou're talkin' to.' And she says: 'I'm Mrs. Van Arnheim. I beg your pardon for calling so early, but—have you any old furniture?' And I says; 'Old furniture? Why, I haven't got anything but old furniture.' And they both smiled real pleasant, and the young girl said: 'Oh, please let us look at it! I do love old furniture.' And I says: 'Walk right in, and look all you please. Furniture never was hurt by bein' looked at.'
"Well, they both walked in and looked around, and for a minute neither one of 'em spoke; and then the young girl drew a long breath, and says she: 'Did youeverseeanythingsoperfectly gorgeous?'
"And she rushed up to Great-grandfather Stearns's secretary like she was goin' to hug it, and says she: 'Heppelwhite! Genuine Heppelwhite! Look at those lovely panes of glass!' And then she flew over to that old bow-legged chair that stood yonder, and says she: 'Chippendale! Upon my word! Was there ever anything as exquisite as those legs!'
"And she peeped into the dining-room and give a little scream, and called her mother to come and see that old battered-up thing that great-aunt Matildy used to keep her china and glass in, and she called it'a real Sheraton cabinet', and she went on over 'the grain of the wood' and the 'color of the wood' till you'd 'a' thought that old press was somethin' that'd come straight down from heaven. The lady didn't say much, but she looked mighty pleased, and she went around touchin' things with the tips of her fingers and examinin' the legs and arms and backs of things to see if they were in good repair. Pretty soon she turned around to me and says sort o' wishful and hesitatin': 'I suppose there's no use asking you if you'd sell any of this furniture, Miss Mayfield.' And I says: 'What makes you suppose that?' And she says: 'Because people are always very much attached to their old family furniture, and even if they don't care for it and are not using it, I find they don't care to let any one else have it.' And I says: 'Well, there's nothin' of the dog in the manger about me, ma'am, and I'm not attached to my old furniture; it's been attached to me, and I'd be thankful to anybody that would help me get loose from it.'
"She laughed real hearty, and the young girl says: 'How perfectly lovely!' And then we went through the parlor and the hall and the dining-room, they pickin' out the furniture they wanted, while I setthe prices on it. And when we got through the young girl says: 'Would you let us go up-stairs?'
"So up-stairs we went, and there wasn't a four-poster bed or a rickety table or a broken-legged chair that she didn't say was 'darling' or 'dear' or 'gorgeous' or 'heavenly'; and they wanted pretty near everything that was up-stairs. When we got through pricin' these, the lady says: 'Is this all the old mahogany you have, Miss Mayfield?' and then I happened to think o' the garret. I hadn't set foot up there for ten years or more, but I remembered there was a lot o' old truck that Mother didn't have room for down-stairs, and it'd been stored away there ever since goodness knows when. So up to the garret we went, they holdin' up their silk skirts, and me apologizin' for the dirt. They peered around, and didn't seem to mind a bit when they got their kid gloves all soiled handlin' the old junk that was settin' around in every hole and corner. And the young girl, she'd give a little scream every time she dragged out a table or a chair, and says she: 'Miss Mayfield, this is the most interesting place I ever was in.' And I says: 'If you're interested in dirt and rubbish, I reckon this is an interestin' place.'
"Well, if you'll believe me, Maria Marvin, they wanted everything in that garret, even down to the old pewter warmin'-pan that used to belong to Mother's sister Amanda, and that she got from her husband's family, the Hicks. And the young girl looked out o' the gable window at the south end, and says she: 'Oh! what a lovely old gyarden!' And the lady dropped the old candlestick she was lookin' at, and come and looked over the young girl's shoulder. The gyarden did look mighty pretty with the roses and honeysuckles and pinks all in bloom, and the lady said: 'Oh! how beautiful! How beautiful!' and all the rest of the time we were up in the garret, she stood there at the window and leaned out and looked at the gyarden, and after that she didn't seem to care much about the furniture. She jest let the young girl do the buyin' and the talkin', and once I heard her sigh a long, deep sigh, jest as if she was thinkin' about somethin' that happened a long time ago. And when we went down-stairs, she asked me to give her some roses and honeysuckles; and while I was gatherin' a big bunch of Mother's damask roses for her, she was walkin' up and down the paths, gatherin' a flower here and a leaf there, but to look at her face, Maria,you'd 'a' thought that she was walkin' in a graveyard and every flower-bed was a grave; and once, when she stooped down and broke off a piece of ambrosia and smelt it, I could see there was tears in her eyes. Well, Maria, they were jest as crazy about old-fashioned flowers as they were about old-fashioned furniture. I pulled a big bunch o' damask roses for both of 'em, and they said they wanted roots of all the old flowers,—Mother's hundred-leaf rose and the Maiden's Blush and the cinnamon rose, and all the spring flowers and even the tansy and sage. The lady said they could buy all these things, but that she believed the flowers you got out of old-fashioned gyardens like mine smelled sweeter and bloomed better than anything you'd buy. And she's goin' to give me a lot of new-fashioned flowers to freshen up my old gyarden, and with new furniture in my house and new flowers in my gyarden, why, I feel like I'm takin' a new start in life. Why, actually, Maria, I've been jest as tired of the old flowers as I've been of the old beds and tables,—the same old crocuses and buttercups and hyacinths and chrysanthemums comin' up every spring in the same old place, in the same old beds, and the same old weeds to be pulled up every year.
"Maybe you think it's wicked in me, Maria, to feel the way I do about old things. Mother always thought so, and I remember once hearin' her tell the minister that Samantha was jest like the Athenians in the Bible, always runnin' after some new thing; and she was always sighin' and sayin': 'Samantha, you have no reverence in your nature.' And finally, one day, I said to her: 'Mother, I've got jest as much reverence as you have. The difference between us is that you reverence old things, and I reverence new ones.'
"But I mustn't forget to tell you about the old cradle, Maria. That cradle was Mother's special idol. It was a little, heavy, wooden thing, so black with age that you couldn't tell what kind o' wood it was made out of, and Mother said the first Stearnses that ever come to this country brought that cradle with 'em in the ship they sailed in. Well, that little old cradle was sittin' way back in the garret on top o' the old oak bed-clothes chest that Grandmother Stearns packed her quilts in, when she moved from Connecticut and come to Ohio. And the young girl spied that cradle, and says she: 'Oh! What a darling cradle!' And then she stopped and blushed as redas a rose, and the lady jest smiled and says: 'Would you sell me the little cradle, Miss Mayfield?' And I says: 'You may have it and welcome. If there is anything an old maid hasn't any use for, it's a cradle.'
"They say the young girl is goin' to be married soon, and I reckon some day that pretty young thing's children'll be lyin' in the old Stearns cradle; and a lot o' that old mahogany, they tell me, goes to the furnishin' of her room. Maybe she'll be writin' her letters at Grandfather's secretary, and sleepin' on Grandmother's old canopy bed. It don't seem right, Maria, for a pretty young bride to be beginnin' life with a lot o' dead folks' furniture; but then, she won't have the associations, and it's the associations that make old furniture so unhealthy to have around the house.
"I reckon I must be some kin to the tribe o' Indians I was readin' about in my missionary paper last Sunday. Every time anybody dies, they burn everything that belonged to the dead person, and then they burn down the place he died in and build a new one. That seems right wasteful, don't it, Maria? But it's a good deal wholesomer to do that way, thanto clutter up your house with dead folks' belongin's like we do. And that's why I'm gettin' so much pleasure out o' this new oak furniture. It's mine, jest mine, and nobody else's. It didn't come down to me from my great-grandmother; I went to the store and picked it out myself. No dead person's hands ever touched it, and there's not a single association hangin' anywheres around it.
"Yes, Maria, I got a good price for everything I sold. Because I didn't want it, that's no reason why I should give it away. I could see the lady wanted it mighty bad, so I valued it accordin' to what I thought it'd be worth to her, and when I saw how willin' she was to pay my price, I was right sorry I hadn't asked more.
"She was one o' the high-steppers, that lady was, but as sweet-talkin' and nice-mannered as you please, and when she wrote out the check and handed it to me, she says: 'When can I get the furniture?' 'Right now,' says I, 'if you want it right now.' 'But,' says she, 'what will you do without furniture? Hadn't you better get in your new beds and chairs and tables before I take the old ones away?' And I says: 'Don't you worry about me, ma'am; it's only fourmiles from here to town, and by the time you get this old mahogany rubbish out, I'll have my new golden oak things in; so don't you hold back on my account.'
"And she looked at me in a curious sort o' way, and says she: 'Don't you mind givin' up this old mahogany? Would you just as soon have new golden oak furniture?' And I says: 'No, I wouldn't jest as soon; I'd a good deal rather have it.'
"And she laughed real pleasant, and says she: 'I'm so glad you feel that way about it. I always feel guilty when I buy old furniture that the owner is unwilling to part with, no matter how good a price I pay for it.' And I says: 'Well, you can have a clear conscience in the matter of buyin' my old furniture. This check and the golden oak I'm goin' to buy with it is perfectly satisfactory to me.'
"And what do you reckon I'm goin' to do with that money, Maria? I reckon people think that because I've lived here all my life I've enjoyed doin' so. But I haven't. I've been jest as tired of Goshen neighborhood as I ever was of my old mahogany,—the old roads and the old fences and the old farms,—yes, and the old people, too. Maria, I get tired of everything, even myself, and now I'm goin' to traveland see the world, that's what I'm goin' to do. What's the use in livin' sixty or seventy years in a world like this and never seein' it. Why, you might as well be a worm in a hickory nut. And, Maria, I take out my old geography sometimes, when I'm sittin' here alone in the evenin', and I look at the map of North America, and there's the big Atlantic ocean on one side and the big Pacific ocean on the other; and all the big rivers and lakes in between flowin' down to the big Gulf of Mexico; and here I am stuck fast in this little old place, and the most water I've ever seen is Drake's Creek and Little Barren River! And I look on the map at the mountains runnin' up and down this country, the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies and all the rest of 'em, and the highest ground I've ever seen is Pilot Knob! I'm not afraid to die, Maria, but when I think of all the things that's to be seen in this world, and how I'm not seein' 'em, I just pray: 'Lord, don't let me go to the next world till I've seen somethin' of this one.' And now my prayer's answered. I don't know whether I'll go east or west or north or south; but I'm goin' to see the ocean, and I'm goin' to see the mountains before I die, all on account o' that mahogany furniture; Inever supposed the day would come when I'd be thankful for that old plunder; but sometimes, Maria, the things we don't want turn out to be our greatest blessin's.
"I reckon it's mighty poor taste on my part to want new furniture in place o' that old mahogany. All the time I was showin' 'em around, the lady and her daughter kept sayin': 'How artistic!' 'What classic lines!' and I reckon the reason they looked at me so curious when I said I'd rather have this golden oak, was that they was pityin' me for not knowin' what's 'artistic.' Now, I may not be artistic, Maria, but I've got a taste of my own, and what's the use in havin' a taste of your own unless you use it? I might jest as well try to use somebody else's eyes as to use somebody else's taste. That old mahogany pleased my grandmother's taste and my mother's taste, but it don't please mine; and I'm no more bound to use my grandmother's old furniture than I am to wear my grandmother's old clothes.
"Don't go, Maria. Sit down a minute longer, for I haven't told you the best part of the story yet. After the lady had said good-by and was out of the door, she turned back, and says she: 'Miss Mayfield,when I get the furniture in order, I'm going to send my carriage for you, and you must come over and see if you can recognize your old friends in their new dress and their new home.' I never believed she was goin' to sendhercarriage forme, Maria, but she did. And she took me all over the house, and they've made it over the same as you'd make over an old dress; and it ain't a house any longer, it's a palace. Don't ask me to tell you how it looks, for I can't. I've always wondered what sort of places kings and queens lived in, and now I know. There wasn't a room that didn't have some of my old mahogany in it, but at first I couldn't believe it was the same furniture I'd sold the lady. She'd had all the varnish scraped off, and it was as soft and shiny-lookin' as satin, even that little, old black cradle, and the lady said that when the furniture man began to scrape that, he found it was solid rosewood. We went into the library, and there was Grandfather's old secretary, lookin' so fine and grand, Maria, it took my breath clean away. There wasn't a dent or a scratch on it, and it shone in the light jest like a piece of polished silver, and the prettiest curtains you ever saw fallin' on each side of it. It looked exactly like it belonged inthat room. And it does belong there. Why, as I was standin' there lookin' at it, I thought if that old secretary could speak, it would say: 'I've found my place at last.' And it come over me all at once, Maria, that the doctrine of foreordination holds good with things as well as people. That old mahogany never belonged to me nor to Mother. It jest stopped over a while with us, while it was on its way to the lady, and it was hers from the very day it was made. I tell you, Maria, things belong to the folks that can appreciate 'em. That furniture was jest chairs and tables and bedsteads to Mother and me; but the lady knew all about it, when it was made and where it was made, and the name of the man that first made it. And after we'd looked at everything in the house, she took me out to see the gyarden. Such a gyarden! She said it was jest like one she'd seen over in England, and she was plantin' the same kind of flowers in it. The beds were all sorts of shapes, and there was a pool of water in the middle with water-lilies in it, and right by the pool was somethin' that tells the time of day pretty near as well as a clock, jest by the shadow on it. There was a hedge planted all around the gyarden, and the gyardner was settin' out all kindsof flowers, and there was one bed of pansies and another of geraniums in full bloom, and I said: 'I don't know why you wanted my old-fashioned flowers, when you've got such a gyarden as this.' And she smiled and looked down at the geraniums, and says she: 'These flowers don't mean anything to me. But your roses and honeysuckles and pinks mean everything; they are joy and sorrow and love and youth,—everything I have had and lost.' Hearin' her talk, Maria, was jest like readin' a book. And then, she took me around to another gyarden at the back of the house, and showed me a bed, and all the roots and slips that she'd got from me were growin' in it. The gyardner 'tends to the rest of the flowers, but he never touches this bed; the lady weeds it and waters it with her own hands. Now, I don't want anything around me that reminds me of what I've had and lost, but she's one of the kind that loves associations.
"No, I haven't re-furnished all the up-stairs rooms, Maria. What's the use o' havin' furnished rooms that you never use? Yes, it does look pretty empty, but after livin' in a jungle of old mahogany these many years, you don't know what a blessed relief it is to have a few empty spots about the house. Everyhouse ought to have one or two empty rooms, Maria, jest for folks to rest their eyes on.
"Yes, I did keep one piece o' the family furniture, but it wasn't mahogany. It was that little plain rockin'-chair with the oak-split bottom; there it sets in the corner. Mother used to sit in that chair when she washed and dressed us children and rocked the baby to sleep. She liked it because it was low and hadn't any arms for the baby's head to get bumped on. I can look at it and see Mother holdin' the baby in her arms and rockin' and singin':