Miss Judy's ideas of chaperonage were very strict. It would have seemed to her most improper to allow Doris to take the dancing lesson alone. Not that she thought any harm of the dancing-master; Miss Judy thought no harm of any one. Her ideals were always quite apart from all considerations of reality. It made no difference to her that only the neighbors were usually to be met on the way, and that on the morning of the first lesson the big road lay wholly deserted when she passed out of her little gate with Doris by her side—she herself so small, so timid, so frail, and Doris so tall, so valiant, so strong. Yet the sense of guardianship, full of deep pride and grave delight, filled her gentle heart even as it must have filled the Lion's when he went guarding Una.
It was a pity that Lynn Gordon missed the pretty sight. He had passed Miss Judy's gate before she came forth with her charge, and now, all unconscious of his loss, strolled idly on in the opposite direction. Doris was in his mind as he went by the silver poplars, but he caught no glimpse of her through the thick foliage, and could barely see the snowy walls of the house. Slowly he walked on as far as the brow of the hill at the southern end of the village, as he had done once before, and stood for a moment again looking out over the land. Then, turning, he retraced his aimless steps.
The day was like a flawless diamond, melting into the rarest pearl where the haze of the horizon purpled the far-off hills. The sapphire dome of the heavens arched without a cloud. Below stretched the meadows, lying deep and sweet in new-cut grass and alive and vivid and musical with the movement, the color, and the song of the birds. He did not know the names of half of them; but there were vireos, and orioles, and thrushes, and bobolinks, and song-sparrows, and jay-birds, and robins—all wearing their gayest plumage and singing their blithest songs. Even the flickers wore their reddest collars and sang their sweetest notes, as if vying with the redwings which flashed their little black bodies hither and thither as flame bears smoke. The scarlet tanagers also blossomed like gorgeous flowers all over the wide green fields. And the bluebirds—blue—blue—blue—gloriously singing, seemed to be bringing the hue and the harmony of the radiant heavens down to the glowing earth.
The melodious chorus was pierced now and then by a note of infinitely sad sweetness, as a bird lamented the wreck of its hopes which had followed the cutting of the grass. But the mourner was far afield, so that its sweet lament was but a soft and distant echo of the world-pain which forever follows the passing of the Reaper. The young man heeded it as little as we all heed it, till our own pass under the scythe. He stopped to lean on the fence, drinking in the beauty and fragrance, thus unwittingly disturbing the peace and happiness of a robin family which was dwelling in a near-by blackberry bush. The head of this flowering house now flew out, protesting with every indignant feather against this unmannerly intrusion of a mere mortal upon a lady-bird's bower. Trailing his wings and ruffling his crest, he sidled away along the top of the fence as if there were nothing interesting among those blossoms for anybody to spy out—in a word, doing everything a true gentleman should do under such circumstances, no matter how red his waistcoat may be. Another robin sang what he thought of the situation, expressing himself so plainly from the other side of the big road, that even the young man understood; while still another robin, too far away to know what shocking things were going on, poured out a rapturous song as though all living were but revelling in sunshine.
Lynn Gordon turned away, thinking with a smile what a wonderful thing love must be, since it could so move the gentlest to fierceness, as he had just seen; and could bring the fiercest to gentleness, as he had often heard. Smiling at his own idle thoughts, he wandered on. The loosened petals of the blackberry bloom drifted before him like snowflakes wafted by the south wind. The rich deep clover field on the other side of the way was rosy and fragrant with blossoms. The wild grape, too, was in flower, its elusive aromatic scent flying down from the wooded hillsides, as though it were the winged, woodland spirit of fragrance.
Approaching the woods at the foot of the hills, Lynn saw a log cabin, which he had not seen before, although he knew that the land upon which it stood was a part of the Gordon estate; part of the lands which would one day be his own. As his careless glance rested on the cabin, strains of music coming from it caught and fixed his attention. Some one was playing an old-fashioned dance tune on a violin, and Lynn unthinkingly followed the stately measure till he found himself standing unobserved before the humble dwelling from which it came, free to gaze his fill at a scene revealed by the open passage between the two low rooms.
The passage walls were spotless with white-wash, and the shadows of the trees standing close behind showed deeply green beyond. Against these soft green shadows and on one side of the passage stood the white-haired Frenchman. His fiddle was under his chin, held tenderly as though it were a precious thing that he dearly loved. His head was a little on one side and his eyes were partially closed,—like the birds,—as if he too were under the spell of his own music. His right arm, jauntily raised, wielded the bow: his left toe was advanced, then his right, now this one, now that one—advancing, bowing, retiring—all as solemn as solemn could be.
And more serious if possible than Monsieur Beauchamp was Doris herself, facing him from the opposite side of the passage; grave, indeed, as any wood nymph performing some sacred rite in a sylvan temple. When the young man saw her first, she stood poised and fluttering, as a butterfly poises and flutters uncertain whether to alight or to fly. The thin skirt of the book-muslin party coat, delicately held out at the sides by the very tips of her fingers, and lightly caught by the soft wind, spread like the wings of a white bird. The slippers, heel-less and yellow as buttercups, were thus brought bewitchingly into view—with the narrow ribbon daintily crossed over the instep and tied around the ankle—as they darted in and out beneath the fluttering skirt. Her golden hair, loosed by the dance and the breeze, fell around her shoulders in a radiant mantle, growing more beautiful with every airy movement. The exquisite curve of her cheek, nearly always colorless, now faintly reflected the rose-red of her perfect lips as the snowdrift reflects the glow of the sunset. Her large dark eyes were lost under her long dark lashes, and never wandered for an instant from the little Frenchman's guiding toes. And Doris understood those toes perfectly, although she knew not a word of the dancing-master's native language, and not much of her own when spoken by him, as he now mingled the two, quite carried away by this sudden and late return to his true vocation. She followed their every motion as thistledown follows the wind: stepping delicately, advancing coquettishly, courtesying quaintly—as Miss Judy had taught her,—and retiring, alluring, only to begin over and over again. It was all as artless, as graceful, and as natural as the floating of the thistledown; and such a wonderful dance as never was seen on land or sea, unless—as the young man thought, with the sight going to his head like royal burgundy—the fairies might have danced something of the kind on Erin's enchanted moss within the moonlit ring.
On fiddled the old Frenchman and on winged the young girl, both of them far too deeply absorbed in the serious business in hand to notice the onlooker, till Miss Judy came, actually running and almost out of breath. She had seen the young man's approach to the cabin, but she was too far away to reach it before him, although she had come as quickly as she possibly could. Hastening, she sharply reproached herself for having been persuaded to go so far from the cabin to look at Mrs. Beauchamp's strawberry bed. It was, of course, utterly impossible to have foreseen this young gentleman's appearance. Nevertheless, she should not have left Doris, poor child, alone for a moment—none knew that better than herself. And now to see what had come of her unpardonable thoughtlessness! What would this stranger think of Doris, or of any well brought up girl, whom he thus found neglected? At this thought Miss Judy, for all her mildness, ruffled with indignation as a hen ruffles at any rough touch upon her soft little chicks. She would try, she said to herself, to retrieve her mistake. She would do her best to show this grandson of old lady Gordon—who made fun of everybody—that her Doris was no ignorant rustic, roaming the woods all forgotten by her proper guardians. As she ran, much agitated and even alarmed, the little lady mechanically looked over her shoulder and put her little hands behind her back to make sure that the point of her neckerchief was precisely where it should be. She never felt quite equal to a difficult undertaking until she was certain of the point's exact location, and now, having learned by long practice to tell with some degree of certainty by touch,—on account of its being so hard to look in the long mirror,—she now thought that it was in its proper place, and she accordingly entered the green-shadowed end of the passage with a very high air. Her manner was indeed as high and even haughty a manner as could possibly be assumed by a very small, very gentle old lady, who was blushing, and trying to get her breath after a rush across a ploughed field. The greeting which she gave Lynn Gordon was therefore noticeably cold; also the introduction to Doris was plainly wrung from her by politeness, and given with marked reluctance. So that the young man, not understanding in the least, naturally wondered greatly at the change in the little lady, who had been so winningly gracious on the previous day.
Monsieur Beauchamp's eager hospitality did something to make Lynn feel less like an unpardonable intruder. And madame, also, was kind in her matter-of-fact way. She took no notice whatever of her husband's introducing her as the Empress Maria. Acting as though she had been deaf she placed chairs for her guests, and then went out to fetch them some new crab cider in thick glass tumblers on a large deep plate. An inflexible custom of Oldfield required that a guest should be offered some kind of refreshment, no matter what the time of day. Fortunately, there was no rigid rule as to the kind of refreshment; one kind would do as well as another, provided only that something was offered promptly. Each Oldfield housekeeper had her own preference, her own specialty. Miss Pettus might with perfect propriety offer a piece of fried chicken at three o'clock in the afternoon to a guest who had dined at one; old lady Gordon might order a full meal at any hour for any one who dropped in between meals, to her own and everybody else's entire satisfaction; Miss Judy might serve a handful of gooseberries, either green or ripe, on her mother's prettiest plate, and the guest always remarked how pretty it was, whether she dared eat it or not. Mrs. Beauchamp accordingly felt herself to be uncommonly lucky in having this newly made, still sweet, crab cider to offer her visitors. She had seen the time when she had been obliged to hand a glass of toddy, and that, too, without a sprig of mint or a bit of ice.
It was quite as much a part of Oldfield manners to accept the refreshment as to offer it. Miss Judy took her glass of cider and sipped it daintily, saying how nice it was, yet managing while doing this to make it quite plain that the intruder was meant to feel thathehad no share in the sweet graciousness extended to her hostess. The eyes of the two young people met involuntarily, and although Doris, coloring, dropped her eyes in confusion, Lynn saw the sudden dimpling of her cheek. It was the second time they had looked at each other; Doris had given him one startled, fleeting glance, with a frightened exclamation and a hurried dropping of skirts, when she had first seen him standing in front of the passage, looking at her as she danced. He now found no opportunity to speak to her. Miss Judy arose to take Doris away as soon as courtesy would allow her to do so without seeming to slight Mrs. Beauchamp's cider. She was ever more careful of the feelings of her inferiors than of her equals, if that were possible. She was quite determined, nevertheless, to withdraw at once. The lesson might be resumed another day, she said to Monsieur Beauchamp, gently but firmly, adding that Miss Wendall's mother and uncle were doubtless expecting her. And this Miss Judy said loftily, almost haughtily, in a tone calculated to inform the young gentleman that Miss Wendall's mother and uncle were personages to be reckoned with. As Miss Judy left her seat, Doris also arose and started to get her hat, which was hanging against the wall. Lynn Gordon eagerly sprang up and took it down and handed it to her. He had no thought, however, of accepting his dismissal, when Miss Judy, after taking leave of the dancing-master and his wife with a grand little air which puzzled the worthy pair exceedingly, merely inclined her head stiffly in his direction. Instead, he coolly went before her and Doris to the gate, and, after holding it open till they had passed out, calmly followed them, carefully taking his place by Miss Judy's side, and away from Doris.
For a few paces Miss Judy was silent with surprise, rigid with displeasure. She went, carrying her little head very high indeed, and taking dainty, mincing steps. She held up the front of her black bombazine by a delicately small pinch of the cloth between her forefinger and thumb, and her little finger was very elegantly crooked. Her sweet face was set as a flint. She was stern in the determination to set Doris right in the estimation of old lady Gordon's grandson—this handsome, mannerly, young gentleman, who might nevertheless have his grandmother's disposition as well as her features, for all Miss Judy knew. Yet her stiffness began to thaw under Lynn's genial frankness as a light frost melts under a warm sun. He was tactful considering his age, his inexperience, and especially his sex—if tact be ever a matter of age and experience, as it is almost always one of sex. He had, too, a gay, boyish way about him which was very winning, and which gradually disarmed gentle Miss Judy almost completely within the length of a couple of rods. Within three rods she began to talk quite naturally, the only lingering sign of her mildly fixed purpose being the unusually didactic turn of her remarks.
"You know, I presume, Mr. Gordon," she said primly and with significant distinctness, as one who weighs her words, "that this is the oldest portion of Kentucky. There is, as I am well aware, a widespread but erroneous impression that the Blue Grass Region is older than this; but no well-read person could possibly fall into such an unaccountable error. The real Kentucky pioneer was Thomas Walker, who came from Virginia through Cumberland Gap into the south-eastern part of the state in 1750, and made explorations coming this way;—not Daniel Boone, who first entered the northern and middle part of it as late as 1769. The Blue Grass people are not to blame, perhaps, for honestly believing their section to be the oldest in Kentucky, since most of them have been brought up to believe it; but it is really surprising that, with a good many reading citizens who know something of history, they should cling to this extraordinary misbelief in opposition to all written and unwritten history of the state. The first house, too, was built here in the Pennyroyal Region, near Green River. Why, my dear sir, I can give you personal assurance that the ruins of this first house in Kentucky are still to be seen. I have never seen them myself," added Miss Judy, scrupulously; "but many friends of mine have seen them."
When the young man had shown himself to be as much surprised and impressed as she thought he should be, Miss Judy went on with growing confidence. She called his further attention to the fact that this Green River country was also the sole region of Virginia's military grants to her officers of the Revolution. Miss Judy cautiously disclaimed any knowledge of what the mother state might have done for the soldiers of the line—with a soft touch of condescension. But she spoke with authority in saying that Virginia had never granted a foot of land—north of Green River—to any officer of the War of Independence.
"I am not speaking of lands that may have been bought by officers from the Indians, or of lands that may have been taken up by officers as by other settlers. Lands so acquired are doubtless scattered all over the state. I am speaking only of grants of lands in Kentucky, given by Virginia to her officers of the Revolution for military services. These—one and all—were given here, in this Pennyroyal Region, and nowhere else; it was here, therefore, that those distinguished soldiers came to live and to die, after doing their duty to their country. And it was their coming that made this Pennyroyal Region so utterly unlike the rest of Kentucky."
"Indeed! Yes, I see," responded Lynn Gordon, with his eyes on Doris's dimpling cheek.
And then Miss Judy's soft heart suddenly smote her with the feeling that she had perhaps been too severe. She had unconsciously been stepping more and more mincingly, holding the pinch of black bombazine higher and higher, and crooking her little finger more and more jauntily.
"I have been told that there are some perfectly sincere persons living in the Blue Grass Region who honestly believe that their estates were granted to an officer ancestor for service in the Revolution. And these deluded persons are not so much to be blamed as to be pitied for being brought up to believe something that is not true. It is their misfortune, not their fault, poor things!"
Sure now that she was growing harsh indeed and almost cruel, Miss Judy gracefully turned the talk in a less serious direction, toward one which was, nevertheless, still calculated to impress this stranger with the character of the country.
"Of course you know the heraldic herb of the Pennyroyal Region," she said smilingly, as she pointed to an humble, unpretentious bunch of rather rusty green, growing thick all along the wayside. "We who live in it are fond of it and proud of it too, as fond and proud of it as England ever was of the rose, or France of the lily, or Scotland of the thistle, or even Ireland of the shamrock."
"How interesting," said the young man, still looking at Doris—not at the pennyroyal.
Doris glanced also at him, feeling great pride in Miss Judy's easy acquaintance with heraldic matters, and wishing to see if he were as much impressed as she thought he ought to be.
"Yes, I think itisinteresting," continued Miss Judy, making her small mouth smaller by pursing it up in the dainty way that she would have ascribed as primping. "In fact, the pennyroyal has long been of far greater importance to the world at large than might be supposed by those who have not looked into the subject. You know, I presume, that many of the old English poets have mentioned it in their most famous works, and always with the greatest respect."
"Indeed," exclaimed the young man again, with his gaze fixed upon the sweet curve of Doris's velvet cheek.
"Chaucer and Dryden and Drayton and Spenser—every one of these fathers of English poesy has something to say of the pennyroyal," Miss Judy went on airily, still quite firmly resolved to let old lady Gordon's grandson see—no matter how polite he might be—that Doris's friends were well-read and cultured persons, however much to the contrary his first impression may have been. "Their mentions of it are mostly very mysterious, though; they speak of it as 'a charming, enchanting, bewitching herb.' All of them, indeed, describe it in that manner, if I remember correctly—though one does forget so easily," the little lady added, as if she read Chaucer and Dryden and Drayton and Spenser every day of her life. "I am quite sure, however, that Drayton refers to it 'in sorceries excelling.' And I also seem distinctly to recall the witches ofThe Faerie Queeneas cleansing themselves of evil magic by a bath of pennyroyal once a year—I don't, though, recollect what they bathed in during the rest of the time. Spenser calls it out of its true name, however, as I remember his reference to it. He says that the witches bathed in 'origane and thyme'; but everybody knows well enough that origane was the pennyroyal's name in Spenser's day. Chaucer and Drayton knew it in their time as 'lunarie,' but they all meant neither more nor less than our own pennyroyal and nothing else."
As the three walked slowly up the big road under the flowering locusts, Miss Judy, relenting more and more, gradually became quite her sweet, friendly self. She finally admitted, with the gentle frankness natural to her, that she had never quite been able to understand these mysterious poetic references to such a simple homely thing as the pennyroyal, which she had known ever since she could remember. She now freely acknowledged that its character must have altered with the passing of the ages, or must have been changed by the coming from the old world to the new. And yet, on the other hand,—as she pointed out to the young man in a tone of confidence,—there were the famous old simplists, belonging to the very time and the very country of these fathers of poetry, who had known and prized an herb which was much like the pennyroyal of to-day, and which they had called "honesty."
"This certainly must have been identical with our own heraldic pennyroyal," Miss Judy declared. "For that surely is the honestest little thing growing out of the earth. So upright, so downright. So absolutely uncompromising! Sturdy, erect, wholesome, useful, clean, bristly, and square of stem, it holds its rough leaves steady and level at the full height of its reach; standing thus, it never bends; falling, it always goes the whole way down; pulled up, its roots come all at once. So that there is no half-heartedness of any sort in this most characteristic product of southwestern Kentucky."
There was a shade of uneasiness in the proud glance which Doris now stole at Lynn, with a sudden uplifting of her lovely dark eyes. He could but admire Miss Judy's learning, she thought, and yet she could not help seeing, with a tender sense of humor, how exquisitely quaint the little lady's manner was.
Lynn grew bold, reading the look and the unconscious, embarrassed, half smile. "But, Miss Bramwell, pray tell me, does not the pennyroyal belong to the whole state? I have always taken it to be a member of the mint family."
Miss Judy, stepping still more mincingly, and holding the pinch of black bombazine higher than ever, tossed her little head as she acknowledged the possibility of a distant relationship. She intimated that she considered this too far off to count, even in Kentucky, where kinship appeared to stretch farther than anywhere else in the world. And she forthwith repudiated for the sturdy pennyroyal all the traits and the habits of the whole disreputable mint tribe—root and branch.
"Never under any circumstances will the honest pennyroyal be found lolling supinely in the low, shady, wet haunts of the mint. The true pennyroyal—you should know, my dear sir—stands high and dry, straight out in the open. And it stands on its native heath, too," Miss Judy said, smiling herself now, and quite forgetting all discomfiture and all displeasure. "The pennyroyal never had to be fetched from somewhere else—as the blue grass was—to giveitsname toitsregion!"
They had reached Miss Judy's gate by this time, and when Lynn mechanically opened it, the little lady passed through it before she realized that propriety required her to go all the way home with Doris, since the young gentleman evidently did not intend stopping short of Sidney's threshold. But the shyness which was natural to her, and which had dropped away from her only at Doris's need, suddenly came over her again. She stood still, uneasy, blushing, and gazing after the young couple who were strolling on under the flowering locusts. A look of apprehension quickly clouded the blue of her sweet old eyes with real distress. It was clearly wrong for her to have left them. She had made another mistake; her neglect had again placed Doris in a false light. It would be hard, indeed, to set this worst remissness right. She would gladly have called to Doris even then, had she not feared to embarrass her further. The tears welled up, but she brushed them away, so that not one step of the young people's progress up the hill might be lost to her wistful sight. Suddenly she cried out in such dismay that Miss Sophia, dozing as usual, was startled wide awake, and came to see what was the matter, as soon as she could rise from her chair and reach the door.
"Look at that poor, dear child!" cried Miss Judy, quite overcome. "Just see what she is doing, sister Sophia! And that, too, is all my fault. How was Doris—dear, dear little one—to know that she must never dream of taking off her gloves in the presence of a gentleman, when I have never thought to point out to her the indelicacy of doing such a thing?"
And Doris would not know what to do when they reached the house. If Sidney were only at home, it would not be so bad—so Miss Judy said. But Sidney was sure to be out "on-the-pad," as she herself described her professional rounds, never suspecting that she might be using a corruption from the French ofen balade. Miss Judy knew Sidney's habits too well to hope for any help from the chance of her being at home. She—dear little lady—was quite in tears now and almost ready to wring her hands.
Meanwhile, the young man and the young maid went happily along under the white-tasselled locusts, between the sweet-scented green fields and the blooming gardens, toward the silver poplars. They, themselves, were not thinking of the conventionalities, nor troubling their handsome heads about the proprieties. Doris was chatting shyly, expressing Miss Judy's thoughts in Miss Judy's phrases with most winning quaintness, and at the same time with an unconscious revelation now and then of her innocent self. A gleam of sweet humor shone fitfully from her soft, dark eyes as firelight flickers through the dusk, and in this, at least, gentle Miss Judy had no part. Doris told, with the dimple coming and going and many swift, shy, upward glances, of Monsieur Beauchamp's bordering the lettuce beds withfleur-de-lisbecause—as he said—they were the imperial lilies of France; and of the scorn of the Empress Maria, who pulled them up as soon as his back was turned,—so that his feelings should not be wounded,—although she was quite determined thus to make room for the early turnips. And then, gaining confidence from Lynn Gordon's rapt attention, Doris went on to approach literature. She had an instinctive feeling that Miss Judy would have advised books as a theme for polite conversation with a stranger. She had read, so she said, Goldsmith's poems and some of Moore's; Miss Judy thought Burns's poetry better suited to a gentleman's than to a lady's taste, so Doris said. She acknowledged knowing very little about novels, exceptThe Children of the Abbeyand some of Miss Jane Austen's tales. Miss Judy thought, so Doris went on to say, that prose was less refined than poetry and more apt to be worldly; so that she considered it best to wait till one's ideals were well formed and firmly fixed, before reading very many novels. Miss Judy thought a great deal of ideals; she considered them, next to principles, the most important things in the world, Doris said earnestly, looking gravely up in Lynn Gordon's face. There was one novel, however, that Doris was most eager to read. It was a very, very new one, and it was calledVanity Fair. Perhaps Mr. Gordon might have heard of it—then quickly—possibly he had even read it. She colored faintly when he said that he had read it and that he scarcely thought her quite old enough yet to enjoy it, although it was a great book.
"So Miss Judy thinks," sighed Doris. "Perhaps she will allow me to read it when I am older. Anyway, she lets me read all the poetry in her mother's dear oldBeauty Books, and it's beautiful. The poems haven't any names signed to them, but that doesn't matter. They go with the pictures of the lovely, lovely ladies—all with such small waists and such long curls, the whole picture in a wreath of little pink roses and tiny blue forget-me-nots—those dear oldBeauty Booksthat smell so sweet of dried rose leaves!"
Sidney was not only out "on-the-pad" that day, but she came home later than usual. The children and Uncle Watty were hungry and waiting impatiently for the basket; and there were many urgent household duties to be done before bedtime. Doris made one or two shy attempts to speak of her dancing lesson and the incident which had occurred in connection with it. But speaking to Sidney in the rush of her domestic affairs was like trying the voice against the roar of a storm. So that Doris was compelled to put off the telling till the next morning.
On the next morning, however, there was even less chance for a quiet word than there had been on the night before. Sidney was up betimes, to be sure, and bustling round, but it was merely in order to be ready for an important engagement, a most important one, which brooked no delay. It was barely nine o'clock when she set off up the big road, with her ball of yarn held tightly under her left arm, and her knitting-needles flying and flashing in the sunlight. Her sunbonnet was pushed as far back on her yellow head as it could be, to stay on at all, and such was her stress of mind that she took it off and hung it on the fence, and let her hair down and twisted it up again, thrusting the comb back in place with great emphasis, no less than three times, within the few minutes during which Doris stood at the gate looking after her.
It was a hard task which lay before Sidney that day. She was the peacemaker, as well as the funmaker, for the entire community. One fact was as well known, too, as the other, but there was nothing like an equal demand for the two offices; for the Oldfield people dwelt together, as a rule, in such harmony as Sidney found, not only monotonous, but even a little dull now and then. It is but natural to wish to exercise a talent, and to be unwilling to hide it, when we know ourselves to be possessed of it in no common degree. When, therefore, some foolish joke of Kitty Mills's set the long-smouldering sense of wrong fiercely blazing in Miss Pettus's breast, Sidney could but feel that her longed-for opportunity had come at last. She was not in the least daunted by the knowledge that the quarrel was an old one, newly broken out afresh like a rekindled fire, and consequently much harder to mend, or even to control, than if it were new. Nor had her ardor been lessened in the slightest by finding that everything which she had said on the previous evening had served but as oil to the flame of Miss Pettus's burning wrath. Sidney's self-confidence and courage, being of the first order, only rose with all these obstacles. They merely put her all the more on her mettle, and she had rested well and confidently through the night, satisfied to have secured Miss Pettus's promise not to say or to do anything until the following morning. Ten hours' sleep must cool even Miss Pettus's temper in a measure, Sidney thought, like the real philosopher that she was, and she herself would be better prepared with arguments after time for reflection. Miss Pettus had flared up like gunpowder, then as always, when least expected, so that Sidney had hardly known at the moment what to say.
And for all her reliance upon her own strength and tact, she had none too fully realized the necessity for prompt action. It was lucky, indeed, that she was early; for, early as she set out, she met Miss Pettus coming down the big road "hotfoot," as Sidney said afterward, already on the way to see Kitty Mills. It was not of the slightest use, Miss Pettus cried,—beginning as soon as she came within speaking distance of the peacemaker,—not of the least use in the world for Sidney to begin again arguing about Kitty Mills's never meaning to cheat anybody. She, Miss Pettus, was sick and tired of having things smoothed over, and of being told and told that she was mistaken. She was not mistaken. The facts stood for themselves: Kitty Mills had said when she swapped the dorminica for the yellow-legged pullet and a bit to boot, that the dorminica laid big eggs. Let Kitty Mills deny that if she dared! Then let Sidney, or the whole of Oldfield, come and look at the little eggs that that dorminica did lay. It was bad enough to be so cheated in a hen trade, without having it thrown up to you almost every day of your life, in some silly joke. What did Kitty Mills mean, except insult, by sending her word that she couldn't expect a fat hen to lay the same up hill and down dale. And then, as if that were not enough, what did Kitty Mills do, but send back that same yellow-legged pullet, and even the very same bit, offering to swap again. All this Miss Pettus demanded breathlessly in unabated excitement.
"I give you, and anybody else, my solemn word, as a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, that that was the tenth time that the identical yellow-legged pullet and the identical bit have been toted up this hill and toted down again. Kitty Mills offers to swap back every time she thinks of it, just to be aggravating. No, you needn't talk to me, Sidney. Kitty Mills means to show me that she believes it's the pullet and the bit that I care about, not the principle of the thing."
Plainly it was now become a case for diplomacy, not for further argument. Sidney, therefore, said simply, like a wise woman, that she would go at once and try to make Kitty Mills see how foolish she had been.
"I told Miss Pettus," Sidney said later to Kitty Mills, when giving her an account of this encounter with Miss Pettus, "that there was no more satisfaction in quarrelling with you than in fighting a feather bed. But I couldn't do much with her. Nobody can budge 'er, once her dander is up. I left her there, planted right in the middle of the big road, with her skirt dragging behind, and held high before, showing her pigeon-toes turned in worse than ever, and her bonnet hung wild over her left ear, as it always is when she's in one of her tantrums. And now I've come after you, and I want you to stop laughing,—right off the reel, too,—and listen to what I've got to say. I'll vow I don't know what to make of you myself, Kitty Mills! What's this I hear about all the Millses a-swarming down from Green River, and about you're inviting them to dinner? It certainly does seem as if the more they pile on you the better you like it."
Mrs. Mills, trying to stop laughing, and wiping her eyes, protested (laughing harder than ever) that Sidney was talking nonsense. She declared that nobody was piling anything on her. She said that she was always delighted to have Sam's sisters come, because Sam liked to have them, and Father Mills liked it, too.
"Well, they oughtn't to like it; they ought to be ashamed to like it. It's nothing less than scandalous to allow it, when you've got to cook the dinner after nursing all night, and the weather's getting real warm," said Sidney, sharply, jerking out a knitting-needle, and slapping the ball of yarn back under her arm.
"But you know, Sidney, neither Sam nor Father Mills have much enjoyment. Sam's had a mighty hard time this winter, with the misery in his back, coming on whenever he tried to do anything; and all his bad luck too."
"What bad luck?" demanded Sidney, hard-heartedly.
"Why, didn't you know about his corn? Every ear of his share of the crop, that his tenant raised on that field of mine, rotted right in the pen, when nobody else lost any. I declare I can't yet see how it was."
"Did Sam cover his pen as everybody else did?" asked Sidney, relentlessly.
Kitty Mills stared, growing grave for an instant or two, being much puzzled. She wondered what in the world the question could possibly have to do with her husband's loss of his corn.
"No. He didn't cover the corn," she replied, much at a loss still. "He thought the winter was going to be drier than it turned out to be. And he doesn't often make mistakes in prophesying about the weather. He's a mighty close, good observer of all the signs. I've known him to sit still a whole day, without getting out of his chair, watching to see whether the ground-hog saw its shadow."
"Yes, I lay that's all so. I reckon he would sit still long enough to find out almost anything," responded Sidney, dryly. "There's not much use in talking to you, Kitty Mills; you're just as unmanageable in your way as Miss Pettus is in hers. But I know how to get round her if you'll help me do it. You know as well as I do how good-hearted she is, in spite of that peppery temper of hers."
Kitty Mills nodded silently, laughing again so that she could not speak.
"Well, I want you to let me ask her to come down here and take care of the old man, while you are getting dinner for that gang of Millses—when they swarm down from Green River. I would offer to do it myself, but I think I can help you more by talking to the Millses while you are busy about the cooking."
"Of course you can," assented Kitty Mills, eagerly. "And you mustn't let me forget to fix up a basket full of the nicest things for Uncle Watty and the children."
"Never mind about that now. Only I'll tell you that I'm not going to pack off the cooked victuals. You've got all the work you can do. But you may give me something raw. We won't bother now about the basket. The main thing is to settle this everlasting old dorminica! I never was so tired of anything in all my born days, as I am of that contrary old hen, and there's only one way to settle her. If you'll let me ask Miss Pettus to come, she will do it in a moment—just to make you ashamed of yourself," Sidney said, trying not to smile, knowing that to do so would be to start Kitty Mills laughing again.
The quarrel having been thus adjusted, Sidney went to tell Miss Judy about it, knowing how pleased she would be to hear it, even though the news seemed to describe a mere truce rather than to be a declaration of peace. The little lady was just crossing the big road, returning from a visit to Tom Watson and from a futile effort to cheer Anne. She stopped at her own gate, feeling depressed by what she had just seen and looking rather sad, and waited for Sidney to come up, welcoming her as one welcomes a strong, fresh breeze on a heavy day. They sat down in the passage, where Miss Sophia was already seated, and the two little sisters listened to all that Sidney had to tell of the quarrel, without the vaguest notion that they were hearing a truly humorous account of an utterly absurd affair. Instead, they began listening with the gravest concern, which turned gradually to the happiest relief.
Miss Judy's thoughts, however, were too full of Doris and the dancing-lesson and the events of the previous day to talk long about anything else. She accordingly told Sidney the whole story in minutest detail, as soon as she could get in a word, wondering somewhat that Sidney had not already heard it from Doris, until the circumstances were explained. With the mention of the young man the same thought stirred, silently and secretly, in both the women's breasts, naturally enough, since they were both true women. It had, indeed, stirred in Miss Judy's innocent heart while she lay dreaming with her blue eyes open in the darkness of the preceding night. But neither Miss Judy nor Sidney spoke of what they were feeling rather than thinking. Women rarely voice these subtle stirrings of the purely feminine instinct, if indeed they have any words for what they thus feel. All that Sidney said was to remark, in a matter-of-fact tone, that she must be going, as the sun was getting high, and she had several pressing engagements to keep before she would be free to fulfil her promise to help Kitty Mills entertain that gang of Millses, swarming down from Green River.
"If I can get away in time—for I'm engaged to take supper with Mrs. Alexander, as the doctor has gone 'way out on one of his long trips to the country—I'll drop in at old lady Gordon's and see what the old Hessian is about."
Miss Judy shook her little curly head at Sidney's calling any one such a hard name. She could not let such a serious matter pass without remonstrance. Yet at the same time she smiled and looked rather mysterious. She had secretly hit upon a nice little plan while talking about Doris and the young gentleman, and she could hardly wait till Sidney was out of hearing before disclosing it to Miss Sophia.
"Of course I couldn't mention it to Sidney until I knew your opinion, sister Sophia. I am sure, though, that I am only expressing your ideas—less well than you would express them yourself—when I say that it is our plain duty to do something at once, to show our high regard for Doris, something to place her in a proper social light at a single stroke. It is all important that a girl should be properly launched;" Miss Judy went on as though she had given long and deep consideration to the subject, and as if she and Miss Sophia were the all-powerful social dictators of a large and complicated circle of the highest fashion. "Just think what a difference it might have made for us, had our dear mother lived and Becky's too, poor child."
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with the greatest promptness and decision.
"I thought I could not be mistaken as to your views and wishes," said Miss Judy, truly gratified. "And you don't think, do you, that it is at all necessary for us to do anything very elaborate or—expensive?" she continued, as if it were solely a consideration of the finest taste. "To my notion a tea would be most genteel, most highly refined; but you are, of course, the one to decide. Your judgment is always more practical than mine. I should not dare rely upon my own in so important a matter. But as I look at it, a tea would serve as well or better than anything else we could do to show everybody—including old lady Gordon and her grandson, who may not, being a stranger, and seeing Sidney and Uncle Watty, understand how Doris has been brought up—the high estimation in which we hold the dear child."
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with positively inflexible firmness and almost abrupt promptness, when she now began to understand that eating was in question.
"It is really a very simple matter to arrange a tea," Miss Judy went on eagerly, her sweet face growing rosy. "There's mother's sea-shell china, so thin, so pink, and so refined. And there's her best tea-cloth that she planted the flax for, and bleached and spun and wove and hemstitched—all with her own dear hands. I am sure that the darn in the middle of it won't show at all, if we set the cut-glass bowl over it. And we can fill the bowl so full of maiden's blush roses that the nick out of the side will never be seen. Mother's sea-shell china and the blushes are about the same color. Why, I can actually see the table now—as if it were a picture—all a delicate, lovely pink!" cried little Miss Judy, blushing with eagerness, and all a delicate, lovely pink herself. "And the food must be as dainty as the table. Something very light and appetizing. Isn't that your idea, sister Sophia?"
Miss Sophia assented as usual, but not quite so promptly, nor quite so cordially, and anybody but Miss Judy must have seen how her face fell. She had known so many things that were light and appetizing, and so few that were really satisfying—poor Miss Sophia!
"Delicate slices of the thinnest, pinkest cold tongue will be the only meat necessary. Anything more would be less genteel, and I am almost certain that Mr. Pettus would exchange the half of a beef's tongue for the other head of early york. Don't you remember, sister Sophia, how much he liked the other two—the ones he took in exchange for the sugar?" Miss Judy chirruped on, with growing enthusiasm. "And Merica could make some of her light rolls, and shape a little pat of butter like a water-lily, and put it in the smallest tin bucket with the tight top and let it down in the well by a string, till it got to be real cool and firm. For dessert we've the tiny jar of pear preserves which we've been saving so long. Nothing could be more delicate than they are, clear as amber, with the little rose-geranium leaf at the bottom of the jar, giving both flavor and perfume, till you can't tell whether it looks prettiest, tastes nicest, or smells sweetest."
Miss Judy's flax-flower eyes, bright with delightful excitement, were fixed on Miss Sophia's face, without seeing, as grosser eyes would have seen, that Miss Sophia's mouth actually watered. There was a momentary silence; and then an uneasy thought suddenly clouded Miss Judy's beaming, blushing countenance.
"I had forgotten about that new-fashioned dish. Of course we must have some of those delicately fried potatoes, some like we had at old lady Gordon's supper; they are cut very, very thin and browned till they are crisp and beautiful—dry and rustling, as the golden leaves of the fall. Yes, I am afraid the tea will not be really complete, will not be quite up to the latest fashion, unless we have a little dish of those. And we haven't any potatoes, except the handful of peach-blows that we have saved for planting." She sighed in perplexity, looking at her sister.
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, more promptly and more firmly, if possible, than she had yet spoken.
Miss Judy sat for a moment in dejected silence, turning the matter over in her mind. Miss Sophia rocked heavily, the sleepy creak of her low chair mingling pleasantly with the contented murmur of the bees in the honeysuckle.
"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Judy, her face illuminated by a bright inspiration. "How dull of me not to think of it before.NowI see how we can eat the peach-blows and plant them too! We have only to pare them very thin, being very, very careful to leave all the eyes in the peel. Then we can plant the peel and fry the inside."
"But they won't grow," protested poor Miss Sophia, almost groaning and quite desperate, foreseeing the long winter fast which must follow this short summer feast.
"Oh, but they'll have to, if we plant them in the dark of the moon," said Miss Judy, with unabated enthusiasm.
Miss Sophia, now on the verge of tears, turned her broad face away, so that Miss Judy should not see how overcome she was, and that eager little lady sprang up, without suspecting, and ran to climb on a chair in order to look in the tea-caddy. This always stood on the mantelpiece in their room. It was drier there, Miss Judy said; it was also safer from Merica's depredations, but Miss Judy said nothing about that. There was a momentary dismayed silence as a single quick glance noted the stage of its contents. She set the caddy in its place, and descended slowly from the chair, thinking deeply.
"Sister Sophia, do you happen to know whether Mr. Pettus has been getting any boxes of tea lately?" she asked casually, almost indifferently, as though it were an entirely irrelevant matter of but small consequence.
Miss Sophia, who kept better advised as to the edible side of the general store than she did regarding most things, nodded with reviving spirit.
"Then I really must go down there at once. It's a shame for me to have neglected a plain duty so long. You and I both know, sister Sophia, how much it means to Mr. Pettus to be able to tell his customers what we think of his teas. He has certainly told us often enough that our opinion has a considerable commercial value. For this reason—and on account of his being so obliging about exchanging things—it isn't right for us to be unwilling to taste any other variety than the one we like. Mr. Pettus unfortunately is aware that we care personally for no kind except the English breakfast. That no doubt makes him backward in asking us to sample the other varieties. And that is not right, nor at all neighborly, you see, sister Sophia," so Miss Judy argued, believing every word she said, with all her honest, kind little heart.
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, as readily and unreservedly as Miss Judy could have wished.
Forthwith Miss Judy began to get ready for going to the store. She got out the lace shawl, which had been her mother's, and which was darned and redarned till little of the original web was left. She took it out of its silver paper and folded it again with dainty care, so that the middle point would just touch the heels of her heel-less prunella gaiters. Any crookedness in the location of that middle point would have shocked Miss Judy like some moral obliquity. The strings of her dove-colored bonnet of drawn silk must also be tied "just so" in a prim little bow precisely under her pretty chin. Miss Sophia was always anxiously consulted as to the size and the angle and the precision of that little bow, as if she had been some sharp critic, who was most difficult to please. And then, when Miss Judy had drawn on her picnic gloves of black lace, she unrolled the elaborate wrapping from her sunshade, which was hardly bigger than a doll's parasol, and turned it up flat against its short handle. Finally, having pinned a fresh handkerchief in a snowy triangle to the left side of her small waist so that her left hand might be free to hold up her skirt, she took the dainty pinch of black bombazine between her forefinger and thumb, and, with the sunshade in the other little hand, sailed off down the big road, smiling back at Miss Sophia.
She was always a brisk walker, and she had nearly reached the front of the store before Mr. Pettus knew that she was coming. But Uncle Watty, fortunately, saw her approach from his post of lookout over the whole village, as he sat on the goods-box in the shade, whittling happily, the pile of red cedar shavings rising high and dry through the windless, rainless summer days. Without stirring from his comfortable place, Uncle Watty was thus enabled, by merely putting his head in the door, to give Mr. Pettus instant warning of Miss Judy's nearness. Even then there hardly would have been time for Mr. Pettus to make the usual preparation for the little lady's visit, had she not stopped to shake hands with Uncle Watty and to inquire about the misery in his broken leg. She lingered still a moment longer to ask, with all the deference due a weather prophet of Uncle Watty's reputation, when he thought there would be rain, this being indeed a matter of importance, with the consideration of the planting of the peach-blow peel lying heavy in the back of her mind.
Mr. Pettus, meanwhile, made good use of the limited opportunity. Hastily taking up a large clean sheet of brown paper, he quickly divided it into six squares with the speed and skill of long practice. These squares he then hastily laid at regular spaces along the counter. Reaching round for his scoop, he ladled out a generous quantity of tea, all of a kind. He had but one chest of tea, yet when the contents of the scoop was distributed in six separate heaps, it looked quite as different as he meant it to look, and as Miss Judy believed it to be.
She came in, radiant with smiles, fanning herself almost coquettishly with her sunshade, and congratulating Mr. Pettus on the growth of his business, as her beaming gaze fell upon the array of teas. To think that he should find demand for half a dozen varieties! And, by the way, that was the very thing which she had come expressly to see him about. Then followed the usual long and polite conversation. Mr. Pettus again apologized for asking Miss Judy to sample so many kinds of tea, knowing that she really liked but one kind. Miss Judy, never to be outdone in politeness, protested on her side that it was not the slightest trouble to herself or Miss Sophia, whose judgment was more reliable than her own, to test the six varieties, and, indeed, as many more as might be necessary. She really would feel hurt, so she said, if Mr. Pettus ever again thought of hesitating to send them every variety in his stock. She admitted that she should never have been so thoughtless as to let him find out that her sister and herself had a preference for one kind above another. But she begged him to believe that it was mere thoughtlessness, not any wish to be disobliging. The upshot of it all was, that the six heaps of tea were made into a parcel too large for Miss Judy to carry, and Uncle Watty, who had been an interested listener from his seat on the goods-box, kindly offered to bring it with him and leave it at Miss Judy's door on his way home that evening.
Miss Judy thought Uncle Watty's offer most kind, so very kind, indeed, that she straightway began to be troubled about inviting him to the tea-party. She, herself, did not mind his leg at all; it only made her more sorry for him, and she knew that the same was true of Miss Sophia. It was not his fault, poor soul, that his leg had been set east and west, instead of north and south, as Sidney said. Maybe young Mr. Gordon would not mind either; he certainly seemed to be kind-hearted. But there was his grandmother, who was such a game-maker. Old lady Gordon did not mean any harm, perhaps; Miss Judy never believed that any one meant any harm. Still, Doris might be mortified if she thought Uncle Watty was being criticised—which would be the cruelest thing that Miss Judy could imagine, and the furthest from the secret object of the entertainment. She was frightened, and ready for the moment to give up the tea-party. Then, brightening, she began to hope that something would occur to spare Uncle Watty's feelings—and yet keep him away from the tea-party. Thus she thought as she went home, and thus she continued thinking aloud after she fancied that she was consulting Miss Sophia.
"For of course we can't give the tea without inviting old lady Gordon. Her social position makes it essential that she shall be invited if Doris is to be properly launched," Miss Judy said just as though she were some artful, calculating schemer, dealing with some keen and suspicious stranger who was likely to raise objections. "And I am sure that I merely express your views, when I say that we could not be so discourteous as to invite old lady Gordon without also inviting her grandson, when he is a guest at her house."
And Miss Sophia answered all this artfulness firmly, even sternly, as if she were an able abetter, standing ready to carry out the dark, deeply laid plot.
These pleasant plans were entirely unsuspected by Sidney. She felt, however, the need of something of the kind, and—with characteristic energy—entered forthwith into the making and the carrying out of some of her own, of a different kind, though leading in the same direction.
The call upon old lady Gordon, a first step, turned out a good deal of a disappointment. Lynn Gordon was, to be sure, in attendance upon his grandmother when Sidney appeared, and she thus secured a glimpse of him, but nothing more satisfactory, nothing nearly approaching acquaintance. As ill luck would have it, old lady Gordon, who rarely left home, chanced to be just starting to "make a broad," as the Oldfield people described visiting beyond the village. The ancient family carriage, with its fat pair of old grays, already waited at the front gate in the shade of the cypress tree. On the back of the coach was a trunk-rack, put there, doubtless, at the building of the vehicle in the days when the country gentry travelled far in their own coaches, and had need of their wardrobes on the road. Under the reign of the present mistress, who had not for years gone farther than a single day's journey from home, the trunk-rack had been turned to other than its original uses, and on that particular morning it bore a large hamper of food. This was so full and heavy that it had been all that Enoch and Eunice could do to carry it between them; and, now when it was securely strapped in its place and Enoch was seated upon the box of the coach, Eunice stood leaning over the fence, with her arms rolled in her apron, giving Enoch final directions for the serving of the luncheon, so that there might be no trouble with the mistress.
Old lady Gordon was coming down the front walk of mossy, greening bricks, leading from the door to the gate; and she looked a handsome, stately figure in her flowing white dress, notwithstanding her age and her weight. But Sidney's gaze and Sidney's interest were not for old lady Gordon; they were for the tall young man on whose arm she leaned, as if she liked to lean on it, not as if she needed its support. It was the first time that Sidney had seen him nearer than across the meeting-house. When she now observed how like his grandmother he was, she suddenly stopped quite still and, laying her knitting on the gate-post, took off her bonnet and let her hair down and twisted it up again, very, very tight indeed.
"Good morning, Sidney. You know my grandson," old lady Gordon said carelessly, going straight on to the carriage.
She liked Sidney as she liked everybody who never bored her, but it did not occur to her to allow Sidney's—or anybody's—coming to interfere with her "making a broad" or doing anything that she wished to do. Accordingly she now ascended the folding steps of the coach, which were already unfolded for her convenience, and with her grandson's assistance deliberately settled herself in perfect comfort by unhasting degrees. Her bag, which a little negro boy presently came running to bring, was then hung inside the carriage close to her hand.
"Now!" said old lady Gordon. "Jump in, Sidney, and I'll take you home. It will not be at all out of my way, and you can tell me the news as we go along."
Sidney, surprised, stood hesitating. She had been looking on, taking notes for future conversational uses. It was not every day that she could gather such good materials; and she had not lost a detail of this starting of old lady Gordon to "make a broad." And, while busily laying these matters away in the rich storehouse of her memory, Sidney had, at the same time, been calculating with certainty upon the fine opportunity for making the young man's acquaintance which old lady Gordon's going would give her. It is the first instinct of a wise mother to learn all that she can,—advantageous or otherwise—of any man who may look toward her young daughter. It is the last instinct of the wise mother to learn anything to the disadvantage of any man at whom her daughter may look. Sidney, wise enough in her blunt, straightforward way, was far from being a designing woman; she was merely trying, in her blundering manner, to do what she believed to be her duty by Doris. Naturally, then, she hesitated, unwilling to lose this good chance of making Lynn Gordon's acquaintance, the best that she was ever likely to have.
Old lady Gordon glanced at her impatiently, as she would have done at any hindrance. She had not the faintest inkling of what was passing through Sidney's mind. She had never thought it as well worth while to try to understand Sidney, as Sidney had always found it useful and easy to understand her. Old lady Gordon simply wished to take Sidney along in order that she might hear the news, as she would have taken the morning paper,—had Oldfield had one,—to toss it aside after turning it inside out. She saw plainly enough that for some reason Sidney was unwilling to come with her, but she did not care about people's unwillingness if they did what she wished. Old lady Gordon never made any mystery of her selfishness. She was too scornful of the opinion of others to care what anybody else felt or thought, or said or did, so long as she got what she wanted. All this was well known to Sidney; it was also perfectly plain to her that, if she did not take the seat in the carriage, old lady Gordon would make Lynn take it and go at least part of the way. Like the philosopher that she was, Sidney accordingly took the seat. One of the wide folding steps was then shut up, and on the remaining step the little negro perched himself,—just as Lady Castlewood's page used to perch on hers. No reason for his going was apparent then, or ever. But a little negro boy always had ridden on the step of old lady Gordon's coach, and the fact that a thing always had been done, has always been a good and sufficient reason for many singular things in this Pennyroyal Region—as already remarked ere this. And thus, everything now being settled to old lady Gordon's entire satisfaction, the ancient coach rumbled heavily away through the dust.
However, the heavy wheels had hardly made a dozen revolutions before they were at the Watson homestead, which was the place nearest to old lady Gordon's. There Sidney called to Enoch Cotton to put her down; and get down she would and did, in spite of old lady Gordon's impatient protest that there had been no time for the telling of news; regardless even of her hasty, half-contemptuous offer to send Uncle Watty and the children a bag of flour. Sidney had her own ideas of dignity and self-respect; moreover, she held to them more firmly than prouder people, having finer ones, often hold to theirs. Yet she was always good-natured, no matter how firm, and she now merely laughed, as old lady Gordon drove away as angry as she ever thought it worth while to be over anything save some interference with the regularity and the perfection of her meals.
Sidney took off her sunbonnet and hung it on the fence, and let her hair loose and twisted it up again, while having her laugh out before going in the house. There was not a grain of malice in her frank shrewdness. Adversity's sweet milk had been her daily drink, ever since she could remember. Old lady Gordon herself would have been amused at the good-humored account of her own starting to "make a broad," could she have heard Sidney telling Tom and Anne Watson about it. For that handsome old pagan had a wholesome sense of humor. But Tom Watson apparently did not hear; his miserable, restless eyes never turned toward Sidney, never for a moment ceased their fruitless quest of the empty big road. Only a pale shadow of a smile flitted over Anne's white, tense face. And Sidney, seeing that her efforts were wholly wasted, soon arose to go on her way, and Anne went with her to the gate—as far as she ever went from her hopeless post, except for the breaking of bread on the Sundays when there was preaching at her own church; and for an hour now and then, on prayer-meeting nights, when she felt that her own supplications alone were not strong enough. She held Sidney's large, firm, rough, capable hand longer than usual, as if she instinctively sought strength and courage in clinging to it. Her clear eyes, too, were full of a silent, unconscious appeal, and Sidney said, in answer to the look, that she would come again the next day and every day, if her coming could help in the least. Anne simply bowed her head; she did not attempt to speak, and in truth there was nothing to be said. She made no mention of any inducement to Sidney to come; she did not think of it, nor indeed did Sidney. Yet, when Anne did think of it, later in the day, she was glad to send a large basket, and Sidney was more than glad to have it sent.
That night Sidney dreamt of Tom,—as a good many people did after seeing him,—and the thought of him so weighed upon her on awakening at dawn, that she hurried through with her housework in order that she might go to Anne. But she had only the earliest morning hours for domestic duties, the rest of her time being always fully occupied with her professional rounds; and she found much to do every morning before starting out. On this particular morning there were unusual affairs of rather a pressing nature. Uncle Watty had discovered a bumblebee's nest under the mossy roof close to his bed. It was never the way of Uncle Watty to submit to any discomfort which he could avoid by complaining, and he was not unnaturally anxious to have this removed without unnecessary delay. Sidney, ready and resourceful, quieted his fears. She knew—so she declared—just how to get the bumblebee's nest down without the least trouble or hurting any one. As soon, therefore, as the kitchen was in order, she bustled into the room where Doris sat sewing behind the white curtain. Sidney put the broom on end in its accustomed place, and began rolling down her sleeves, getting ready to move upon the citadel of the bumblebees. When a thing—large or small—must be done, Sidney was not one to let the grass grow under her feet. She had reached the door of the passage, meaning to climb to the loft and to awaken Uncle Watty as a mere matter of precaution before beginning operations, when Doris's voice caused her to pause.
"I haven't had a chance, mother, to tell you that Mr. Gordon was here yesterday in the cool of the evening, before you came home. He didn't come in. He only went into the garden," Doris said, simply.
Sidney stopped and stood still, silently gazing at her daughter.
"He came to see the pretty-by-nights. He said he had never seen them open with the falling of the dew," the girl went on, like a child.
"Anybody's welcome to look at the pretty-by-nights," responded Sidney, with cautious non-committal indifference.
"I told him I knew you wouldn't care," said Doris, more confidently. "And then he asked if he might come early this morning to look at the morning-glories. He thought they must be lovely—such big ones, red, white, and blue—all over that side of the house."
"They're well enough in their place," said Sidney, off-hand. And then, carelessly, after an instant's pause, "What did you say?"
"He said he was coming—before I could say anything." Doris thus placed the responsibility where it belonged, made timid again by her mother's manner, which she did not understand. "He may be here now, at any moment."
"Well, it won't hurt the morning-glories a mite to be looked at," said Sidney.
She stood still a moment longer, turning this unexpected announcement in her mind. Then, without another word, she went back to the kitchen and took up the plate containing Uncle Watty's breakfast, which she had left on the stove to keep warm. He could eat it cold for once, she resolved, as she passed through the room. Doris, humming over her sewing, and looking now and then down the big road, did not see what her mother was doing. Strong, active, Sidney swiftly gained the loft, making as little noise as possible. Uncle Watty's bedchamber was a corner of the loft cut off from the rest by a rough partition, and she approached the door of it with noiseless caution. Uncle Watty never thought of locking or even of shutting it, but Sidney, after setting the breakfast on the floor, inside the door, now closed it softly and turned the key. There was an old chest sitting near by, and this she managed to drag across the door without much noise. Then she listened for a space, with her ear against the door, to make sure that Uncle Watty was still fast asleep, and to consider the security of the barricade. Satisfied now that all was secure, that he could not get out, however hard he might try, she went downstairs, feeling that she had done her utmost for Uncle Watty as well as for Doris. She was faithful in her service to her husband's brother; she had accepted him as a sacred legacy when her burden was already heavy enough. She had never allowed the fact that he would not do anything for his own support to affect her regard for him, nor to lessen her efforts to provide for him; she had never minded his whittling, nor his mis-set leg, except to be sorry for him. And yet, notwithstanding all this, she, with her shrewd common sense, saw no good that it could do him, or Doris, or anybody, for him to come bumping and stumbling down the ladder just at the time when the young gentleman from Boston was likely to be calling upon Doris. Recalling the likeness to his game-making grandmother, which had struck her as so marked on the previous day—which had indeed impressed her as being of "the very same cut of the jib," as Sidney phrased it to herself—she made up her mind, then and there, that he should see no reason to laugh at Doris or Doris's kin, if she could help his seeing Uncle Watty.
Coming now into the room where Doris still sat quietly sewing, in the dull brown dress, Sidney was tempted to tell her to put on the blue gingham which Mrs. Alexander had given her; but on second thought did not. Secretly she doubted whether any other color would reveal the soft, pure whiteness of Doris's skin so perfectly as the faded brown. She accordingly left the girl to her own devices, and contented herself with seeing, with even more than the usual care, that the rising sun of red and yellow calico was precisely in the middle of the bed, that the trundle-bed was quite out of sight under the big bed; that the snowy scarf over the chest of drawers fell perfectly straight at the fringed ends; and that the best side of the rag rug, the sole covering of the rough, well-scoured floor, was turned up. Finally, she hurried into the garden and gathered a great, tall bunch of blue larkspur, and put it in her best white pitcher, and set it on the chest of drawers. She gazed at it with her head critically on one side, after setting it down; and, indeed, the vivid coloring of the homely flowers against the whitewashed logs was a pleasing sight, which might have gratified a more exacting taste than hers.
An uneasy remembrance of Kate and Billy suddenly flashing into her quiet mind, disturbed it, and sent her seeking them in haste. It was unlucky that the day chanced to be Saturday, otherwise they might at once have been despatched to school, and so kept out of the way without Doris's knowing anything about it. Sidney was not clear as to why she did not wish Doris to know that she meant to keep them out of the way. Her daughter's sensibilities, refined by nature, and super-refined by Miss Judy's training, were a long way beyond Sidney's primitive comprehension. She had, however, a general idea that all very young girls were what she called skittish, and most of them, consequently, greatly lacking in sound common sense. So that it seemed to her, on the whole, best to do her own duty as she saw it, saying nothing one way or another, and leaving Doris alone. Sidney had no doubt concerning her own duty. In the circle in which she had been reared, the young man who failed to find a clear and open field the first time he came to see a girl was sure not to come again. He understood as a matter of course, and as he was intended to understand—when he found any of the family near by—that he was not expected or desired to come again. It was consequently a perfectly plain and simple case from Sidney's plain and simple point of view. She did not know what Doris thought of the young man; she did not care what the young man thought of Doris. She had no distinct ultimate object. No mother was ever farther from any arbitrary purpose, or even the remotest wish, to take the shaping of her daughter's future in her own hands. Sidney, honest, strenuous soul, meant simply and solely to give Doris a chance, without hindrance, to shape it for herself.
Thus, as single-minded as it is ever permitted any woman to be, Sidney took the broom from its resting-place behind the door, and fared forth to mount guard over Billy and Kate. The children were peacefully at play in the back yard under the cherry tree. They had been forbidden to touch the cherries, which were to be exchanged for shoes at the store, and they only glanced wistfully up at the reddening branches now and then, as they went on with their harmless game of mumble-peg. Sidney turned an empty tub upside down and seated herself upon it, between the children and the house, with the broom across her knees. It was a sight which they had never seen before, this amazing spectacle of their mother thus sitting silent and idle on a week-day. But children do not marvel over the unusual as grown people do, and after a glance or two of surprise, these two played on peacefully until they heard the click of the gate latch. Then they made a dash for the front yard to see who was coming, as they were accustomed to do, and as Sidney was fully prepared for their doing now. Keenly alert, she was instantly on her feet, and, rushing between them and the gate, she waved them back with the broom, flourishing it and using it as a baton of command. The children halted, staring open-mouthed, too much astounded at first to make a sound. And then, frightened by their mother's strange behavior, they huddled together against the cherry tree and broke into loud, terrified wails. Sidney, disconcerted and quickly changing her tactics, did what she could to silence them by gentle means. She tried to soothe them in whispers, and failing, finally offered to bribe them to be quiet. If they were perfectly quiet till the company went away, she would give them, so she whispered, one of Miss Pettus's cherry pies.
"The one with the—cross-barred—top," sobbed Billy, intentionally raising his piercing voice several keys as he made this stipulation.
Sidney nodded. The boy's shrewdness in thus taking advantage of an unusual opportunity pleased her. Billy would never let chances pass him by as they had passed his poor father. Kate's behavior was always a reflection of Billy's, and there now came a lull. But Sidney did not relax her vigilance in the least, and still sat immovable on the tub with the broom resting on her shoulder like a sentinel's bayonet. The children, more than ever wondering, though silently, did not return to their game, but clung to the shelter of the cherry tree, excitedly peering round it in growing wonder at their mother's unaccountable conduct. The little group now made a singular spectacle, one so very singular indeed, that no neighbor could think of passing without inquiry. Fortunately, however, no one went along the big road for several minutes. Meantime Sidney, sitting bolt upright and rigid on the tub, with her back to the house, and with her eye on the children, and the broom over her shoulder, ready for action, followed with her keen ears everything going on in the room. She heard the deep tones of the young man's dominant voice, and the soft murmur of Doris's shy replies. She knew by the sounds when the two young people went out of the house to look at the morning-glories, although the vines were on the other side of the house and quite out of her sight. Thence she traced them with intent listening, though she could not hear what they said, to the trellis over the garden gate, now richly hung with the mauve beauty and sweetness of the virgin's-bower. And then into the garden among the sunflowers and hollyhocks and columbine and larkspur and heartsease and the riot of June roses, common enough, yet gay and sweet as the rarest. Sidney could tell just where they paused as they wandered about the little garden; now they were looking at the sweet-williams, now at the spice-pinks, and now they were bending over the bunch of bleeding-heart, with its delicate waxen sprays of pink and white hearts—strung in rows like a coquette's cruel trophies. To Sidney, thus keenly, alertly keeping track, everything seemed going well; Billy and Kate too now moved quietly as though to return to their game of mumble-peg, so that, almost reassured, she was about to lower the broom, when she was disturbed by hearing her name called.