"Vexed in all its seaward course by bridges, dams, and mills,"
"Vexed in all its seaward course by bridges, dams, and mills,"
but finding time, during the busy summer months, to flush its fertile banks with beauty.
Suddenly (a word that could seldom be truthfully applied to the description of Jabe Slocum's movements) the reins were ruthlessly drawn from Lady Gay's hands and wound about the whipstock.
"Gorry!" ejaculated Mr. Slocum, "ef I hain't left the widder Foss settin' on Aunt Hitty's hoss-block, 'n' I promised to pick her up when I come along back! That all comes o' my drivin' by the store so fast on account o' the boys hectorin' of me, so 't when I got to the turn I was so kind of het up I jogged right along the straight road. Haste makes waste 's an awful good motto. Pile out, young ones! It's only half a mile from here to the Falls, 'n' you'll have to get there on Shank's mare!"
So saying, he dumped the astonished children into the middle of the road, from whence he had plucked them, turned the docile mare, and with a "Git, Mariar!" went four miles back to relieve Aunt Hitty's horse-block from the weight of the widder Foss (which was no joke!).
This turn of affairs was most unexpected, and Gay seemed on the point of tears; but Timothy gathered her a handful of wild flowers, wiped the dust from her face, put on the clean blue gingham apron, and established her in the basket, where she soon fell asleep, wearied by the excitements of the day.
Timothy's heart began to be a little troubled as he walked on and on through the leafy woods, trundling the basket behind him. Nothing had gone wrong; indeed, everything had been much easier than he could have hoped. Perhaps it was the weariness that had crept into his legs, and the hollowness that began to appear in his stomach; but, somehow, although in the morning he had expected to find Gay's new mothers beckoning from every window, so that he could scarcely choose between them, he now felt as if the whole race of mothers had suddenly become extinct.
Soon the village came in sight, nestled in the laps of the green hills on both sides of the river. Timothy trudged bravely on, scanning all the dwellings, but finding none of them just the thing. At last he turned deliberately off the main road, where the houses seemed too near together and too near the street, for his taste, and trundled his family down a shady sort of avenue, over which the arching elms met and clasped hands.
Rags had by this time lowered his tail to half-mast, and kept strictly to the beaten path, notwithstanding manifold temptations to forsake it. He passed two cats withouta single insulting remark, and his entire demeanor was eloquent of nostalgia.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Timothy disconsolately; "there's something wrong with all the places. Either there's no pigeon-house, like in all the pictures, or no flower garden, or no chickens, or no lady at the window, or else there's lots of baby-clothes hanging on the wash-lines. I don't believe I shall ever find"—
At this moment a large, comfortable white house, that had been heretofore hidden by great trees, came into view. Timothy drew nearer to the spotless picket fence, and gazed upon the beauties of the side yard and the front garden,—gazed and gazed, and fell desperately in love at first sight.
The whole thing had been made as if to order; that is all there is to say about it. There was an orchard, and, oh, ecstasy! what hosts of green apples! There was an interesting grindstone under one tree, and a bright blue chair and stool under another; a thicket of currant and gooseberry bushes; and a flock of young turkeys ambling awkwardly through the barn. Timothy stepped gently along in the thick grass, past a pump and a mossy trough, till a side porch cameinto view, with a woman sitting there sewing bright-colored rags. A row of shining tin pans caught the sun's rays, and threw them back in a thousand glittering prisms of light; the grasshoppers and crickets chirped sleepily in the warm grass, and a score of tiny yellow butterflies hovered over a group of odorous hollyhocks.
Suddenly the person on the porch broke into this cheerful song, which she pitched in so high a key and gave with such emphasis that the crickets and grasshoppers retired by mutual consent from any further competition, and the butterflies suspended operations for several seconds:—
"I'll chase the antelope over the plain,The tiger's cob I'll bind with a chain,And the wild gazelle with the silv'ry feetI'll bring to thee for a playmate sweet."
Timothy listened intently for some moments, but could not understand the words, unless the lady happened to be in the menagerie business, which he thought unlikely, but delightful should it prove true.
His eye then fell on a little marble slab under a tree in a shady corner of the orchard.
"That's a country doorplate," he thought;"yes, it's got the lady's name, 'Martha Cummins,' printed on it. Now I'll know what to call her."
He crept softly on to the front side of the house. There were flower beds, a lovable white cat snoozing on the doorsteps, and—a lady sitting at the open window knitting!
At this vision Timothy's heart beat so hard against his little jacket that he could only stagger back to the basket, where Rags and Lady Gay were snuggled together, fast asleep. He anxiously scanned Gay's face; moistened his rag of a handkerchief at the only available source of supply; scrubbed an atrocious dirt spot from the tip of her spirited nose; and then, dragging the basket along the path leading to the front gate, he opened it and went in, mounted the steps, plied the brass knocker, and waited in childlike faith for a summons to enter and make himself at home.
TIMOTHY FINDS A HOUSE IN WHICH HE THINKS A BABY IS NEEDED, BUT THE INMATES DO NOT ENTIRELY AGREE WITH HIM.
TIMOTHY FINDS A HOUSE IN WHICH HE THINKS A BABY IS NEEDED, BUT THE INMATES DO NOT ENTIRELY AGREE WITH HIM.
Meanwhile, Miss Avilda Cummins had left her window and gone into the next room for a skein of yarn. She answered the knock, however; and, opening the door, stood rooted to the threshold in speechless astonishment, very much as if she had seen the shades of her ancestors drawn up in line in the dooryard.
Off went Timothy's hat. He hadn't seen the lady's face very clearly when she was knitting at the window, or he would never have dared to knock; but it was too late to retreat. Looking straight into her cold eyes with his own shining gray ones, he said bravely, but with a trembling voice, "Do you need any babies here, if you please?" (Need any babies! What an inappropriate,nonsensical expression, to be sure; as if a baby were something exquisitely indispensable, like the breath of life, for instance!)
No answer. Miss Vilda was trying to assume command of her scattered faculties and find some clue to the situation. Timothy concluded that she was not, after all, the lady of the house; and, remembering the marble doorplate in the orchard, tried again. "Does Miss Martha Cummins live here, if you please?" (Oh, Timothy! what induced you, in this crucial moment of your life, to touch upon that sorest spot in Miss Vilda's memory?)
"What do you want?" she faltered.
"I want to get somebody to adopt my baby," he said; "if you haven't got any of your own, you couldn't find one half as dear and as pretty as she is; and you needn't have me too, you know, unless you should need me to help take care of her."
"You're very kind," Miss Avilda answered sarcastically, preparing to shut the door upon the strange child; "but I don't think I care to adopt any babies this afternoon, thank you. You'd better run right back home to your mother, if you've got one, and know where 't is, anyhow."
"I—haven't!" cried poor Timothy, with a sudden and unpremeditated burst of tears at the failure of his hopes; for he was half child as well as half hero. At this juncture Gay opened her eyes, and burst into a wild howl at the unwonted sight of Timothy's grief; and Rags, who was full of exquisite sensibility, and quite ready to weep with those who did weep, lifted up his woolly head and added his piteous wails to the concert. It was atableau vivant.
"Samanthy Ann!" called Miss Vilda excitedly; "Samanthy Ann! Come right here and tell me what to do!"
The person thus adjured flew in from the porch, leaving a serpentine trail of red, yellow, and blue rags in her wake. "Land o' liberty!" she exclaimed, as she surveyed the group. "Where'd they come from, and what air they tryin' to act out?"
"This boy's a baby agent, as near as I can make out; he wants I should adopt this red-headed baby, but says I ain't obliged to take him too, and makes out they haven't got any home. I told him I wa'n't adoptin' any babies just now, and at that he burst out cryin', and the other two followed suit. Now, have the three of 'em just escapedfrom some asylum, or are they too little to be lunatics?"
Timothy dried his tears, in order that Gay should be comforted and appear at her best, and said penitently: "I cried before I thought, because Gay hasn't had anything but cookies since last night, and she'll have no place to sleep unless you'll let us stay here just till morning. We went by all the other houses, and chose this one because everything was so beautiful."
"Nothin' but cookies sence—Land o' liberty!" ejaculated Samantha Ann, starting for the kitchen.
"Come back here, Samanthy! Don't you leave me alone with 'em, and don't let's have all the neighbors runnin' in; you take 'em into the kitchen and give 'em somethin' to eat, and we'll see about the rest afterwards."
Gay kindled at the first casual mention of food; and, trying to clamber out of the basket, fell over the edge, thumping her head smartly on the stone steps. Miss Vilda covered her face with her hands, and waited shudderingly for another yell, as the child's carnation stocking and terra-cotta head mingled wildly in the air. But Lady Gay disentangled herself, and laughed the merriest burst of laughter that ever woke the echoes. That was a joke; her life was full of them, served fresh every day; for no sort of adversity could long have power over such a nature as hers. "Come get supper," she cooed, putting her hand in Samantha's; adding that the "nasty lady needn't come," a remark that happily escaped detection, as it was rendered in very unintelligible "early English."
Miss Avilda tottered into the darkened sitting-room and sank on to a black haircloth sofa, while Samantha ushered the wanderers into the sunny kitchen, muttering to herself: "Wall, I vow! travelin' over the country all alone, 'n' not knee-high to a toad! They're send in' out awful young tramps this season, but they sha'n't go away hungry, if I know it."
Accordingly, she set out a plentiful supply of bread and butter, gingerbread, pie, and milk, put a tin plate of cold hash in the shed for Rags, and swept him out to it with a corn broom; and, telling the children comfortably to cram their "everlastin' little bread-baskets full," returned to the sitting-room.
"Now, whatever makes you so panicky, Vildy? Didn't you never see a tramp before, for pity's sake? And if you're scar't for fear I can't handle 'em alone, why, Jabe 'll be comin' along soon. The prospeck of gittin' to bed's the only thing that'll make him 'n' Maria hurry; 'n' they'll both be cal'latin' on that by this time!"
"Samanthy Ann, the first question that that boy asked me was, 'If Miss Martha Cummins lived here.' Now, what do you make of that?"
Samantha looked as astonished as anybody could wish. "Asked if Marthy Cummins lived here? How under the canopy did he ever hear Marthy's name? Wall, somebody told him to ask, that's all there is about it; and what harm was there in it, anyhow?"
"Oh, I don't know, I don't know; but the minute that boy looked up at me and asked for Martha Cummins, the old trouble, that I thought was dead and buried years ago, started right up in my heart and begun to ache just as if it all happened yesterday."
"Now keep stiddy, Vildy; what could happen?" urged Samantha.
"Why, it flashed across my mind in aminute," and here Miss Vilda lowered her voice to a whisper, "that perhaps Martha's baby didn't die, as they told her."
"But, land o' liberty, s'posin' it didn't! Poor Marthy died herself more 'n twenty years ago."
"I know; but supposing her baby didn't die; and supposing it grew up and died, and left this little girl to roam round the world afoot and alone?"
"You're cal'latin' dreadful close, 'pears to me; now, don't go s'posin' any more things. You're makin' out one of them yellow-covered books, sech as the summer boarders bring out here to read; always chock full of doin's that never would come to pass in this or any other Christian country. You jest lay down and snuff your camphire, an' I'll go out an' pump that boy drier 'n a sand heap!"
Now, Miss Avilda Cummins was unmarried by every implication of her being, as Henry James would say: but Samantha Ann Ripley was a spinster purely by accident. She had seldom been exposed to the witcheries of children, or she would have known long before this that, so far as shewas personally concerned, they would always prove irresistible. She marched into the kitchen like a general resolved upon the extinction of the enemy. She walked out again, half an hour later, with the very teeth of her resolve drawn, but so painlessly that she had not been aware of the operation! She marched in a woman of a single purpose; she came out a double-faced diplomatist, with the seeds of sedition and conspiracy lurking, all unsuspected, in her heart.
The cause? Nothing more than a dozen trifles as "light as air." Timothy had sat upon a little wooden stool at her feet; and, resting his arms on her knees, had looked up into her kind, rosy face with a pair of liquid eyes like gray-blue lakes, eyes which seemed and were the very windows of his soul. He had sat there telling his wee bit of a story; just a vague, shadowy, plaintive, uncomplaining scrap of a story, without beginning, plot, or ending, but every word in it set Samantha Ann Ripley's heart throbbing.
And Gay, who knew a good thing when she saw it, had climbed up into her capacious lap, and, not being denied, had cuddled her head into that "gracious hollow" in Samantha's shoulder, that had somehow missed the pressure of the childish heads that should have lain there. Then Samantha's arm had finally crept round the wheedlesome bit of soft humanity, and before she knew it her chair was swaying gently to and fro, to and fro, to and fro; and the wooden rockers creaked more sweetly than ever they had creaked before, for they were singing their first cradle song!
Then Gay heaved a great sigh of unspeakable satisfaction, and closed her lovely eyes. She had been born with a desire to be cuddled, and had had precious little experience of it. At the sound of this happy sigh and the sight of the child's flower face, with the upward curling lashes on the pink cheeks and the moist tendrils of hair on the white forehead, and the helpless, clinging touch of the baby arm about her neck, I cannot tell you the why or wherefore, but old memories and new desires began to stir in Samantha Ann Ripley's heart. In short, she had met the enemy, and she was theirs!
Presently Gay was laid upon the old-fashioned settle, and Samantha stationed herself where she could keep the flies off her by waving a palm-leaf fan.
"Now, there's one thing more I want you to tell me," said she, after she had possessed herself of Timothy's unhappy past, uncertain present, and still more dubious future; "and that is, what made you ask for Miss Marthy Cummins when you come to the door?"
"Why, I thought it was the lady-of-the-house's name," said Timothy; "I saw it on her doorplate."
"But we ain't got any doorplate, to begin with."
"Not a silver one on your door, like they have in the city; but isn't that white marble piece in the yard a doorplate? It's got 'Martha Cummins, aged 17,' on it. I thought may be in the country they had them in their gardens; only I thought it was queer they put their ages on them, because they'd have to be scratched out every little while, wouldn't they?"
"My grief!" ejaculated Samantha; "for pity's sake, don't you know a tombstun when you see it?"
"No; what is a tombstun?"
"Land sakes! what do you know, any way? Didn't you never see a graveyard where folks is buried?"
"I never went to the graveyard, but Iknow where it is, and I know about people's being buried. Flossy is going to be buried. And so the white stone shows the places where the people are put, and tells their names, does it? Why, it is a kind of a doorplate, after all, don't you see? Who is Martha Cummins, aged 17?"
"She was Miss Vildy's sister, and she went to the city, and then come home and died here, long years ago. Miss Vildy set great store by her, and can't bear to have her name spoke; so remember what I say. Now, this 'Flossy' you tell me about (of all the fool names I ever hearn tell of, that beats all,—sounds like a wax doll, with her clo'se sewed on!), was she a young woman?"
"I don't know whether she was young or not," said Tim, in a puzzled tone. "She had young yellow hair, and very young shiny teeth, white as china; but her neck was crackled underneath, like Miss Vilda's;—it had no kissing places in it like Gay's."
"Well, you stay here in the kitchen a spell now, 'n' don't let in that rag-dog o' yourn till he stops scratching if he keeps it up till the crack o' doom;—he's got to belearned better manners. Now, I'll go in 'n' talk to Miss Vildy. She may keep you over night, 'n' she may not; I ain't noways sure. You started in wrong foot foremost."
TIMOTHY, LADY GAY, AND RAGS PROVE FAITHFUL TO EACH OTHER.
TIMOTHY, LADY GAY, AND RAGS PROVE FAITHFUL TO EACH OTHER.
Samantha went into the sitting-room and told the whole story to Miss Avilda; told it simply and plainly, for she was not given to arabesques in language, and then waited for a response.
"Well, what do you advise doin'?" asked Miss Cummins nervously.
"I don't feel comp'tent to advise, Vilda; the house ain't mine, nor yet the beds that's in it, nor the victuals in the butt'ry; but as a professin' Christian and member of the Orthodox Church in good and reg'lar standin' you can't turn 'em ou'doors when it's comin' on dark and they ain't got no place to sleep."
"Plenty of good Orthodox folks turned their backs on Martha when she was in trouble."
"There may be Orthodox hogs, for all I know," replied the blunt Samantha, who frequently called spades shovels in her search after absolute truth of statement, "but that ain't no reason why we should copy after 'em 's I know of."
"I don't propose to take in two strange children and saddle myself with 'em for days, or weeks, perhaps," said Miss Cummins coldly, "but I tell you what I will do. Supposing we send the boy over to Squire Bean's. It's near hayin' time, and he may take him in to help round and do chores. Then we'll tell him before he goes that we'll keep the baby as long as he gets a chance to work anywheres near. That will give us a chance to look round for some place for 'em and find out whether they've told us the truth."
"And if Squire Bean won't take him?" asked Samantha, with as much cold indifference as she could assume.
"Well, I suppose there's nothing for it but he must come back here and sleep. I'll go out and tell him so,—I declare I feel as weak as if I'd had a spell of sickness!"
Timothy bore the news better than Samantha had feared. Squire Bean's farmdid not look so very far away; his heart was at rest about Gay and he felt that he could find a shelter for himself somewhere.
"Now, how'll the baby act when she wakes up and finds you're gone?" inquired Miss Vilda anxiously, as Timothy took his hat and bent down to kiss the sleeping child.
"Well, I don't know exactly," answered Timothy, "because she's always had me, you see. But I guess she'll be all right, now that she knows you a little, and if I can see her every day. She never cries except once in a long while when she gets mad; and if you're careful how you behave, she'll hardly ever get mad at you."
"Well I vow!" exclaimed Miss Vilda with a grim glance at Samantha, "I guess she'd better do the behavin'."
So Timothy was shown the way across the fields to Squire Bean's. Samantha accompanied him to the back gate, where she gave him three doughnuts and a sneaking kiss, watching him out of sight under the pretense of taking the towels and napkins off the grass.
It was nearly nine o'clock and quite dark when Timothy stole again to the little gateof the White Farm. The feet that had traveled so courageously over the mile walk to Squire Bean's had come back again slowly and wearily; for it is one thing to be shod with the sandals of hope, and quite another to tread upon the leaden soles of disappointment.
He leaned upon the white picket gate listening to the chirp of the frogs and looking at the fireflies as they hung their gleaming lamps here and there in the tall grass. Then he crept round to the side door, to implore the kind offices of the mediator before he entered the presence of the judge whom he assumed to be sitting in awful state somewhere in the front part of the house. He lifted the latch noiselessly and entered. Oh horror! Miss Avilda herself was sprinkling clothes at the great table on one side of the room. There was a moment of silence.
"He wouldn't have me," said Timothy simply, "he said I wasn't big enough yet. I offered him Gay, too, but he didn't want her either, and if you please, I would rather sleep on the sofa so as not to be any more trouble."
"You won't do any such thing," responded Miss Vilda briskly. "You've got a royal welcome this time sure, and I guess you can earn your lodging fast enough. You hear that?" and she opened the door that led into the upper part of the house.
A piercing shriek floated down into the kitchen, and another on the heels of that, and then another. Every drop of blood in Timothy's spare body rushed to his pale grave face. "Is she being whipped?" he whispered, with set lips.
"No; she needs it bad enough, but we ain't savages. She's only got the pretty temper that matches her hair, just as you said. I guess we haven't been behavin' to suit her."
"Can I go up? She'll stop in a minute when she sees me. She never went to bed without me before, and truly, truly, she's not a cross baby!"
"Come right along and welcome; just so long as she has to stay you're invited to visit with her. Land sakes! the neighbors will think we're killin' pigs!" and Miss Vilda started upstairs to show Timothy the way.
Gay was sitting up in bed and the faithful Samantha Ann was seated beside herwith a lapful of useless bribes,—apples, seed-cakes, an illustrated Bible, a thermometer, an ear of red corn, and a large stuffed green bird, the glory of the "keeping room" mantelpiece.
But a whole aviary of highly colored songsters would not have assuaged Gay's woe at that moment. Every effort at conciliation was met with the one plaint: "I want my Timfy! I want my Timfy!"
At the first sight of the beloved form, Gay flung the sacred bird into the furthest corner of the room and burst into a wild sob of delight, as she threw herself into Timothy's loving arms.
Fifteen minutes later peace had descended on the troubled homestead, and Samantha went into the sitting-room and threw herself into the depths of the high-backed rocker. "Land o' liberty! perhaps I ain't het-up!" she ejaculated, as she wiped the sweat of honest toil from her brow and fanned herself vigorously with her apron. "I tell you what, at five o'clock I was dreadful sorry I hadn't took Dave Milliken, but now I'm plaguey glad I didn't! Still" (and here she tried to smooth the green bird's ruffled plumage and restore him to his perch underthe revered glass case), "still, children will be children."
"Some of 'em's considerable more like wild cats," said Miss Avilda briefly.
"You just go upstairs now, and see if you find anything that looks like wild cats; but 't any rate, wild cats or tame cats, we would n't dass turn 'em ou'doors this time o' night for fear of flyin' in the face of Providence. If it's a stint He's set us, I don't see but we've got to work it out somehow."
"I'd rather have some other stint."
"To be sure!" retorted Samantha vigorously. "I never see anybody yet that didn't want to pick out her own stint; but mebbe if we got just the one we wanted it wouldn't be no stint! Land o' liberty, what's that!"
There was a crash of falling tin pans, and Samantha flew to investigate the cause. About ten minutes later she returned, more heated than ever, and threw herself for the second time into the high-backed rocker.
"That dog's been givin' me a chase, I can tell you! He clawed and scratched so in the shed that I put him in the wood-house; and he went and clim' up on that carpenter's bench, and pitched out that little winder at the top, and fell on to the milk-pan shelf and scattered every last one of 'em, and then upsot all my cans of termatter plants. But I couldn't find him, high nor low. All to once I see by the dirt on the floor that he'd squirmed himself through the skeeter-nettin' door int' the house, and then I surmised where he was. Sure enough, I crep' upstairs and there he was, layin' between the two children as snug as you please. He was snorin' like a pirate when I found him, but when I stood over the bed with a candle I could see 't his wicked little eyes was wide open, and he was jest makin' b'lieve sleep in hopes I'd leave him where he was. Well, I yanked him out quicker 'n scat, 'n' locked him in the old chicken house, so I guess he'll stay out, now. For folks that claim to be no blood relation, I declare him 'n' the boy 'n' the baby beats anything I ever come across for bein' fond of one 'nother!"
There were dreams at the White Farm that night. Timothy went to sleep with a prayer on his lips; a prayer that God would excuse him for speaking of Martha's doorplate, and a most imploring postscript to theeffect that God would please make Miss Vilda into a mother for Gay; thinking as he floated off into the land of Nod, "It'll be awful hard work, but I don't suppose He cares how hard 't is!"
Lady Gay dreamed of driving beautiful white horses beside sparkling waters ... and through flowery meadows ... And great green birds perched on all the trees and flew towards her as if to peck the cherries of her lips ... but when she tried to beat them off they all turned into Timothys and she hugged them close to her heart ...
Rags' visions were gloomy, for he knew not whether the Lady with the Firm Hand would free him from his prison in the morning, or whether he was there for all time ... But there were intervals of bliss when his fancies took a brighter turn ... when Hope smiled ... and he bit the white cat's tail ... and chased the infant turkeys ... and found sweet, juicy, delicious bones in unexpected places ... and even inhaled, in exquisite anticipation, the fragrance of one particularly succulent bone that he had hidden under Miss Vilda's bed.
Sleep carried Samantha so many years back into the past that she heard the blithedin of carpenters hammering and sawing on a little house that was to be hers, his,theirs. ... And as she watched them, with all sorts of maidenly hopes about the home that was to be ... some one stole up behind and caught her at it, and she ran away blushing ... and some one followed her ... and they watched the carpenters together. ... Somebody else lived in the little house now, and Samantha never blushed any more, but that part was mercifully hidden in the dream.
Miss Vilda's slumber was troubled. She seemed to be walking through peaceful meadows, brown with autumn, when all at once there rose in the path steep hills and rocky mountains ... She felt too tired and too old to climb, but there was nothing else to be done ... And just as she began the toilsome ascent, a little child appeared, and catching her helplessly by the skirts implored to be taken with her ... And she refused and went on alone ... but, miracle of miracles, when she reached the crest of the first hill the child was there before her, still beseeching to be carried ... And again she refused, and again she wearily climbed the heights alone, always meetingthe child when she reached their summits, and always enacting the same scene.... At last she cried in despair, "Ask me no more, for I have not even strength enough for my own needs!" ... And the child said, "I will help you;" and straightway crept into her arms and nestled there as one who would not be denied ... and she took up her burden and walked.... And as she climbed the weight grew lighter and lighter, till at length the clinging arms seemed to give her peace and strength ... and when she neared the crest of the highest mountain she felt new life throbbing in her veins and new hopes stirring in her heart, and she remembered no more the pain and weariness of her journey.... And all at once a bright angel appeared to her and traced the letters of a word upon her forehead and took the child from her arms and disappeared.... And the angel had the lovely smile and sad eyes of Martha ... and the word she traced on Miss Vilda's forehead was "Inasmuch"!
MISTRESS AND MAID FIND TO THEIR AMAZEMENT THAT A CHILD, MORE THAN ALL OTHER GIFTS, BRINGS HOPE WITH IT AND FORWARD LOOKING THOUGHTS.
MISTRESS AND MAID FIND TO THEIR AMAZEMENT THAT A CHILD, MORE THAN ALL OTHER GIFTS, BRINGS HOPE WITH IT AND FORWARD LOOKING THOUGHTS.
It was called the White Farm, not because that was an unusual color in Pleasant River. Nineteen out of every twenty houses in the village were painted white, for it had not then entered the casual mind that any other course was desirable or possible. Occasionally, a man of riotous imagination would substitute two shades of buff, or make the back of his barn red, but the spirit of invention stopped there, and the majority of sane people went on painting white. But Miss Avilda Cummins was blessed with a larger income than most of the inhabitants of Pleasant River, and all her buildings, the great house, the sheds, the carriage and dairy houses, the fences and the barn, were always kept in a state of dazzling purity;"as if," the neighbors declared, "S'manthy Ann Ripley went over 'em every morning with a dust-cloth."
It was merely an accident that the carriage and work horses chanced to be white, and that the original white cats of the family kept on having white kittens to decorate the front doorsteps. It was not accident, however, but design, that caused Jabe Slocum to scour the country for a good white cow and persuade Miss Cummins to swap off the old red one, so that the "critters" in the barn should match.
Miss Avilda had been born at the White Farm; father and mother had been taken from there to the old country churchyard, and "Martha, aged 17," poor, pretty, willful Martha, the greatest pride and greatest sorrow of the family, was lying under the apple trees in the garden.
Here also the little Samantha Ann Ripley had come as a child years ago, to be playmate, nurse, and companion to Martha, and here she had stayed ever since, as friend, adviser, and "company-keeper" to the lonely Miss Cummins. Nobody in Pleasant River would have dared to think of her as anybody's "hired help," though she did receivebed and board, and a certain sum yearly for her services; but she lived with Miss Cummins on equal terms, as was the custom in the good old New England villages, doing the lion's share of the work, and marking her sense of the situation by washing the dishes while Miss Avilda wiped them, and by never suffering her to feed the pig or go down cellar.
Theirs had been a dull sort of life, in which little had happened to make them grow into sympathy with the outside world. All the sweetness of Miss Avilda's nature had turned to bitterness and gall after Martha's disgrace, sad home-coming, and death. There had been much to forgive, and she had not had the grace nor the strength to forgive it until it was too late. The mystery of death had unsealed her eyes, and there had been a moment when the sad and bitter woman might have been drawn closer to the great Father-heart, there to feel the throb of a Divine compassion that would have sweetened the trial and made the burden lighter. But the minister of the parish proved a sorry comforter and adviser in these hours of trial. The Reverend Joshua Beckwith, whose view of God's universe was about as broad as if he had lived on the inside of his own pork-barrel, had cherished certain strong and unrelenting opinions concerning Martha's final destination, which were not shared by Miss Cummins. Martha, therefore, was not laid with the elect, but was put to rest in the orchard, under the kindly, untheological shade of the apple trees; and they scattered their tinted blossoms over her little white headstone, shed their fragrance about her quiet grave, and dropped their ruddy fruit in the high grass that covered it, just as tenderly and respectfully as if they had been regulation willows. The Reverend Joshua thus succeeded in drying up the springs of human sympathy in Miss Avilda's heart when most she needed comfort and gentle teaching; and, distrusting God for the moment, as well as his inexorable priest, she left her place in the old meeting-house where she had "worshiped" ever since she had acquired adhesiveness enough to stick to a pew, and was not seen there again for many years. The Reverend Joshua had died, as all men must and as most men should; and a mild-voiced successor reigned in his place; so the Cummins pew was occupied once more.
Samantha Ann Ripley had had her heart history too,—one of a different kind. She had "kept company" with David Milliken for a little matter of twenty years, off and on, and Miss Avilda had expected at various times to lose her friend and helpmate; but fear of this calamity had at length been quite put to rest by the fourth and final rupture of the bond, five years before.
There had always been a family feud between the Ripleys and the Millikens; and when the young people took it into their heads to fall in love with each other in spite of precedent or prejudice, they found that the course of true love ran in anything but a smooth channel. It was, in fact, a sort of village Montague and Capulet affair; but David and Samantha were no Romeo and Juliet. The climate and general conditions of life at Pleasant River were not favorable to the development of such exotics. The old people interposed barriers between the young ones as long as they lived; and when they died, Dave Milliken's spirit was broken, and he began to annoy the valiant Samantha by what she called his "meechin'" ways. In one of his moments of weakness he took a widowed sister to live with him, a certainMrs. Pettigrove, of Edgewood, who inherited the Milliken objection to Ripleys, and who widened the breach and brought Samantha to the point of final and decisive rupture. The last straw was the statement, sown broadcast by Mrs. Pettigrove, that "Samanthy Ann Ripley's father never would 'a' died if he'd ever had any doctorin'; but 't was the gospel truth that they never had nobody to 'tend him but a hom'pathy man from Scratch Corner, who, of course, bein' a hom'path, didn't know no more about doctorin' 'n Cooper's cow."
Samantha told David after this that she didn't want to hear him open his mouth again, nor none of his folks; that she was through with the whole lot of 'em forever and ever, 'n' she wished to the Lord she'd had sense enough to put her foot down fifteen years ago, 'n' she hoped he'd enjoy bein' tread underfoot for the rest of his natural life, 'n' she wouldn't speak to him again if she met him in her porridge dish. She then slammed the door and went upstairs to cry as if she were sixteen, as she watched him out of sight. Poor Dave Milliken! just sweet and earnest and strong enough to suffer at being worsted by circumstances,but never quite strong enough to conquer them.
And it was to this household that Timothy had brought his child for adoption.
When Miss Avilda opened her eyes, the morning after the arrival of the children, she tried to remember whether anything had happened to give her such a strange feeling of altered conditions. It was Saturday,—baking day,—that couldn't be it; and she gazed at the little dimity-curtained window and at the picture of the Death-bed of Calvin, and wondered what was the matter.
Just then a child's laugh, bright, merry, tuneful, infectious, rang out from some distant room, and it all came back to her as Samantha Ann opened the door and peered in.
"I've got breakfast 'bout ready," she said; "but I wish, soon 's you're dressed, you'd step down 'n' see to it, 'n' let me wash the baby. I guess water was skerse where she come from!"
"They're awake, are they?"
"Awake? Land o' liberty! As soon as 't was light, and before the boy had openedhis eyes, Gay was up 'n' poundin' on all the doors, 'n' hollorin' 'S'manfy' (beats all how she got holt o' my name so quick!), so 't I thought sure she'd disturb your sleep. See here, Vildy, we want those children should look respectable the few days they're here. I don't see how we can rig out the boy, but there's those old things of Marthy's in the attic; seems like it might be a blessin' on 'em if we used 'em this way."
"I thought of it myself in the night," answered Vilda briefly. "You'll find the key of the trunk in the light stand drawer. You see to the children, and I'll get breakfast on the table. Has Jabe come?"
"No; he sent a boy to milk, 'n' said he'd be right along. You know what that means!"
Miss Vilda moved about the immaculate kitchen, frying potatoes and making tea, setting on extra portions of bread and doughnuts and a huge pitcher of milk; while various noises, strange enough in that quiet house, floated down from above.
"This is dreadful hard on Samanthy," she reflected. "I don't know 's I'd ought to have put it on her, knowing how she hates confusion and company, and all that;but she seemed to think we'd got to tough it out for a spell, any way; though I don't expect her temper 'll stand the strain very long."
The fact was, Samantha was banging doors and slatting tin pails about furiously to keep up an ostentatious show of ill humor. She tried her best to grunt with displeasure when Gay, seated in a wash-tub, crowed and beat the water with her dimpled hands, so that it splashed all over the carpet; but all the time there was such a joy tugging at her heart-strings as they had not felt for years.
When the bath was over, clean petticoats and ankle-ties were chosen out of the old leather trunk, and finally a little blue and white lawn dress. It was too long in the skirt, and pending the moment when Samantha should "take a tack in it," it anticipated the present fashion, and made Lady Gay look more like a disguised princess than ever. The gown was low-necked and short-sleeved, in the old style; and Samantha was in despair till she found some little embroidered muslin capes and full undersleeves, with which she covered Gay's pink neck and arms. These things of beauty so wrought upon the child's excitable nature that shecould hardly keep still long enough to have her hair curled; and Samantha, as the shining rings dropped off her horny forefinger, was wrestling with the Evil One, in the shape of a little box of jewelry that she had found with the clothing. She knew that the wish was a vicious one, and that such gewgaws were out of place on a little pauper just taken in for the night; but her fingers trembled with a desire to fasten the little gold ears of corn on the shoulders, or tie the strings of coral beads round the child's pretty throat.
When the toilet was completed, and Samantha was emptying the tub, Gay climbed on the bureau and imprinted sloppy kisses of sincere admiration on the radiant reflection of herself in the little looking-glass; then, getting down again, she seized her heap of Minerva Court clothes, and, before the astonished Samantha could interpose, flung them out of the second-story window, where they fell on the top of the lilac bushes.
"Me doesn't like nasty old dress," she explained, with a dazzling smile that was a justification in itself; "me likes pretty new dress!" and then, with one hand reachingup to the door-knob, and the other throwing disarming kisses to Samantha,—"By-by! Lady Gay go circus now! Timfy, come, take Lady Gay to circus!"
There was no time for discipline then, and she was borne to the breakfast-table, where Timothy was already making acquaintance with Miss Vilda.
Samantha entered, and Vilda, glancing at her nervously, perceived with relief that she was "taking things easy." Ah! but it was lucky for poor David Milliken that he couldn't see her at that moment. Her whole face had relaxed; her mouth was no longer a thin, hard line, but had a certain curve and fullness, borrowed perhaps from the warmth of innocent baby-kisses. Embarrassment and stifled joy had brought a rosier color to her cheek; Gay's vandal hand had ruffled the smoothness of her sandy locks, so that a few stray hairs were absolutely curling with amazement that they had escaped from their sleek bondage; in a word, Samantha Ann Ripley was lovely and lovable!
Timothy had no eyes for any one save his beloved Gay, at whom he gazed with unspeakable admiration, thinking it impossiblethat any human being, with a single eye in its head, could refuse to take such an angel when it was in the market.
Gay, not being used to a regular morning toilet, had fought against it valiantly at first; but the tonic of the bath itself and the exercise of war had brought the color to her cheeks and the brightness to her eyes. She had forgiven Samantha, she was ready to be on good terms with Miss Vilda, she was at peace with all the world. That she was eating the bread of dependence did not trouble her in the least! No royal visitor, conveying honor by her mere presence, could have carried off a delicate situation with more distinguished grace and ease. She was perched on a Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, and immediately began blowing bubbles in her mug of milk in the most reprehensible fashion; and glancing up after each naughty effort with an irrepressible gurgle of laughter, in which she looked so bewitching, even with a milky crescent over her red mouth, that she would have melted the heart of the most predestinate old misogynist in Christendom.
Timothy was not so entirely at his ease. His eyes had looked into life only a fewmore summers, but their "radiant morning visions" had been dispelled; experience had tempered joy. Gay, however, had not arrived at an age where people's motives can be suspected for an instant. If there had been any possible plummet with which to sound the depths of her unconscious philosophy, she apparently looked upon herself as a guest out of heaven, flung down upon this hospitable planet with the single responsibility of enjoying its treasures.
O happy heart of childhood! Your simple creed is rich in faith, and trust, and hope. You have not learned that the children of a common Father can do aught but love and help each other.
JABE AND SAMANTHA EXCHANGE HOSTILITIES, AND THE FORMER SAYS A GOOD WORD FOR THE LITTLE WANDERERS.
JABE AND SAMANTHA EXCHANGE HOSTILITIES, AND THE FORMER SAYS A GOOD WORD FOR THE LITTLE WANDERERS.
"God Almighty first planted a garden, and it is indeed the purest of all human pleasures," said Lord Bacon, and Miss Vilda would have agreed with him. Her garden was not simply the purest of all her pleasures, it was her only one; and the love that other people gave to family, friends, or kindred she lavished on her posies.
It was a dear, old-fashioned, odorous garden, where Dame Nature had never been forced but only assisted to do her duty. Miss Vilda sowed her seeds in the springtime wherever there chanced to be room, and they came up and flourished and went to seed just as they liked, those being the only duties required of them. Two splendid groups of fringed "pinies," the pride ofMiss Avilda's heart, grew just inside the gate, and hard by the handsomest dahlias in the village, quilled beauties like carved rosettes of gold and coral and ivory. There was plenty of feathery "sparrowgrass," so handy to fill the black and yawning chasms of summer fireplaces and furnish green for "boquets." There was a stray peach or greengage tree here and there, and if a plain, well-meaning carrot chanced to lift its leaves among the poppies, why, they were all the children of the same mother, and Miss Vilda was not the woman to root out the invader and fling it into the ditch. There was a bed of yellow tomatoes, where, in the season, a hundred tiny golden balls hung among the green leaves; and just beside them, in friendly equality, a tangle of pink sweet-williams, fragrant phlox, delicate bride's-tears, canterbury bells blue as the June sky, none-so-pretties, gay cockscombs, and flaunting marigolds, which would insist on coming up all together, summer after summer, regardless of color harmonies. Last, but not least, there was a patch of sweet peas,
"on tiptoe for a flight,With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white."
These dispensed their sweet odors so generously that it was a favorite diversion among the village children to stand in rows outside the fence, and, elevating their bucolic noses, simultaneously "sniff Miss Cummins' peas." The garden was large enough to have little hills and dales of its own, and its banks sloped gently down to the river. There was a gnarled apple tree hidden by a luxuriant wild grapevine, a fit bower for a "lov'd Celia" or a "fair Rosamond." There was a spring, whose crystal waters were "cabined, cribbed, confined" within a barrel sunk in the earth; a brook singing its way among the alder bushes, and dripping here and there into pools, over which the blue harebells leaned to see themselves. There was a summer-house, too, on the brink of the hill; a weather-stained affair, with a hundred names carved on its venerable lattices,—names of youths and maidens who had stood there in the moonlight and plighted rustic vows.
If you care to feel a warm glow in the region of your heart, imagine little Timothy Jessup sent to play in that garden,—sent to play for almost the first time in his life! Imagine it, I ask, for there are some thingstoo sweet to prick with a pen-point. Timothy stayed there fifteen minutes, and running back to the house in a state of intoxicated delight went up to Samantha, and laying an insistent hand on hers said excitedly, "Oh, Samanthy, you didn't tell me—there is shining water down in the garden; not so big as the ocean, nor so still as the harbor, but a kind of baby river running along by itself with the sweetest noise. Please, Miss Vilda, may I take Gay to see it, and will it hurt it if I wash Rags in it?"
"Let 'em all go," suggested Samantha; "there's Jabe dawdlin' along the road, and they might as well be out from under foot."
"Don't be too hard on Jabe this morning, Samanthy,—he's been to see the Baptist minister at Edgewood; you know he's going to be baptized some time next month."
"Well, he needs it! But land sakes! you couldn't make them Slocums pious 'f you kep' on baptizin' of 'em till the crack o' doom. I never hearn tell of a Slocum's gittin' baptized in July. They allers take 'em after the freshets in the spring o' the year, 'n' then they have to be turrible careful to douse 'em lengthways of the river. Look at him, will ye? I b'lieve he'sgrown sence yesterday! If he'd ever stood stiff on his feet when he was a boy, he needn't 'a' been so everlastin' tall; but he was forever roostin' on fences' with his laigs danglin', 'n' the heft of his feet stretched 'em out,—it couldn't do no dif'rent. I ain't got no patience with him."
"Jabe has considerable many good points," said Miss Cummins loyally; "he's faithful,—you always know where to find him."
"Good reason why," retorted Samantha. "You always know where to find him 'cause he gen'ally hain't moved sence you seen him last. Gittin' religion ain't goin' to help him much. If he ever hears tell 'bout the gate of heaven bein' open 't the last day, he won't 'a' begun to begin thinkin' 'bout gittin' in tell he hears the door shet in his face; 'n' then he'll set ri' down's comf'table's if he was inside, 'n' say, 'Wall, better luck next time: slow an' sure 's my motto!' Good-mornin', Jabe,—had your dinner?"
"I ain't even hed my breakfast," responded Mr. Slocum easily.
"Blessed are the lazy folks, for they always git their chores done for 'em," remarked Samantha scathingly, as she went to the buttery for provisions.
"Wall," said Laigs, looking at her with his most irritating smile, as he sat down at the kitchen table, "I don't find I git thru any more work by tumblin' out o' bed 't sun-up 'n I dew 'f I lay a spell 'n' let the univarse git het up 'n' runnin' a leetle mite. 'Slow 'n' easy goes fur in a day' 's my motto. Rhapseny, she used to say she should think I'd be ashamed to lay abed so late. 'Wall, I be,' s' I, 'but I'd ruther be ashamed 'n git up!' But you're an awful good cook, Samanthy, if ye air allers in a hurry, 'n' if yer hev got a sharp tongue!"
"The less you say 'bout my tongue the better!" snapped Samantha.
"Right you are," answered Jabe with a good-natured grin, as he went on with his breakfast. He had a huge appetite, another grievance in Samantha's eyes. She always said "there was no need of his being so slab-sided 'n' slack-twisted 'n' knuckle-jointed,—that he eat enough in all conscience, but he wouldn't take the trouble to find the victuals that would fat him up 'n' fill out his bag o' bones."
Just as Samantha's well-cooked viands began to disappear in Jabe's capacious mouth (he always ate precisely as if he were stoking an engine) his eye rested upon a strange object by the wood-box, and he put down his knife and ejaculated, "Well, I swan! Now when 'n' where'd I see that baby-shay? Why, 't was yesterday. Well, I vow, them young ones was comin' here, was they?"
"What young ones?" asked Miss Vilda, exchanging astonished glances with Samantha.
"And don't begin at the book o' Genesis 'n' go clean through the Bible, 's you gen'ally do. Start right in on Revelations, where you belong," put in Samantha; for to see a man unexpectedly loaded to the muzzle with news, and too lazy to fire it off, was enough to try the patience of a saint; and even David Milliken would hardly have applied that term to Samantha Ann Ripley.
"Give a feller time to think, will yer?" expostulated Jabe, with his mouth full of pie. "Everything comes to him as waits 'd be an awful good motto for you! Where'd I see 'em? Why, I fetched 'em as fur as the cross-roads myself."
"Well, I never!" "I want to know!" cried the two women in one breath.
"I picked 'em up out on the road, a little piece this side o' the station. 'T was at the top o' Marm Berry's hill, that's jest where 't was. The boy was trudgin' along draggin' the baby 'n' the basket, 'n' I thought I'd give him a lift, so s' I, 'Goin' t' the Swamp or t' the Falls?' s' I. 'To the Falls,' s' 'e. 'Git in,' s' I, ''n' I'll give yer a ride, 'f y' ain't in no hurry,' s' I. So in he got, 'n' the baby tew. When I got putty near home, I happened ter think I'd oughter gone roun' by the tan'ry 'n' picked up the Widder Foss, 'n' so s' I, 'I ain't goin' no nearer to the Falls; but I guess your laigs is good for the balance o' the way, ain't they?' s' I. 'I guess they be!' s' 'e. Then he thanked me 's perlite's Deacon Sawyer's first wife, 'n' I left him 'n' his folks in the road where I found 'em."
"Didn't you ask where he belonged nor where he was bound?"
"'T ain't my way to waste good breath askin' questions 't ain't none o' my bis'ness," replied Mr. Slocum.
"You're right, it ain't," responded Samantha, as she slammed the milk-pans inthe sink; "'n' it's my hope that some time when you get good and ready to ask somebody somethin' they'll be in too much of a hurry to answer you!"
"Be they any of your folks, Miss Vildy?" asked Jabe, grinning with delight at Samantha's ill humor.
"No," she answered briefly.
"What yer cal'latin' ter do with 'em?"
"I haven't decided yet. The boy says they haven't got any folks nor any home; and I suppose it's our duty to find a place for 'em. I don't see but we've got to go to the expense of takin' 'em back to the city and puttin' 'em in some asylum."
"How'd they happen to come here?"
"They ran away from the city yesterday, and they liked the looks of this place; that's all the satisfaction we can get out of 'em, and I dare say it's a pack of lies."
"That boy wouldn't tell a lie no more 'n a seraphim!" said Samantha tersely.
"You can't judge folks by appearances," answered Vilda. "But anyhow, don't talk to the neighbors, Jabe; and if you haven't got anything special on hand to-day, I wish you'd patch the roof of the summer house and dig us a mess of beet greens. Keepthe children with you, and see what you make of 'em; they're playin' in the garden now."
"All right. I'll size 'em up the best I ken, tho' mebbe it'll hender me in my work some; but time was made for slaves, as the molasses said when they told it to hurry up in winter time."
Two hours later, Miss Vilda looked from the kitchen window and saw Jabez Slocum coming across the road from the garden. Timothy trudged beside him, carrying the basket of greens in one hand, and the other locked in Jabe's huge paw; his eyes upturned and shining with pleasure, his lips moving as if he were chattering like a magpie. Lady Gay was just where you might have expected to find her, mounted on the towering height of Jabe's shoulder, one tiny hand grasping his weather-beaten straw hat, while with the other she whisked her willing steed with an alder switch which had evidently been cut for that purpose by the victim himself.
"That's the way he's sizin' of 'em up," said Samantha, leaning over Vilda's shoulder with a smile. "I'll bet they've sized him up enough sight better 'n he has them!"
Jabe left the children outside, and came in with the basket. Putting his hat in the wood-box and hitching up his trousers impressively, he sat down on the settle.
"Them ain't no children to be wanderin' about the earth afoot 'n' alone, 'same 's Hitty went to the beach;' nor they ain't any common truck ter be put inter 'sylums 'n' poor-farms. There's some young ones that's so everlastin' chuckle-headed 'n' hombly 'n' contrairy that they ain't hardly wuth savin'; but these ain't that kind. The baby, now you've got her cleaned up, is han'somer 'n any baby on the river, 'n' a reg'lar chunk o' sunshine besides. I'd be willin' ter pay her a little suthin' for livin' alongside. The boy—well, the boy is a extra-ordinary boy. We got on tergether's slick as if we was twins. That boy's got idees, that's what he's got; 'n' he's likely to grow up into—well, 'most anything."
"If you think so highly of 'em, why don't you adopt 'em?" asked Miss Vilda curtly. "That's what they seem to think folks ought to do."
"I ain't sure but I shall," Mr. Slocum responded unexpectedly. "If you can't find a better home for 'em somewheres, I ain'tsure but I'll take 'em myself. Land sakes! if Rhapseny was alive I'd adopt 'em quicker 'n blazes; but marm won't take to the idee very strong, I don't s'pose, 'n' she ain't much on bringin' up children, as I ken testify. Still, she's a heap better 'n a brick asylum with a six-foot stone wall round it, when yer come to that. But I b'lieve we ken do better for 'em. I can say to folks, 'See here: here's a couple o' smart, han'some children. You can have 'em for nothin', 'n' needn't resk the onsartainty o' gittin' married 'n' raisin' yer own; 'n' when yer come ter that, yer wouldn't stan' no charnce o' gittin' any as likely as these air, if ye did.'"
"That's true as the gospel!" said Samantha. It nearly killed her to agree with him, but the words were fairly wrung from her unwilling lips by his eloquence and wisdom.
"Well, we'll see what we can do for 'em," said Vilda in a non-committal tone; "and here they'll have to stay, for all I see, tell we can get time to turn round and look 'em up a place."
"And the way their edjercation has been left be," continued Mr. Slocum, "is a burnin' shame in a Christian country. I don' b'lieve they ever see the inside of a school-house! I've learned 'em more this mornin' 'n they ever hearn tell of before, but they're 's ignorant 's Cooper's cow yit. They don' know tansy from sorrel, nor slip'ry ellum from pennyroyal, nor burdock from pigweed; they don' know a dand'lion from a hole in the ground; they don' know where the birds put up when it comes on night; they never see a brook afore, nor a bull-frog; they never hearn tell o' cat-o'-nine-tails, nor jack-lanterns, nor see-saws. Land sakes! we got ter talkin' 'bout so many things that I clean forgot the summer-house roof. But there! this won't do for me: I must be goin'; there ain't no rest for the workin'-man in this country."
"If there wa'n't no work for him, he'd be wuss off yet," responded Samantha.
"Right ye are, Samanthy! Look here, when 'd you want that box you give me to fix?"
"I wanted it before hayin', but I s'pose any time before Thanksgivin' 'll do, seein' it's you."
"What's wuth doin' 't all 's wuth takin' time over, 's my motto," said Jabe cheerfully, "but seein' it's you, I'll nail that cover on ter night or bust!"