"Thus it was that 'Lizabeth took up the business of caring for Uncle Ambrose Thompson""Thus it was that 'Lizabeth took up the business of caring for Uncle Ambrose Thompson"
From the first the old man could see that thespinster was enjoying herself thoroughly; true, his cottage was small, but then it was exactly like her own save that he had let his grow truly magnificent in its dirt and disorder, being not of the type of male with perverted feminine instincts, while Elizabeth never had had but one womanly passion gratified and that was her love of putting a house to rights.
So for some little time Uncle Ambrose rather found pleasure in staying in bed with the hateful burden of solitariness removed from him; he loved listening to the familiar homely sounds of sweeping and the moving about of furniture; it brought back—ah well, perhaps at seventy-six it is something to have many things to remember.
And then, lying alone, he used to talk very often to his picture of Emily, which still hung on its nail by the old pine bureau, for this habit, begun after her death and only practised in secret during his marriage to Peachy, had grown on him in these last seven years of failing body and mind.
"She's a real good woman, Em'ly," he said several times, "and you'll be glad to know she's makin' me more comfortable than I been in sometime. I was gittin' pretty tired. Seems like I might as well let this old spinster stay on here and keep house fer me; she plumb likes it and I reckon it's just one little thing more I kin do fer the sex. I ain't much good at lonin' it, and 'tain't like I had old Miner now fer the in betweens." And then he would laugh silently until the wrinkles in his old face seemed little channels for merriment: "I been married so frequent and got broke in to so many different sets of housekeepin' ways, seems like I ain't troubled to form no ways of my own."
And in between dozing and talking to himself and the neighbours, who ran in to inquire for his health, Uncle Ambrose used to spend some time in reading his Bible. One afternoon when Elizabeth had been sitting by his bedside sewing and thinking him asleep, he suddenly rose up in bed as though completely ignoring the pain in his back and drawing his old Bible across the coverlid opened it again at the place of the pressed flowers.
"'Lizabeth," he asked after a moment of uncommon gravity in which his hand frequently glided over his bald crown, "are you a goodBible woman? I mean are you a good interpreter of the Scriptures? Seems like I didn't used to look to others fer the meanin' in things, but I'm gittin' a leetle mite older and folks is pretty apt to confuse wishes with facts——"
But Elizabeth's austere face, with its rigid regard for set duties, was reddening. "I read my chapter every night and I try to live accordin'," she answered.
Then into Uncle Ambrose's old voice there crept such an eagerness it might have held the warm desire of youth: "Mebbe you kin tell me then—the meanin' of this here Bible text. I ain't never regarded it for seventy years, but I been worryin' over it consider'ble of late, and now I'd like to get a woman's views on it." And with his trembling forefinger following the lines he had read to himself on the evening before Elizabeth's installation he said: "It is what Jesus remarked to theSadducees: 'For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.'" And here Uncle Ambrose's eyes travelled wistfully toward the faded daguerreotype on his side wall.
Naturally his listener was puzzled, but afterward laughed a laugh with a touch of new humour in it. "Lord! Uncle Ambrose, Iamsorry," she apologized, "but I ain't had cause to worry over that text same as you have; bein's as I'm turned fifty now and ain't had so much asonehusband on this earth, I'm kind of expectin' to carry my same single blessedness along with me on the t'other side."
Uncle Ambrose's eyes twinkled appreciatively, but a moment later he looked uncomfortable again. "Well, I reckon that's reasonable of you, 'Lizabeth," he agreed. "Folks can't understand things fer other folks; there's plenty can't comprehend me marryin' so often and now worryin' over arrangements for the future. But it's like this, child: a man may git a lot ofhelpmates in this world, but he don't find hisrealmate but once. And I want to know which one of my three wives is goin' to claim me in heaven, 'cause it looks like that combination's got to be eternal. To tell you the truth, I was so worried lately I sent fer the latest Baptist preacher and put this question up to him, and all he did was to read this selfsame verse out ofSt. Matthew as though I hadn't read and studied over it more'n a hundred times. The new brother seemed to think we'd have to travel alone up in heaven 'thout playin' favrits, but I can't come to agree with him. To tell you the truth, 'Lizabeth"—and here Uncle Ambrose's words sunk to a hoarse whisper—"ef the facts be known I want my Em'ly. I done my best without her, but it wasn'twholelivin' 'cept when I had her, and I ain't meanin' nothin' in disfavour of no one else. Of course ef it's true that the Lord don't believe in marriages in the next world, with me such a marrier in this, then that text 'll be a whole lot of assistance to me in gittin' things fixed. For when my three wives come a-floatin' up to me as the angels are, I'll be more'n pleased to see 'emall, but I got to speak up pretty positive: 'I want my Em'ly, and there ain't no marriages nor givin' in marriage in heaven.' For you see I marries little Sarah first and that might give her the first claim, and Peachy last, so it's likely she might think a last tie would bind. Seems like it wouldn't look regular to have the three of 'em to once." And at this the speaker smiled with a kind of appreciativevision of things to come, while at the same time wiping his brow, which was gleaming with perspiration.
A day or so after this, having suddenly found his confinement unendurable, Uncle Ambrose demanded to be taken outdoors, and so wrapping him carefully in blankets Elizabeth set him out on the back stoop to look over his little snow-covered yard, leaving the door open that she might hear if he called to her.
And the woman was so happy now that she sang as she went about her work, for in moving him out the old man had asked her to stay and keep house for him so long as he should live.
Uncle Ambrose did not observe Susan Jr.'s birdlike black eyes peer slantingly at him through her partially closed blind, for two lady sparrows who had chosen to perch on the same twig were keeping up such a violent discussion of their territorial rights that they held his amused attention, so that Susan was able quietly to slip out through her front door and into his by a surreptitious move that outflanked her enemy. But pretty soon the old man caught the notes of her ever meddlesome voice and then a littlelater the sound of monotonous weeping. He had heard Elizabeth Horton crying one evening for two mortal hours and so was not apt to mistake her particular sniff. At first he squirmed restlessly in his chair, attempting to rise, but both the blankets and his reputation as an invalid enveloped him so that finally he called sharply: "Susan Jr., Susan, don't pretend you don't hear me. Come right out here on my stoop, I got to speak to you alone."
And Susan crept stealthily out. She had grown up to be a thin, small woman with a meddlesome soul out of all proportion to her body, and now she wore a wheedling smile such as one might employ with a fretful baby.
"You are lookin' right smart better, Uncle Ambrose," she began, "and 'Lizabeth Horton tells me you'll soon be yourself again."
"Susan," the old man interrupted, "you are in that kitchen hatching up trouble fer me sure as sin. I heard you tellin' 'Lizabeth that she oughtn't to be stayin' much longer with me. What did you do that fer?" And Uncle Ambrose's eyes, which could be like points of steel in righteous anger, now emitted certain fierysparks. "'Lizabeth is happy and is makin' me comfortable after seven more lonesome years, and you've always been preachin' I ought to git some one to take kire of me. Susan Jr., the Lord gives and the Lord taketh away, but don't you try comin' around here playin' the part of the Lord. You let this spinster be."
Again Susan Jr. smiled with an air of superior virtue. "It ain'tmethat's talkin', Uncle Ambrose; I ain't seein' anything so wrong in your present relations, but I must say folks in Pennyrile is beginnin' to speculate some, bein's as 'Lizabeth is just turned fifty and you with such a reckernized taste fer female folks, why, though things ain't to say scanderlous, there is some that thinks 'em a little pe-cul-iar."
"Go, Susan," and though Uncle Ambrose spoke with restraint his long finger pointed toward the intervening space which lay between his house and hers. "Go, afore I'm able to tell you what I think of you, 'cause I've known you from a child and you ain't changed none—fer the better. To think of you sneakin' over here fer the supreme pleasure of worryin' one poor homely old maid with your gossip and suggestin's."And Uncle Ambrose's face worked with the annoyance of frustrated old age. "Ef only 'Lizabeth had had one or two husbands she wouldn't be payin' no attention to this, but bein's as she's never had none, well, I kin see that I'm goin' to have my hands pretty nigh full. Seems like I'd rather turn a child out 'n the world than this poor unrequited female."
Late that evening Elizabeth gave Uncle Ambrose his supper as usual, although her eyes were so nearly closed from weeping that she was unable to catch the worried gleam in his. However, before going to bed she told him that she would have to leave him and go to her nephew's as soon as he was well enough to be about again.
"I SHALL WANT MY EM'LY."
On thatsame night Uncle Ambrose suffered a relapse and remained in bed for another week; however, he had already got sufficiently rested from his previous laying up and, besides, even at seventy-six he had not yet come to evading an issue. He was merely taking time to think.
One evening just as the lamps in his room were being lighted he called Elizabeth to his bed. "I'm goin' to git up to-morrow, 'Lizabeth, and stay up; I'm 'bout as well now as I'm ever goin' to be, seein' as I'm gittin' older each day 'stid of younger," he said with the gentle firmness that had always come to him in big moments.
With a nervous trembling Elizabeth smoothed the old man's pillows, tucking his blankets in more closely about him. "I'm reel glad fer you, Uncle Ambrose; then you won't be needin' me much longer."
But the old man shook his head. "Set down, 'Lizabeth, I want to talk to you; I don't want my supper, leastways not yet."
But when Elizabeth had seated herself by the side of his bed for a time he continued silent while his glance wandered from the spot where his daguerreotype hung alongside the wall to the figure of the elderly worried spinster, and once catching a reflection of himself in the looking glass with a night cap tied under his chin and then a vision of Elizabeth, suddenly his blue eyes under their overhanging brows brimmed over.
"'Lizabeth," he inquired at length, "did I ever show you the picture of my Em'ly?"
"You ain't exactly showed it to me," she replied kindly, "but I been seein' it every day when I come in here to clean; she's got a kind of different face; it's a pity she had to leave you."
Uncle Ambrose only cleared his throat a trifle more huskily. "You're a good woman, too, 'Lizabeth, and so was little Sarah and Peachy Tarwater, and you're makin' my declinin' days peacefuller, givin' me a chance to relish things that is past, and to hope fer things to come. Not that I kin say you're one mortal bit like Em'ly,cause you ain't, but all women 'a' got different ways, fer which the Lord be praised. I been lyin' here thinkin' a darn sight lately; ain't had much else to do." But if Uncle Ambrose expected a look of understanding in his companion's face at this he was disappointed. "I know I got to vacate this earthly tenement pretty soon, and though I've had good times and sorry in the building I ain't objectin' to quit. Seems like a new dwellin' house 'll give us more light and space. It's many times I've wondered ef mebbe the spirits of them that love us ain't always hoverin' close, ef only we had the right kind of windows to look out at 'em with. Why, child, there's certainly been times when I've felt my Em'ly's arms a-holdin' me up and her wings brushin' my face. She's done been helpin' me about you lately; 'cause you see I know she'd always want me to do anything that'd make me comfortable and——"
But Elizabeth was not listening to the old man's soliloquy. She was thinking of herself, trying to tear out the tendrils that had grown so close about Uncle Ambrose's house, which had lately come to seem so like her own. Sofinally when she could bear the pain no longer she rose and started stumbling from the room.
Uncle Ambrose called out after her. "Don't go, 'Lizabeth, and don't try to stop cryin'. Tears is nachural to some women and you sure are one of 'em. I ought to be used to 'em by now. 'Lizabeth, I don't want you to leave me; I want you to stay by me till my trumpet sounds." Elizabeth shook her head.
"Think you got to go 'cause of what Susan Jr. said?" Uncle Ambrose's long nose twitched between amusement and scorn. "Good Lord! why is it the good women that is so afeard of talk?" he muttered to himself. "But thinkin' it all out kireful, 'Lizabeth, I ain't able to let you go. I can't stan' livin' 'thout female aid, and there ain't no use me tryin'. So now you listen to me. When I'm out o' this bed, and it'll be to-morrow, do you think you could bring yourself to marry me?" Uncle Ambrose laughed. "Don't git scaired, child; ef you ain't heard them words before it ain't the first time I've said 'em. But don't you answer me too quick; think it over and when you come back after fixin' my supper 's time enough, for I ain'tyet told you all I been steddyin' over, believin' the rest 'd come in better later on."
Then while Elizabeth was away this lover of many women lay with his dim old eyes still steadfast upon the picture of her who after all was "the only woman." "You feel I'm doin' what's best, don't you, honey?" he said with the completeness of a perfect union. "She's poor and lonesome and homely, but I've worked it out so it'll be all right."
Afterward, when Uncle Ambrose discovered that his supper tray held all the dishes he most liked, he did not let his expression betray him, but ate his well-cooked meal peaceably and enjoyably until Elizabeth came to take away his tray, when his feeble hand caught hold of her hard one, trying to give it the rightful pressure.
"I can't," the old maid answered sorrowfully; "it's only because you are sorry for me."
And Uncle Ambrose hesitated. To tell any woman he did not love her, here at the end of his seventy-six years! "I'm growin' powerful fond of you, 'Lizabeth Horton," he hedged, "but ef I'm sorry too, what's the odds? I reckon I'm sorry fer myself and been sorry fer most everybodyI've knowed in this world one time or another. But mebbe you kin see things better like this. I'm more'n anxious fer you to look after me till I die and keep me from gittin' too darned lonesome and, moreover, I want to leave you this here cottage when I go away. See here, 'Lizabeth, I've done had some experience with women and I've been thinkin' a lot on what you said to me that evenin' you come over here to dry your tears. I kin see there are some women who kin live 'thout husbands and some that's just got to live 'thout children, but there's some women that ain't able to live 'thout homes of their own. Why, you poor old 'Lizabeth, you'd just pine away and die ef the time ever come when you didn't have a house to keep: it would be worse 'n food starvin', 'cause it would last longer. I ain't no children of my own"—and even now Uncle Ambrose winced at saying it—"and what with selling my interest in the store when Miner went and a remembrance from Peachy I got a tidy sum of money in the bank. So I've got no special call to leave my money to nobody, but I know Pennyrile, and she sure would make it warm fer you ef I willed you myproperty 'thout makin' you my wife. Give me my answer, 'Lizabeth; I ain't tryin' to bribe you, though I want you to stay by me, but I'm gittin' kind er tired and I ain't said all I've got to say yet."
And here Uncle Ambrose turned his eyes for another time toward Emily's picture with their familiar appeal for light in dark places.
"There is one more request I'm bound to make, but it ain't goin' to hurt you or any female to be sensible."
"Uncle Ambrose," the old maid faltered, her yellow cheeks flushing palely, "ef you're sure you want to marry me I shall be plumb glad. I like to stay here and take care of you, and I don't want to leave you or this house. I'll try my best to do my part."
"Then you listen to me," said the old man, speaking like a grown-up person to a confused child, "and you remember I don't want to hurt your feelin's, but whatsomever cometh I've got to git this out of me."
"What is it, Uncle Ambrose?" Elizabeth inquired anxiously. "I told you I was hopeful to do my part."
Before replying the old face set into beautiful lines of dignity and untarnished faith. "Do you recollect, 'Lizabeth, I told you once that when I died and crossed over the Jerden I was hopin' to spend the life eternal with Em'ly. T'ain't nothin' against little Sarah or Peachy, but you see I married Sarah 'fore I'd met up with Em'ly, and then Peachy she'd kind er staked out an original claim. It won't matter nothin' to Em'ly, but ef the truth be known I ain't no ways easy in my mind 'bout that Bible text I was a-repeatin' over to you. It may be I ain't got the Lord's meanin' exactly clear, whether the marriages made on this earth are goin' to hold good in heaven, so you kin surely see, 'Lizabeth, that there ain't no use in me addin' complications to the future at my time of life."
And here reaching under his pillow Uncle Ambrose drew forth a crumpled sheet of paper torn from a book which deeded his cottage to Elizabeth Horton and five thousand dollars in bank in the event of her becoming his wife.
"I know this document ain't legal," he explained, "but I'll have it writ out fair and squareby a lawyer and sign it soon as ever I can ef you'll only give me a little slip of paper in return with a few easy words written on it."
The woman waited a moment puzzled. "I don't quite understand you, Uncle Ambrose," she returned.
"No, of course you don't, child. I just want to know ef you feel willin' to write down these here words: 'I, Elizabeth Horton, bein' fourth wife to Ambrose Thompson, do hereby relinquish all claim to him come the time when I shall meet him in heaven.' You see how 'tis, 'Lizabeth," Uncle Ambrose argued wistfully. "I wisht I'd thought to make some such plan with Peachy 'fore she died; not that I'm at all certain she'd 'a' done it," he added truthfully, "but it would 'a' eased my mind consid'ble in these last childish days ef I only had little gentle Sarah to explain things to on the other side. I don't want there should be any argufyin' or confusion just when Em'ly and me are tryin' to git off quiet to ourselves and talk things over."
Elizabeth did not answer at once, for her vision did not naturally travel beyond the confines of this world, but other women before this oldmaid had travelled far in this now old man's leading. So she did not feel his request to be either childish or unreasonable, only she too wanted time to think. For after a while with her eyes resting affectionately upon the old face now lying so quiet on the pillow, and at the still beautiful and once so strong hands clasped together outside the counterpane, she leaned over toward him and whispered.
"I'll give you that paper you want, Uncle Ambrose, and I'll write on it same as you wish me to, for I shall have the home, and somehow I feel it will be only right that you and Em'ly should have each other."
"Amen!" whispered Uncle Ambrose.
THE END
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THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESSGARDEN CITY, N. Y.
Transcriber's Notes:Obvious punctuation errors repaired.The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.