P. Bemus: Retail Saw Miller
P. Bemus: Retail Saw Miller
At the moment of his entrance Calliope was talking of Emerel Kitton, now Mrs. Abe Daniel:
"There's them two," she said, "seems to hev married because they both use a good deal o' salt—'t least they ain't much else they're alike in. An' Emerel is just one-half workin' her head off for him. Little nervous thing she is—when I heard she was down with nervous prostration two years ago, I says, 'Land, land,' I says, 'but ain't shealwayshad it?' They's a strain o' good blood in that girl,—Al Kitton was New England,—but they don't none of it flow up through her head. She's great on sacrificin', but she don't sacrifice judicious. If folks is goin' to sacrifice, I think they'd ought to do it conscientious, the kind in the Bible, same as Abraham an' like that."
Peleg Bemus rubbed one hand up and down his axe handle.
"I reckon you can't always tell, Miss Marsh," he said meditatively. "I once knowed a man that done some sacrificin' that ain't called by that name when it gets into the newspapers." He turned to me, with a manner of pointing at me with his head, "You been in New York," he said; "ain't you ever heard o' Mr. Loneway—Mr. John Loneway?"
I was sorry that I could not answer "yes." He was so expectant that I had the sensation of having failed him.
"Him an' I lived in the same building in East Fourteenth Street there," he said. "That is to say, he lived top floor back and I was janitor. That was a good many years ago, but whenever I get an introduction to anybody that's been in New York, I allus take an interest. I'd like to know whatever become of him."
He scrupulously waited for our question, and then sat down beside the oven door and laid his axe across his knees.
"It was that hard winter," he told us, "about a dozen years ago. I'd hev to figger out just what year, but most anybody on the East Side can tell you. Coal was clear up an' soarin', an' vittles was too—everybody howlin' hard times, an' the Winter just commenced. Make things worse, some philanthropist had put up two model tenements in the block we was in, an' property alongside had shot up in value accordin' an' lugged rents with it. Everybody in my buildin' 'most was rowin' about it.
"But John Loneway, he wasn't rowin'. I met him on the stairs one mornin' early an' I says, 'Beg pardon, sir,' I says, 'but you ain't meanin' to make no change?' I ask him. He looks at me kind o' dazed—he was a wonderful clean-muscled little chap, with a crisscross o' veins on each temple an' big brown eyes back in his head. 'No,' he says. 'Change? I can't move. My wife's sick,' he says. That was news to me. I'd met her a couple o' times in the hall—pale little mite, hardly big as a baby, but pleasant-spoken, an' with a way o' dressin' herself in shabby clo'es that made the other women in the house look like bundles tied up careless. But she didn't go out much—they had only been in the house a couple o' weeks or so. 'Sick, is she?' I says. 'Too bad,' I says. 'Anything I can do?' I ask him. He stopped on the nex' step an' looked back at me. 'Got a wife?' he says. 'No,' says I, 'I ain't, sir. But they ain't never challenged my vote on 'count o' that, sir—no offence,' I says to him respectful. 'All right,' he says, noddin' at me. 'I just thought mebbe she'd look in now and then. I'm gone all day,' he added, an' went off like he'd forgot me.
"I thought about the little thing all that mornin'—layin' all alone up there in that room that wa'n't no bigger'n a coal-bin. It's bad enough to be sick anywheres, but it's like havin' both legs in a trap to be sick in New York. Towards noon I went into one o' the flats—first floor front it was—with the kindlin' barrel, an' I give the woman to understand they was somebody sick in the house. She was a great big creatur' that I'd never see excep' in red calico, an' I always thought she looked some like a tomato ketchup bottle, with her apron for the label. She says, when I told her, 'You see if she wants anything,' she says. 'I can't climb all them stairs,' she answers me.
"Well, that afternoon I went down an' hunted up a rusty sleigh-bell I'd seen in the basement, an' I rubbed it up an' tied a string to it, an' 'long in the evenin' I went upstairs an' rapped at Mr. Loneway's door.
"'I called,' I says, 'to ask after your wife, if I might.'
"'If you might,' he says after me. 'I thank the Lord you're somebody that will. Come in,' he told me.
"They had two rooms. In one he was cookin' somethin' on a smelly oil-stove. In the other was his wife; but that room was all neat an' nice—curtains looped back, carpet an' all that. She was half up on pillows, an' she had a black waist on, an' her hair pushed straight back, an' she was burnin' up with the fever.
"'Set down an' talk to her,' he says to me, 'while I get the dinner, will you? I've got to go out for the milk.'
"I did set down, feelin' some like a sawhorse in church. If she hadn't been so durn little, seems though I could 'a' talked with her, but I ketched sight of her hand on the quilt, an'—law! it wa'n't no bigger'n a butternut. She done the best thing she could do an' set me to work.
"'Mr. Bemus,' she says, first off—everybody else called me Peleg—'Mr. Bemus,' she says, 'I wonder if you'd mind takin' an old newspaper—there's one somewheres around—an' stuffin' in the cracks of this window an' stop its rattlin'?'
"I laid my sleigh-bell down an' done as she says; an' while I fussed with the window, that seems though all Printin' House Square couldn't stuff up, she talked on, chipper as a squirrel, all about the buildin', an' who lived where, an' how many kids they was, an' wouldn't it be nice if they had an elevator like the model tenement we was payin' rent for, an' so on. I'd never 'a' dreamt she was sick if I hadn't looked 'round a time or two at her poor, burnin'-up face. Then bime-by he brought the supper in, an' when he went to lift her up, she just naturally laid back an' fainted. But she was all right again in a minute, brave as two, an' she was like a child when she see what he'd brought her—a big platter for a tray, with milk-toast an' an apple an' five cents' worth o' dates. She done her best to eat, too, and praised him up, an' the poor soul hung over her, watchin' every mouthful, feedin' her, coaxin' her, lookin' like nothin' more'n a boy himself. When I couldn't stand it no longer, I took an' jingled the sleigh-bell.
"'I'm a-goin',' I says, 'to hang this outside the door here, an' run this nice long string through the transom. An' to-morrow,' I says, 'when you want anything, just you pull the string a time or two, an' I'll be somewheres around.'
"She clapped her hands, her eyes shinin'.
"'Oh,goodey!' she says. 'Now I won't be alone. Ain't it nice,' she says, 'that there ain't no glass in the transom? If we lived in the model tenement, we couldn't do that,' she says, laughin' some.
"An' that young fellow, he followed me to the door an' just naturally shook hands with me, same's though I'd been his kind. Then he followed me on out into the hall.
"'We had a little boy,' he says to me low, 'an' it died four months ago yesterday, when it was six days old. She ain't ever been well since,' he says, kind of as if he wanted to tell somebody. But I didn't know what to say, an' so I found fault with the kerosene lamp in the hall, an' went on down.
"Nex' day I knew the doctor come again. An' 'way 'long in the afternoon I was a-tinkerin' with the stair rail when I heard the sleigh-bell ring. I run up, an' she was settin' up, in the black waist—but I thought her eyes was shiney with somethin' that wasn't the fever—sort of a scared excitement.
"'Mr. Bemus,' she says, 'I want you to do somethin' for me,' she says, 'an' not tell anybody. Will you?'
"'Why, yes,' I says, 'I will, Mis' Loneway,' I says. 'What is it?' I ask' her.
"'There's a baby somewheres downstairs,' she says. 'I hear it cryin' sometimes. An' I want you to get it an' bring it up here.'
"That was a queer thing to ask, because kids isn't soothin' to the sick. But I went off downstairs to the first floor front. The kid she meant belonged to the Tomato Ketchup woman. I knew they had one because it howled different times an', I judge, pounded its head on the floor some when it was maddest. It was the only real little one in the buildin'—the others was all the tonguey age. I told what I wanted.
"'For the land!' says Tomato Ketchup, 'I never see such nerve. Take my baby into a sick room? Not if I know it. I s'pose you just come out o' there? Well, don't you stay here, bringin' diseases. A hospital's the true place fer the sick,' she says.
"I went back to Mis' Loneway, an' I guess I lied some. I said the kid was sick—had the croup, I thought, an' she'd hev to wait. Her face fell, but she said 'all right an' please not to say nothin',' an' then I went out an' done my best to borrow a kid for her. I ask' all over the neighbourhood, an' not a woman but looked on me for a cradle snatcher—thought I wanted to abduct her child away from her. Bime-by I even told one woman what I wanted it for.
"'My!' she says, 'if she ain't got one, she's got one less mouth to feed. Tell her to thank her stars.'
"After that I used to look into Mis' Loneway's frequent. The women on the same floor was quite decent to her, but they worked all day, an' mostly didn't get home till after her husband did. I found out somethin' about him, too. He was clerk in a big commission house 'way down-town, an' his salary, as near as I could make out, was about what mine was, an' they wa'n't no estimatin' that by the cord at all. But I never heard a word out'n him about their not havin' much. He kep' on makin' milk toast an' bringin' in one piece o' fruit at a time an' once in a while a little meat. An' all the time anybody could see she wa'n't gettin' no better. I knew she wa'n't gettin' enough to eat, an' I knew he knew it, too. An' one night the doctor he outs with the truth.
"Mr. Loneway an' I was sittin' in the kitchen while the doctor was in the other room with her. I went there evenin's all the time by then—the young fellow seemed to like to hev me. We was keepin' warm over the oil-stove because the real stove was in her room, an' the doctor come in an' stood over him.
"'My lad,' he says gentle, 'there ain't half as much use o' my comin' here as there is o' her gettin' strengthenin' food. She's got to hev beef broth—cer'als—fresh this an' fresh that'—he went on to tell him, 'an' plenty of it,' he says. 'An' if we can make her strength hold out, I think,' he wound up, 'that we can save her. But she's gettin' weaker every day for lack o' food. Can you do anything more?' he ask' him.
"I expected to see young Mr. Loneway go all to pieces at this, because I knew as it was he didn't ride in the street-car, he was pinchin' so to pay the doctor. But he sorter set up sudden an' squared his shoulders, an' he looked up an' says:—
"'Yes!' he says. 'I've been thinkin' that to-night,' he says. 'An' I've hed a way to some good luck, you might call it—an' now I guess she can hev everything she wants,' he told him; an' he laughed some when he said it.
"That sort o' amazed me. I hadn't heard him sayin' anything about any excruciatin' luck, an' his face hadn't been the face of a man on the brink of a bonanza. I wondered why he hadn't told her about this luck o' his, but I kep' quiet an' watched to see if he was bluffin'.
"I was cleanin' the walk off when he come home nex' night. Sure enough, there was his arms laid full o' bundles. An' his face—it done me good to see it.
"'Come on up an' help get dinner,' he yelled out, like a kid, an' I thought I actually seen him smilin'.
"Soon's I could I went upstairs, an' they wa'n't nothin' that man hadn't brought. They was everything the doctor had said, an' green things, an' a whol' basket o' fruit an' two bottles o' port, an' more things besides. They was lots o' fixin's, too, that there wa'n't a mite o' nourishment in—for he wa'n't no more practicalnormedicinal'n a wood-tick. But I knew how he felt.
"'Don't tell her,' he says. 'Don't tell her,' he says to me, hoppin' 'round the kitchen like a buzz-saw. 'I want to surprise her.'
"You can bet he did, too—if you'll overlook the liberty. When he was all ready, he made me go in ahead.
"'To-ot!' says I, genial-like—they treated me jus' like one of 'em. 'To-ot!Lookey-at!'
"He set the big white platter down on the bed, an' when she see all the stuff,—white grapes, mind you, an' fresh tomatoes, an' a glass for the wine,—she just grabs his hand an' holds it up to her throat, an' says:—
"'Jack! Oh, Jack!' she says,—she called him that when she was pleased,—'how did you?How did you?'
"'Never you mind,' he says, kissin' her an' lookin' as though he was goin' to bu'st out himself, 'never you ask. It's time I had some luck, ain't it? Like other men?'
"She was touchin' things here an' there, liftin' up the grapes an' lookin' at 'em—poor little soul had lived on milk toast an' dates an' a apple now an' then for two weeks to my knowledge. But when he said that, she stopped an' looked at him, scared.
"'John!' she says, 'you ain't—'
"He laughed at that.
"'Gamblin'?' he says. 'No—never you fear.' I had thought o' that myself, only I didn't quite see when he'd had the chance since night before when the doctor told him. 'It's all owin' to the office,' he says to her, 'an' now you eat—lemme see you eat, Linda,' he says, an' that seemed to be food enough for him. He didn't half touch a thing. 'Eat all you want,' he says, 'an', Peleg, poke up the fire. There's half a ton o' coal comin' to-morrow. An' we're goin' to have thisevery day,' he told her.
"Land o' love! how happy she was! She made me eat some grapes, an' she sent a bunch to the woman on the same floor, because she'd brought her an orange six weeks before; an' then she begs Mr. Loneway to get an extry candle out of the top dresser draw'. An' when that was lit up she whispers to him, and he goes out an' fetches from somewheres a guitar with more'n half the strings left on; an' she set up an' picked away on 'em, an' we all three sung, though I can't carry a tune no more'n what I can carry a white oak tree trunk.
"'Oh,' she says, 'I'm a-goin' to get well now. Oh,' she says, 'ain't it heaven to be rich again?'
"No—you can say she'd ought to 'a' made him tell her where he got the money. But she trusted him, an' she'd been a-livin' on milk toast an' dates for so long that I can pretty well see how she took it all as what's-his-name took the wild honey, without askin' the Lord whose make it was. Besides, she was sick. An' milk toast an' dates'd reconcile me to 'most any change for the better.
"It got so then that I went upstairs every noon an' fixed up her lunch for her, an' one day she done what I'd been dreadin'. 'Mr. Bemus,' she says, 'that baby must be over the croup now. Won't you—won't you take it down this orange an' see if you can't bring it up here awhile?'
"I went down, but, law!—where was the use? The Ketchup woman grabs up her kid an' fair threw the orange at me. 'You don't know what disease you're bringin' in here,' she says—she had a voice like them gasoline wood-cutters. I see she'd took to heart some o' the model-tenement social-evenin' lectures on bugs an' worms in diseases. I carried the orange out and give it to a kid in the ar'y, so's Mis' Loneway'd be makin' somebody some pleasure, anyhow. An' then I went back upstairs an' told her the kid was worse. Seems the croup had turned into cholery infantum.
"'Why,' she says, 'I mus' send it down somethin' nice an' hot to-night,' an' so she did, and I slips it back in the Loneway kitchen unbeknownst. She wa'n't so very medicinal, either, bless her heart!
"'Tell me about that baby,' she says to me one noon. 'What's its name? Does it like to hev its mother love it?' she ask me.
"I knew the truth to be that it didn't let anybody do anything day or night within sight or sound of it, an' it looked to me like an imp o' the dark. But I fixed up a tol'able description, an' left out the freckles an' the temper, an' told her it was fat an' well an' a boy. That seemed to satisfy her. Its name, though, sort o' stumped me. The Tomato Ketchup called it mostly 'you-come-back-here-you-little-ape.' I heard that every day. So I said, just to piece out my information, that I thought its name might be April. That seemed to take her fancy, an' after that she was always askin' me how little April was—but not when Mr. Loneway was in hearin'. I see well enough she didn't want he should know that she was grievin' none.
"All the time kep' comin', every night, another armful o' good things. Land! that man he bought everything. Seems though he couldn't buy enough. Every night the big platter was heaped up an' runnin' over with everything under the sun, an' she was like another girl. I s'pose the things give her strength, but I reck'n the cheer helped most. She had the surprise to look forward to all day, an' there was plenty o' light, evenin's; an' the stove, that was drove red-hot. The doctor kep' sayin' she was better, too, an' everything seemed lookin' right up.
"Seems queer I didn't suspect from the first something was wrong. Seems though I ought to 'a' known money didn't grow out o' green wood the way he was pretendin'. It wasn't two weeks before he takes me down to the basement one night when he comes home, an' he owns up.
"'Peleg,' he says, 'I've got to tell somebody, an' God knows maybe it'll be you that'll hev to tell her. I've stole fifty-four dollars out o' the tray in the retail department,' says he, 'an' to-day they found me out. They wasn't no fuss made. Lovett, the assistant cashier, is the only one that knows. He took me aside quiet,' Mr. Loneway says, 'an' I made a clean breast. I said what I took it for. He's a married man himself, an' he told me if I'd make it up in three days, he'd fix it so's nobody should know. The cashier's off for a week. In three days he's comin' back. But they might as well ask me to make up fifty-four hundred. I've got enough to keep on these three days so's she won't know,' he says, 'an' after that—'
"He hunched out his arms, an' I'll never forget his face.
"I says, 'Mr. Loneway, sir,' I says, 'chuck it. Tell her the whole thing an' give 'em back what you got left, an' do your best.'
"He turned on me like a crazy man.
"'Don't talk to me like that,' he says fierce. 'You don't know what you're sayin',' he says. 'No man does till he has this happen to him. The judge on the bench that'll send me to jail for it, he won't know what he's judgin'. My God—my God!' he says, leanin' up against the door o' the furnace room, 'to see her sick like this—an'needin' things—when she give herself to me to take care of!'
"Course there wa'n't no talkin' to him. An' the nex' night an' the nex' he come home bringin' her truck just the same. Once he even hed her a bunch o' pinks. Seems though he was doin' the worst he could.
"The pinks come at the end of the second day of the three days the assistant cashier had give him to pay the money back in. An' two things happened that night. I was in the kitchen helpin' him wash up the dishes while the doctor was in the room with Mis' Loneway. An' when the doctor come out o' there into the kitchen, he shuts the door. I see right off somethin' was the matter. He took Mr. Loneway off to the back window, an' I rattled 'round with the dishes an' took on not to notice. Up until when the doctor goes out—an' then I felt Mr. Loneway's grip on my arm. I looked at him, an' I knew. She wasn't goin' to get well. He just lopped down on the chair like so much sawdust, an' put his face down in his arm, the way a schoolboy does—an' I swan he wa'n't much more'n a schoolboy, either. I s'pose if ever hell is in a man's heart,—an' we mostly all see it there sometime, even if we don't feel it,—why, there was hell in his then.
"All of a sudden there was a rap on the hall door. He never moved, an' so I went. I whistled, I rec'lect, so's she shouldn't suspect nothin' from our not goin' in where she was right off. An' a messenger-boy was out there in the passage with a letter for Mr. Loneway.
"I took it in to him. He turned himself around an' opened it, though I don't believe he knew half what he was doin'. An' what do you guess come tumblin' out o' that envelope? Fifty-four dollars in bills. Not a word with 'em.
"Then he broke down. 'It's Lovett,' he says, 'it's Lovett's done this—the assistant cashier. Maybe he's told some o' the other fellows at the desks next, an' they helped. They knew about her bein' sick. An' they can't none of 'em afford it,' he says, an' that seemed to cut him up worst of all. 'I'll give it back to him,' he says resolute. 'I can't take it from 'em, Peleg.'
"I says, 'Hush up, Mr. Loneway, sir,' I says. 'You got to think o' her. Take it,' I told him, 'an' thank God it ain't as bad as it was. Who knows,' I ask' him, 'but what the doctor might turn out wrong?'
"Pretty soon I got him to pull himself together some, an' I shoved him into the other room, an' I went with him, an' talked on like an idiot so nobody'd suspect—I didn't hev no idea what.
"She was settin' up in the same black waist, with a newspaper hung acrost the head o' the iron bed to keep the draught out. All of a sudden,—
"'John!' says she.
"He went close by the bed.
"'Is everything goin' on good?' she ask' him.
"'Everything,' he told her right off.
"'Splendid, John?' she ask' him, pullin' his hand up by her cheek.
"'Splendid, Linda,' he says after her.
"'We got a little money ahead?' she goes on.
"'Bless me, if he didn't do just what I had time to be afraid of. He hauls out them fifty-four dollars an' showed her.
"She claps her hands like a child.
"'Oh,goodey!' she says; 'I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Now I can tell you,' she says to him.
"He took her in his arms an' kneeled down by the bed, an' I tried to slip out, but she called me back. So I stayed, like an' axe in the parlour.
"'John,' she says to him, 'do you know what Aunt Nita told me before I was married? "You must always look the prettiest you know how," Aunt Nita says,' she tells him, '"for your husband. Because you must always be prettier for him than anybody else is." An', oh, dearest,' she says, 'you know I'd 'a' looked my best for you if I could—but I never had—an' it wasn't your fault!' she cries out, 'but things didn't go right. It wasn't anybody's fault. Only—Iwantedto look nice for you. An' since I've been sick,' she says, 'it's made me wretched, wretched to think I didn't hev nothin' to put on but this black waist—this homely old black waist. You never liked me to wear black,' I rec'lect she says to him, 'an' it killed me to think—if anything should happen—you'd be rememberin' me like this. You think you'd remember me the way I was when I was well—but you wouldn't,' she says earnest; 'people never, never do. You'd remember me here like I look now. Oh—an' so I thought—if there was ever so little money we could spare—won't you get me somethin'—somethin' so's you could remember me better? Somethin' to wear these few days,' she says.
"He breaks down then an' cries, with his face in her pillow.
"'Don't—why, don't!' she says to him; 'if there wasn't any money, you might cry—only then I wouldn't never hev told you. But now—to-morrow—you can go an' buy me a little dressing-sacque—the kind they have in the windows on Broadway. Oh,Jack!' she says, 'is it wicked an' foolish for me to want you to remember me as nice as you can? It ain't—itain't!' she says.
"Then I give out. I felt like a handful o' wet sawdust that's been squeezed. I slid out an' downstairs, an' I guess I chopped wood near all night. The Tomato Ketchup's husband he pounded the floor for me to shut up, an' I told him—though I never was what you might call a impudent janitor—that if he thought he could chop it up any more soft, he'd better engage in it. But then the kid woke up, too, an' yelled some, an' I's afraid she'd hear it an' remember, an' so I quit.
"Nex' mornin' I laid for Mr. Loneway in the hall.
"'Sir,' I says to him when he come down to go out, 'you won't do nothin' foolish?' I ask' him.
"'Mind your business,' he says, his face like a patch o' poplar ashes.
"I was in an' out o' their flat all day, an' I could see't Mis' Loneway she's happy as a lark. But I knew pretty well what was comin'. Mind you, this was the third day.
"That night I hed things goin' in the kitchen an' the kettle on, an' I's hesitatin' whether to put two eggs in the omelet or three, when he comes home. He laid a eternal lot o' stuff on the kitchen table, without one word, an' went in where she was. I heard paper rustlin', an' then I heard her voice—an' it wasn't no cryin', lemme say. An' so I says to myself, 'Well,' I says, 'she might as well hev a four-egg omelet, because it'll be the last.' I knew if they's to arrest him she wouldn't never live the day out. So I goes on with the omelet, an' when he come out where I was, I just told him if he'd cut open the grapefruit I hed ever'thing else ready. An' then he quit lookin' defiant, an' he calmed down some; an' pretty soon we took in the dinner.
"She was sittin' up in front of her two pillows, pretty as a picture. An' she was in one o' the things I ain't ever see outside a store window. Lord! it was all the colour o' roses, with craped-up stuff like the bark on a tree, an' rows an' rows o' lace, an' long, flappy ribbon. She was allus pretty, but she looked like an angel in that. An' I says to myself then, I says: 'If a womanknowsshe looks like that in them things, an' if she loves somebody an', livin' or dead, wants to look like that for him, I want to know who's to blame her? I ain't—Peleg Bemus, he ain't.' Mis' Loneway was as pretty as I ever see, not barrin' the stage. An' she was laughin', an' her cheeks was pink-like, an' she says,—
"'Oh, Mr. Bemus,' she says, 'I feel like a queen,' she says, 'an' you must stay for dinner.'
"I never seen Mr. Loneway gayer. He was full o' fun an' funny sayin's, an' his face had even lost its chalky look an' he'd got some colour, an' he laughed with her an' he made love to her—durned if it wasn't enough to keep a woman out o' the grave to be worshipped the way that man worshipped her. An' when she ask' for the guitar, I carried out the platter, an' I stayed an' straightened things some in the kitchen. An' all the while I could hear 'em singin' soft an' laughin' together ... an' all the while I knew what was double sure to come.
"Well, in about an hour it did come. I was waitin' for it. Fact, I had filled up the coffee-pot expectin' it. An' when I heard the men comin' up the stairs I takes the coffee an' what rolls there was left an' I meets 'em in the hall, on the landing. They was two of 'em—constables, or somethin'—with a warrant for his arrest.
"'Gentlemen,' says I, openin' the coffee-pot careless so's the smell could get out an' circ'late—'gentlemen, he's up there in that room. There's only these one stairs, an' the only manhole's right here over your heads, so's you can watch that. You rec'lect that there ain't a roof on that side o' the house. Now, I'm a lonely beggar, an' I wish't you'd let me invite you to a cup o' hot coffee an' a hot buttered roll or two, right over there in that hall window. You can keep your eye peeled towards that door all the while,' I reminds 'em.
"Well, it was a bitter night, an' them two was flesh an' blood. They 'lowed that if he hadn't been there they'd 'a' had to wait for him, anyway, so they finally set down. An' I doled 'em out the coffee. I 'lowed I could keep 'em an hour if I knew myself. Nobody could 'a' done any different, with her an' him settin' up there singin' an' no manner o' doubt but what it was for the last time.
"I'd be'n 'round consid'able in my time an' I knew quite a batch o' stories. I let 'em have 'em all, an' poured the coffee down 'em. They was willin' enough—it wa'n't cold in the halls to what it was outside, an' the coffee was boilin' hot. An' if anybody wants to blame me, they'd hev to see her first, all fluffed up same as a kitten in that pink jacket-thing, afore I'd give 'em a word o' hearin'.
"In the midst of it all I heard the Tomato Ketchup's kid yell. I remembered that this'd be my last chanst ferherto see the kid when she could get any happiness out of it. I didn't think twice—I just filled up the cups o' them two, an' then I sails downstairs, two at a time, an' opened the door o' first floor front without rappin'. The kid was there in its little nightgown, howlin' fer fair because it had be'n left alone with its boy brother. The Tomato Ketchup an' her husband was to a wake. I picked up the kid, rolled it in a blanket, grabbed brother by the arm, an' started up the stairs.
"'Is the house on f-f-fire?' says the boy brother.
"'Yes,' says I, 'it is. An' we're goin' upstairs to hunt up a fire-escape,' I told him.
"At the top o' the stairs I sets him down on the floor an' promises him an orange, an' then I opens the door, with the kid on my arm. It had stopped yellin' by then, an' it was settin' up straight, with its eyes all round an' its cheeks all pinked-up with havin' just woke up, an' it looked awful cute, in spite of its mother. Mis' Loneway was leanin' back, laughin', an' tellin' him what they was goin' to do the minute she got well; but when she see the baby she drops her husband's hand and sorter screams out, weak, an' holds out her arms. Mr. Loneway, he hardly heard me go in, I reckon—leastwise, he looks at me clean through me without seein' I was there. An' she hugs the kiddie up in her arms an' looks at me over the top of its head as much as to say she understood an' thanked me.
"'Its ma is went off,' I told 'em apologetic, 'an' I thought maybe you'd look after it awhile,' I told 'em.
"Then I went out an' put oranges all around the boy brother on the hall floor, an' I hustled back downstairs.
"'Gentlemen,' says I, brisk, 'I've got two dollars too much,' says I—an' I reck'n the cracks in them walls must 'a' winked at the notion. 'What do you say to a game o' dice on the bread-plate?' I ask' 'em.
"Well, one way an' another I kep' them two there for two hours. An' then, when the game was out, I knew I couldn't do nothin' else. So I stood up an' told 'em I'd go up an' let Mr. Loneway know they was there—along o' his wife bein' sick an' hadn't ought to be scared.
"I started up the stairs, feelin' like lead. Little more'n halfway up I heard a little noise. I looked up, an' I see the boy brother a-comin', leakin' orange-peel, with the kid slung over his shoulder, sleepin'. I looked on past him, an' the door o' Mr. Loneway's sittin' room was open, an' I see Mr. Loneway standin' in the middle o' the floor. I must 'a' stopped still, because something stumbled up against me from the back, an' the two constables was there, comin' close behind me. I could hear one of 'em breathin'.
"Then I went on up, an' somehow I knew there wasn't nothin' more to wait for. When we got to the top I see inside the room, an' she was layin' back on her pillow, all still an' quiet. An' the little new pink jacket never moved nor stirred, for there wa'n't no breath.
"Mr. Loneway, he come acrost the floor towards us.
"'Come in,' he says. 'Come right in,' he told us—an' I see him smilin' some."
When Peleg had gone back to the woodshed, Calliope slipped away too. I sat beside the fire, listening to the fine, measured fall of Peleg's axe—so much more vital with the spirit of music than his flute; looking at Calliope's brown earthen baking dishes—so much purer in line than the village bric-a-brac; thinking of Peleg's story and of the life that beat within it as life does not beat in the unaided letter of the law. But chiefly I thought of Linda Loneway. Linda Loneway. I made a picture of her name.
So, Calliope having come from above stairs where I had heard her moving about as if in some search, I think that I recognized, even before I lifted my eyes to it, the photograph which she gave me. It was as if the name had heard me, and had come.
"It's Linda," Calliope said. "It's Linda Proudfit. An' I'm certain, certain sure it's the Linda that Peleg knew."
"Surely not, Calliope," I said—obedient to some law.
Calliope nodded, with closed eyes, in simple certainty.
"Iknowit was her that Peleg meant about," she said. "I thought of it first when he said about her looks—an' her husband a clerk—an' he said he called her Linda. An' then when he got to where she mentioned Aunt Nita—that's what her an' Clementina always calls Mis' Ordway, though she ain't by rights—oh, it is—it is...."
Calliope sat down on the floor before me, cherishing the picture. And all natural doubts of the possibility, all apparent denial in the real name of Linda Proudfit's poor young husband were for us both presently overborne by something which seemed viewlessly witnessing to the truth.
"But little Linda," Calliope said, "to think o' her. To think o'her—like Peleg said. Why, I hardly ever see her excep' in all silk, or imported kinds. None of us did. I hardly ever 'see her walk—it was horses and carriages and dance in a ballroom till I wonder she remembered how to walk at all. Everything with her was cut good, an' kid, an' handwork, an' like that—the same way the Proudfits is now. But yet she wasn't a bit like Mis' Proudfit an' Clementina. They're both sweet an' rule-lovin' an' ladies born, but—" Calliope hesitated, "they's somethin' theyain't. An' Linda was."
Calliope looked about the room, seeking a way to tell me. And her eyes fell on the flame on her cooking-stove hearth.
"Linda had a little somethin' in her that lit her up," she said. "She didn't say much of anything that other folks don't say, but somehow she meant the words farther in. In where the light was, an' words mean differ'nt an' better. I use' to think I didn't believe that what she saw or heard or read was exactly like what her mother an' Clementina an' most folks see an' hear an' read. Somehow, she got the inside out o' things, an' drew it in like breathin', an' lit it up, an' lived it more. I donno's you know what I'm talkin' about. But Mis' Proudfit an' Clementina don't do that way. They're dear an' good an' generous, an' lots gentler than they was before Linda left 'em—an' yet they just wear things' an' invite folks in an' see Europe an' keep up their French an' serve God, an' never get any of it rill lit up. But Linda, sheknew. An' she use' to be lonesome. I know she did—I know she did.
"I use' to look at her an' wish an' wish I wa'n't who I am, so's I could a' let her know I knew too. I use' to go to mend her lace an' sell orris root to her—an' Madame Proudfit an' Clementina would be there, buyin' an' livin' on the outside, judicious an' refined an' rill right about everything; but when Linda come in, she sort o' reached somewheres, deep, or up, or out, or like that, an' got somethin' that meant it all instead o' gnawin' its way through words. It was like other folks was the recipe an' Linda was the rill dish. They was the way to be, but she was the one that was.
"Well, then one year, when she come home from off to school, this young clerk followed her. I only see 'em together once—he only stayed a day an' had his terrible time with Jason Proudfit an' everybody knew it—but even with seein' 'em that once, I knew about him. I don't care who he was or what he was worth—he was lit up, too. I donno why he was a clerk nor anything of him—excep' that the lit kind ain't always the money-makers—but he could talk to her her way. An' when I see the four of 'em drive up in front of the post-office the day he come, Mis' Proudfit an' Clementina talkin' all soft an' interested an' regular about the foreign postage stamps they was buyin', an' Linda an' him sittin' there with foreign lands fair livin' in their eyes—I knew how it would be. An' so it was. They went off, Linda with only the clothes she was wearin' an' none of her stone rings or like that with her. An' see what it all done—see what it done. Jason Proudfit, he wouldn't forgive 'em nor wouldn't hear a word from 'em, though they say Mis' Linda wrote, at first, an' more than once. An' then when he died two years or so afterwards, an' Mis' Proudfit tried everywhere—they wa'n't no trace. An' no wonder, with a differ'nt name so's nobody should find out how poor they was—an' death—an' like enough prison...."
Calliope stood up, and in the pause Peleg's axe went rhythmically on.
"I'm goin' to be sure," she said. "I hate to—but o' course I've got to be rill certain, in words."
She went out to the shed, taking with her the photograph, and closed the door. Peleg's axe ceased. And when she came back, she said nothing at all for a little, and the axe did not go on.
"We mustn't tell Mis' Proudfit—yet," she put it, presently, "not till we can think. I donno's we ever can tell her. The dyin'—an' the disgrace—an' the other name—an' the hurt about Linda'sneedin' things... Peleg thinks not tell her, too."
"At least," I said, "we can wait, for a little. Until they come home."
I listened while, her task long disregarded, Calliope fitted together the dates and the meagre facts she knew, and made the sad tally complete. Then she laid the picture by and stood staring at the cooking-range flame.
"It ain't enough," she said, "bein'—lit up—ain't enough for folks, is it? Not without they're some made out o' iron, too, to hold it—like stoves. An' yet—"
She looked at me with one of her infrequent, passionate doubtings in her eyes.
"—if Mis' Proudfit an' Clementina had just of been lit too," she said, "mebbe—"
She got no farther, though I think it was not the opening of the door by Peleg Bemus that interrupted her. Peleg did not come in. He said something of the snow on his shoes, and spoke through the door's opening.
"I'm a-goin to quit work for to-day, Mis' Marsh," he told her. "Seems like I'm too dead tired to chop."
As spring came on, and I found myself fairly identified with the life of Friendship,—or, at any rate, "more one of us," as they said,—I suggested to Calliope something which had been for some time pleasantly in my mind: might I, I asked one day, give a tea for her?
"A tea!" she repeated. "Forme? You know they give me a benefit once in the basement of the Court House. But a private tea, for me?"
And when she understood that this was what I meant,
"Oh," she said earnestly, "I'd be so glad to come. An' you an' I can know the tea is for me—if you rilly mean it—but it won't do to say it so'd it'd get out around. Oh, no, it won't. Not one o' the rest'll come near if you give itforme—nor if you give itforanybody. Mis' Proudfit, now, she tried to give a noon lunch on St. Patrick's day for Mis' Postmaster Sykes, an' the folks she ask' to it got together an' sent in their regrets. 'We're just as good as Mis' Postmaster Sykes,' they give out to everybody, 'an' we don't bow down to her like that.' So Mis' Proudfit she calls it a Shamrock Party an' give it a day later. An' every one of 'em went. It won't do to say it'sforme."
So I contented myself with planning to seat Calliope at the foot of my table, and I found a kind of happiness in her child-like content, though only we two knew that the occasion would do her honour. If Delia had been available we would have told her, but Delia was still in Europe, and would not return until June.
Calliope was quite radiant when, on the afternoon of the tea, she arrived in advance of the others. She was wearing her best gray henrietta, and I noted that she had changed her cameo ring from her first to her third finger. ("First-finger rings seem to me more everyday," she had once said to me, "but third-finger I always think looks real dressy.") She was carrying a small parcel.
"You didn't ask to borrow anything," she said shyly; "I didn't know how you'd feel about that, a stranger so. An' we all got together—your company, you know—an' found out you hadn't borrowed anything from any of us, an' we thought maybe you hesitated. So we made up I should bring my spoons. They was mother's, an' they're thin as weddin' rings—an' solid. Any time you want to give a company you're welcome to 'em."
When I had laid the delicate old silver in its place, I found Calliope standing in the middle of my living-room, looking frankly about on my simple furnishings, her eyes lingering here and there almost lovingly.
"Bein' in your house," she said, "is like bein' somewheres else. I don't know if you know what I mean? Most o' the time I'm where I belong—just common. But now an' then—like a holiday when we're dressed up an' sittin' 'round—I feel differ'nt an'special. It was the way I felt when they give the William Shakespeare supper in the library an' had it lit up in the evenin' so differ'nt—like bein' somewheres else. It'll be that way on Market Square next month when the Carnival comes. I guess that's why I'm a extract agent," she added, laughing a little. "When I set an' smell the spices I could think it wasn't me I feel sospecial. An' I feel that way now—I do' know if you know what I mean—"
She looked at me, measuring my ability to comprehend, and brightening at my nod.
"Well, most o' Friendship wouldn't understand," she said. "To them vanilla smells like corn-starch pudding an' no more. An' that reminds me," she added slowly, "you know Friendship well enough by this time, don't you, to find we're apt to say things here this afternoon?"
"Say things?" I repeated, puzzling.
"We won't mean to," she hastened loyally to add; "I ain't talkin' about us, you know," she explained anxiously, "I just want to warn you so's you won't be hurt. I guess I notice such things more'n most. We won't mean to offend you—but I thought you'd ought to know ahead. An' bein' as it's part my tea, I thought it was kind o' my place to tell you."
She was touching the matter delicately, almost tenderly, and not more, as I saw, with a wish to spare me than with a wish to apologize in advance for the others, to explain away some real or fancied weakness.
"You know," she said, "we ain't never had anybody to, what you might say, tell us what we can an' what we can't say. So we just naturally say whatever comes into our heads. An' then when we get it said, we see often that it ain't what we meant—an' that it's apt to hurt folks or put us in a bad light, or somethin'. But some don't even see that—some go right ahead sayin' the hurt things an' never know itisa hurt. I don't know if you've noticed what I mean," Calliope said, "but you will to-night. An' I didn't want you should be hurt or should think hard of them that says 'em."
But how, I wondered, as my guests assembled, could one "think hard" of any one in Friendship, and especially of the little circle to which I belonged: My dear Mis' Amanda Toplady, Mis' Photographer Sturgis, Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, who, since our Thanksgiving, seemed, as Calliope put it, to have "got good with the universe again"; the Liberty sisters, for that day once more persuaded from their seclusion, and Mis' Postmaster Sykes, with, we sometimes said, "some right to hev her peculiarities if ever anybody hed it." Of them all the Friendship phrase of approval had frequently been spoken: That this one, or that, was "at heart, one o' the most all-round capable women we've got."
I had hoped to have one more guest—Mrs. Merriman, wife of the late chief of the Friendship fire department. But I had promptly received her regrets, "owing to affliction in the family," though the fire chief had died two years and more before.
"But it's her black," Calliope had explained to me sympathetically; "she can't afford to throw away her best dress, made mournin' style, with crape ornaments. As long as that lasts good, she'll hev to stay home from places. I see she's just had new crape cuffs put on, an' that means another six months at the least. An' she won't go to parties wearin' widow weeds. Mis' Fire Chief Merriman is very delicate."
My guests, save Calliope, all arrived together and greeted me, I observed, with a manner of marked surprise. Afterward, when I wondered, Calliope explained simply that it was not usual for a hostess to meet her guests at the door. "Of course, they're usually right in the midst o' gettin' the supper when the company comes," she said.
My prettiest dishes and silver were to do honour to those whom I had bidden; and boughs of my Flowering-currant filled my little hall and curved above the line of sight at table, where the candle shades lent deeper yellows. I delighted in the manner of formality with which they took their places, as if some forgotten ceremonial of ancient courts were still in their veins, when a banquet was not a thing to be entered upon lightly.
Quite in ignorance of the Japanese custom of sipping tea while the first course is arriving, it is our habit in Friendship to inaugurate "supper" by seeing the tea poured. In deference to this ceremony a hush fell immediately we were seated, and this was in courtesy to me, who must inquire how each would take her tea. I think that this conversation never greatly varied, as:—
"Mrs. Toplady?" I said at once, the rest being understood.
"Cream and sugar,ifyou please," said that great Amanda heartily, "or milk if it's milk. I take the tea for the trimmin's."
Then a little stir of laughter and a straying comment or two about, say, the length of days at that time of year, and:—
"Mrs. Sykes?"
"Just milk, please. I always say I don't think tea would hurtanybodyif they'd leave the sugar alone. But then, I've got a very peculiar stomach."
"Mrs. Holcomb?"
"I want mine plain tea, thank you. My husband takes milk and the boys like sugar, but I like the taste of the tea."
At which, from Libbie Liberty: "Oh, Mis' Holcomb just says that to make out she's strong-minded. Plain tea an' plain coffee's regular woman's rights fare, Mis' Holcomb!" And then, after more laughter and Mis' Holcomb's blushes, they awaited:—
"Mrs. Sturgis?"
"Not any at all, thank you. No, I like the tea, but the tea don't like me. My mother was the same way. She never could drink it. No, not any for me, though I must say I should dearly love a cup."
"Miss 'Viny?"
"Just a little tea and the rest hot water. Dear me, I shouldn't go to sleep tillto-morrownight if I was to drink a cup as strong as that. No—a little more water, please. I s'pose I can send it back for more if it's still too strong?"
"Miss Libbie?"
"Laviny just wants the canister pointed in her direction, an' she thinks she's had her tea. Lucy don't dare take any. Three lumps for me, please. I like mine surup."
"Calliope?"
"Oh," said Calliope, "milk if there's any left in the pitcher. An' if there ain't, send it down clear. I like it most any way. Ain't it queer about the differ'nce in folks' tastes in their tea and coffee?"
That was the signal for the talk to begin with anecdotes of how various relatives, quick and passed, had loved to take their tea. No one ever broached a real topic until this introduction had had its way. To do so would have been an indelicacy, like familiar speech among those in the ceremony of a first meeting.
Thus I began to see that in spite of Calliope's distress at the ways of us in Friendship, a matchless delicacy was among its people a dominant note. Not the delicacy born of convention, not that sometimes bred in the crudest by urban standards, but a finer courtesy that will spare the conscious stab which convention allows. It was, if I may say so, asavoir faireof the heart instead of the head. But we had hardly entered upon the hour before the ground for Calliope's warning was demonstrated.
"There!" she herself bridged a pause with her ready little laugh, "I knew somebody'd pass me somethin' while I was saltin' my potato. My brother, older, always said that at home. 'I never salt my potato,' he use' to say, 'without somebody passes me somethin'."
Next instant her eyes flew to my face in a kind of horror, for:—
"We've noticed that at our house, too," Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss observed, vigorously using a salt-shaker, "but then I always believe, myself, in havin' everything properly seasoned in the kitchen before it comes on to the table."
"See!" Calliope signalled me fleetly.
But no one else, and certainly not Mis' Holcomb herself, perceived the surface of things vexed by a ripple.
"Well, now," said that great Mis' Amanda Toplady heartily, "thatisso about saltin' your potato. I know it now, but I never thought of it right out before. Lots o' things are true that you don't think of right out. Now I come to put my mind on it, I know at our house if I cut up a big plate o' bread we don't eat up half of it; but just as sure as I don't, I hev to get up from the table an' go get more bread."
"I know—we often speak of that!" and "So my husband says," chimed Mis' Holcomb and Mis' Sturgis.
"Seems as if I'd noticed that, too," Calliope said brightly.
Whereupon: "My part," Miss Lucy Liberty contributed shyly, "I always like to see a great big plate of good, big slices o' bread come on to the table. Looks like the crock was full," she added, laughing heartily to cover her really pretty shyness, "an' like you wouldn't run out."
Calliope's glance at me was still more distressed, for my table showed no bread at all, and my maid was at that moment handing rolls the size of a walnut. But for the others the moment passed undisturbed.
"I've never noticed in particular about the bread," observed Mis' Sykes,—she had great magnetism, for when she spoke an instant hush fell,—"but whatIhave noticed"—Mis' Sykes was very original and usually disregarded the experiences of others,—"is that if I don't make a list of my washing when it goes, something is pretty sure to get lost. But let me make a list, an' even the dust-cloths'll come back home."
Everybody had noticed that. Even Libbie Liberty assented, and exchanged with her sister a smile of domestic memories.
"An' every single piece has got my initial in the corner, too," Mis' Sykes added; "I wouldn't hev a piece o' linen in the house without my initial on. It don't seem to me rill refined not to."
Calliope's look was almost one of anguish. My hemstitched damask napkins bear no saving initial in a corner. But no one else would, I was certain, connect that circumstance, even if it was observed, with what Mis' Sykes had said.
"It's too bad Mis' Fire Chief Merriman wouldn't come to-day," Calliope hastily turned the topic. "She can't seem to get used to things again, since Sum died."
"She didn't do this way for her first husband that died in the city, I heard," volunteered Mis' Sturgis. "Why, I heard she went outthere, right after the first year."
"That's easy explained," said Mis' Sykes, positively.
"Wasn't she fond of him?" asked Mis' Holcomb. "She seems real clingin', like she would be fond o' most any one."
"Oh, yes, she was fond of him," declared Mis' Sykes. "Why, he was a professional man, you know. But then he died ten years ago, durin' tight skirts. Naturally, being a widow then wasn't what it is now. She couldn't cut her skirt over to any advantage—a bell skirt is a bell skirt. An' they went out the very next year. When she got new cloth for the flare skirts, she got colours. But the Fire Chief died right at the height o' the full skirts. She's kep' cuttin' over an' cuttin' over, an' by the looks o' the Spring plates she can keep right on at it. She really can't afford to goouto' mournin'. I don't blame her a bit."
"She told me the other day," remarked Libbie Liberty, "that she was real homesick for some company food. She said she'd been ask' in to eat with this family an' that, most hospitable but very plain. An' seems though she couldn't wait for a company lay-out."
"She won't go anywheres in her crape," Mis' Sykes turned to me, supplementing Calliope's former information. "She's a very superior woman,—she graduated in Oils in the city,—an' she's fitted for any society, say where whowill. We always say about her that nobody's so delicate as Mis' Fire Chief Merriman."
"She don't take strangers in very ready, anyway," Mis' Holcomb explained to me. "She belongs to what you might call the old school. She's very sensitive toeverything."
The moment came when I had unintentionally produced a hush by serving a salad unknown in Friendship. When almost at once I perceived what I had done, I confess that I looked at Calliope in a kind of dread lest this too were afaux pas, and I took refuge in some question about the coming Carnival. But my attention was challenged by my maid, who was in the doorway announcing a visitor.
"Company, ma'am," she said.
And when I had bidden her to ask that I be excused for a little:—
"Please, ma'am," she said, "she says she has to see younow."
And when I suggested the lady's card:—
"Oh, it's Mis' Fire Chief Merriman," the maid imparted easily.
"Mis' Fire Chief Merriman!" exclaimed every one at table. "Well forevermore! Speakin' of angels! She must 'a' forgot the tea was bein'."
In my living-room, in her smartly freshened spring toilet of mourning, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman rose to greet me. She was very tall and slight, and her face was curiously like an oblong yellow brooch which fastened her gown at the throat.
"My dear friend," she said, "I felt, after your kind invitation, that I must pay my respectsduringyour tea. Afterwards wouldn't be the same. It's a tea, and there couldn't be lanterns an' bunting or anything o' the sort. So I felt I could come in."
"You are very good," I murmured, and in some perplexity, as she resumed her seat, I sat down also. Mis' Merriman sought in the pocket of her petticoat for a black-bordered handkerchief.
"When you're in mourning so," she observed, "folks forget you. They don't really forget you, either. But they get used to missing you places, an' they don't always remember to miss you. I did appreciate your inviting me to-day so. Because I'm just as fond of meeting my friends as I was before the chief died."
And when I had made an end of murmuring something:—
"Really," she went on placidly, "it ought to be the custom to go out in society when you're in mourning if you never did any other time. You need distraction then if you ever needed it in your life. An' the chief would 'a' been the first to feel that too. He was very partial to going out in company."
And when I had made an end of murmuring something else:—
"You were very thoughtful to give me an invitation for this afternoon," she said. "An' I felt that I must stop in an' tell you so, even if I couldn't attend."
Serenely she spread her black crape fan and swayed it. In the dining-room my guests proceeded with their lonely salad toward a probable lonely dessert. At thought of that dessert and of that salad, a suggestion, partly impulsive and partly flavoured with some faint reminiscence, at once besieged me, and in it I divined a solution of the moment.
"Mrs. Merriman," I said eagerly, "may I send you in a cup of strawberry ice? I've some early strawberries from the city."
She turned on me her great dark eyes, with their flat curve of shadow accenting her sadness.
"I'm sure you are very kind," she said simply. "An' I should be pleased, I'm sure."
I rose, hesitating, longing to say what I had in mind.
"I'd really like your opinion," I said, "on rather a new salad I'm trying. Now would you not—"
"A salad?" Mis' Merriman repeated. "The chief," she said reflectively, "was very partial to all green salads. I don't think men usually care for them the way he did."
"Dear Mrs. Merriman," said I at this, "a cup of bouillon and a bit of chicken breast and a drop of creamed cauliflower—"
"Oh," she murmured, "really, I couldn't think—"
And when I had made my cordial insistence she looked up at me for a moment solemnly, over her crape fan. I thought that her eyes with that flat, underlying curve of shadow were as if tears were native to them. Her grief and the usages of grief had made of her some one other than her first self, some one circumscribed, wary of living.
"Oh," she said wistfully, "I ain't had anything like that since I went into mourning. If you don't think it would be disrespectful to him—?"
"I am certain that it would not be so," I assured her, and construed her doubting silence as capitulation.
So I filled a tray with all the dainties of our little feast, and my maid carried it to her where she sat, and then to us at table served dessert. And my strange party went forward with seven guests in my dining-room and one mourner at supper in my living-room.
"How very,verydelicate!" said Mis' Postmaster Sykes, in an emphatic whisper. "Mis' Fire Chief Merriman is a very superior woman, an' she always does the delicate thing."
And now as I met Calliope's eyes I saw that the dear little woman was looking at me with a manner of unmistakable pride. In spite of her warning to me and what she thought had been its justification during the supper, here was an occasion to reveal to me a delicacy unequalled.
Thereafter, in deference to my mourning guest in the next room, we all dropped our voices and talked virtually in whispers. And when at last we rose from the table, complete silence had come upon us.
Then, the tray not having yet been brought from that other room, I confess to having found myself somewhat uncertain how to treat a situation so out of my experience. But the kind heart of my dear Mis' Amanda Toplady was the dictator.
"Now," she whispered, tip-toeing, "we must all go in an' speak to her. Poor woman—she don't call anywheres, an' she stays in mournin' so long folks have kind o' dropped off goin' to see her. Let's walk in an' be rill nice to her."
Mis' Fire Chief Merriman sat as I had left her, and the tray was before her on my writing-table. She looked up gravely and greeted them all, one by one, without rising. We sat about her in a circle and spoke to her gently on subjects decently allied to her grief: on the coming meeting of the Cemetery Improvement Sodality; on the new styles in mourning; on the deaths in Friendship during the winter; and on two cases of typhoid fever recently developed in the town. (The Fire Chief had died of "walking typo.") And Mis' Merriman, gravely partaking of strawberry ice and cake and bonbons, listened and replied and, with the last morsel, rose to take her leave.
It was then that my unlucky star shone effulgent. For, as she was shaking hands all round:—
"Oh, Mrs. Merriman," I said, with the gentlest intent, "would you care to come out to see my dining-room? My Flowering-currant was very early this year—"
To my horrified amazement Mis' Fire Chief Merriman lifted her black-bordered handkerchief to her face and broke into subdued sobbing. Suddenly I understood that all the others were looking at me in a kind of reproachful astonishment. My bewilderment, mounting for an instant, was precipitately overthrown by the sobbing woman's words.
"Oh," Mis' Merriman said indistinctly, "I'm much obliged to you, I'm sure. But how can you think I would? I haven't looked at lanterns an' bunting an' such things since the Fire Chief died. I don't know how I'm ever going to stand the Carnival!"
In deep distress I apologized, and found myself adrift upon a sea of uncharted classifications. Here were niceties of distinction which escaped my ruder vision, trained to the mere interchange of signals in smooth sailing or straight tempest, on open water. But I knew with grief that I had given her pain—that was clear enough; and in my confusion and wish to make amends, I caught up from their jar on the hall table my Flowering-currant boughs and thrust them in her hands.
"Ah," I begged breathlessly, "at all events, take these!"
On which she drew away from me and shook her head and fairly fled down the path, her floating crape brushing the mother bushes of my offending offering. And I was helplessly aware that sympathetic silence had fallen on the others and that the sympathy was not for me.
"But what on earth was the matter?" I entreated my guests.
It was that great Mis' Amanda Toplady who slipped her arm about me and explained.
"When we've got any dead belongin' to us," she said, "we always carry all the flowers we get to the grave—an', of course, we don't feel wecancarry them that's been used for a company. It's the same with Mis' Fire Chief. An' she can't bear even to see flowers an' things that's fixed for a company, either. Of course, that's her privilege."
Mis' Sykes took my hands.
"You come here so lately," she said, "you naturally wouldn't know what's what in these things, here in Friendship. An' then, of course, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman is very,verydelicate."
Calliope linked her arm in mine.
"Don't you mind," she whispered; "we're all liable to our mistakes."
Half an hour after tea my guests took leave.
"I enjoyed myself so much," said Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss; "you look tired out. I hope it ain't been too much for you."
"Entertainin' is a real job," said Mis' Sturgis, "but you do it almost as if you liked it. I enjoyed myselfsomuch."
"I'll give bail you're glad it's over," said Libbie Liberty, sympathetically, "even if it did go off nice. I enjoyed myself ever so much."
"Everso much," murmured Miss Lucy, laughing heartily.
"Good night. Everything was lovely. I enjoyed myself very much," Mis' Postmaster Sykes told me. "And," she said, "you'll hear from me very,verysoon in return for this."
"Now don't you overdo, reddin' up to-night," advised my dear Mis' Amanda Toplady. "Just pick up the silver an' rense it off, an' let the dishes set till mornin',Isay. Ididenjoy myself so much."
"Good-by," Calliope whispered in the hall. "Oh, it was beautiful. Ineverfelt so special. Thank you—thank you. An'—you won't mind those things we said at the supper table?"
"Oh, Calliope," I murmured miserably, "I've forgotten all about them."
I went out to the veranda with her. At the foot of the steps the others had paused in consultation. Hesitating, they looked up at me, and Mis' Sykes became their spokesman.
"If I was you," she said gently, "I wouldn't feel too cut up over that slip o' yours to Mis' Merriman. She'd ought not to see blunders where they wasn't any meant. It'd ought to be the heart that counts,Isay. Good-by. We enjoyed ourselves very,verymuch!"
They went down the path between blossoming bushes, in the late afternoon sun. And as Calliope followed,—
"That's so about the heart, ain't it?" she said brightly.