Nobody's Rose

Through Cousin Allen Gloin’s wife’s sister, who lived in Horsham, Rose occasionally heard of the Hagoods, and the year after she left there was surprised by the news of Mrs. Hagood’s death.

“Mr. Hagood takes it real hard,” added her informant, “and says he don’t know how he’s ever going to get along without Almiry. Some folks thinks it’s put on, but for my part I don’t.”

“No, indeed,” had been Rose’s answer, “I think he had grown so used to her ordering him around that now he does feel lost without it.”

It was not quite two years later when one day, returning from school, Rose found a horse and buggy standing at the Blossom gate. This of itself was nothing unusual, for the business of Mrs. Patience and Miss Silence brought a large share of the Farmdale people, as well as those outside its limits, to their door. But as Rose gave a second look in passing at the fat old horse and stout buggy, she suddenly realized that she had known both before, and quickening her steps she rushed into the house to find Mr. Hagood, with Rover sitting upright beside him, waiting her coming. His was the same familiar figure she remembered so well—thin, grizzled, slightly stooping; but Rose saw almost in the first glance, that his motions were brisker than in the days when she had known him, that his whiskers had been trimmed, that his hat brim had taken an upward tendency, and his eyes had lost their furtive, timid glance; in short, that there had been a change in the whole man, slight but still palpable, in the direction of cheerful, self-assertive manhood.

“Well, now, Posey,” was his greeting, as he held both her hands and smiled till his face was all a-crinkle, “if it don’t beat natur’ how you’ve growed! An’ prettier than ever, I declare! I tell you I was reel tickled when I heerd how well you was fixed, an’ that you’d found out your reel name, an’ your ma’s relations. You don’t look much like the little girl Almiry brought home with her from the Refuge.”

“And that you gave the russet apples to?” Rose’s eyes were twinkling, but the tears were very near them as she recalled that day of her arrival at the Hagood home.

“So I did, to be sure. Well, Posey—if you hev got another name you’ll always be Posey to me—we did hev some good times together, didn’t we?”

Then they talked over the pleasant memories of their companionship, with a mutual care avoiding those whose suggestiveness might be the opposite. The only allusion he made to her leaving was, “Rover an’ me did miss you dreadfully when you went away, we just did. An’ so to-day, as I had to come over this way, I said to Rover, ‘We’ll stop an’ see Posey, we will.’ I’m glad we did, too, an’ I just believe Rover knows you.” And Rover, with his head on Rose’s knee and her hand smoothing his silky ears, gently thumped his tail on the floor, as if in affirmative.

Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “I was sorry you an’ Almiry couldn’t fit together better; she meant well, Almiry did, but you know she’d never had any little girls of her own.” And as if fearful that he had cast some reflection on her memory he hastened to add, “Almiry was a wonderful woman. I tell you I met with a big loss when I lost her, I just did, an’ for a spell I was about broke up.” He paused with the query, “I s’pose you’d heard she was dead?”

“Yes, but I never heard the particulars. Was she sick long?”

“No; it come so onexpected it just about floored me, it did. You see she was taken with a chill, an’ she kep’ a gettin’ colder’n colder, in spite o’ everythin’ we could giv’ her, an’ do for her. Why, it did seem that what with the hot things we give her to drink, an’ the hot things we kep’ around her, that if she’d been a stone image ’twould a warmed her through; but they didn’t do a mite o’ good, not one mite. She was took early one morning, an’ late the next night I was warmin’ a flannel to lay on her. I het it so ’twas all a-smokin’, but she couldn’t feel nothin’, an’ she give it a fling, an’ riz half up in bed an’ spoke, just as natural as she ever did, ‘Elnathan Hagood, I don’t believe you’ve hed that nigh the stove; what ails you that you can’t half do a thing? I’ve a good mind to get up and heat some flannel as it ought to be done. I won’t hev any till I do.’ An’ with that she fell right back on her piller, an’ never breathed ag’in. I tell you I was all broke up.”

Rose did not know what she ought to say, so she said nothing.

Mr. Hagood hesitated, cleared his throat, and remarked in an inquiring tone, “Mebby you’ve heard that I was married again?”

It was Rose’s turn to be surprised. “No, indeed, I’ve heard nothing from Horsham since Mrs. Gloin’s sister left there. But I’m glad if you have.”

“Be you really?” his face brightening. “Well, now, you see,” with the confidential tone Rose remembered so well, “mebby some folks’ld think I hadn’t orter done such a thing. But I tell you after a man has had a home as many years as I had it’s kinder tough to be without one. I couldn’t live alone; Rover an’ I tried that, an’ everything got messed up dreadful; keepin’ a hired girl wasn’t much better; an’ to eat my victuals at somebody else’s table didn’t seem reel natural, now it didn’t.

“I thought if Almiry knew all the circumstances she wouldn’t blame me none ef I did marry. An’ there was Mirandy Fraser, Jim Fraser’s widow—don’t know as you ever knew her, a mighty pretty little woman—she was havin’ a hard time to get along with her two little girls, for Jim never was noways forehanded. So I figured it out that she needed a home, an’ I needed some one to make a home; an’ the long an’ short of it is I married her. An’ the plan’s worked first rate, well now it has. She ain’t such a manager,” he admitted, “as Almiry was; but then,” with a touch of pride, “I don’t suppose it would be easy to find Almiry’s equal there. But I’ll say this, I never did see Mirandy’s match for bein’ pleasant. I don’t believe anybody ever heerd her speak cross, I really don’t. She’s so contented, too, with everything; hasn’t given me the first fault-findin’ word yet, not the first one.”

“How nice that is!” Rose rejoined heartily.

“An’ the little girls,” all the lines on Mr. Hagood’s face deepened into a tender smile as he spoke of them, “Susy an’ Ruth, I just wish you could see them; there never were two prettier-behaved children, if I do say it. They like to come out an’ sit in the shop when I’m at work there, just as you used to, an’, well, they an’ Rover an’ me has some pretty good times together.”

Rose smiled. “I don’t believe they enjoy it any more than I did.”

“I don’t work so much in the shop, though,” he added, “for I’ve a good deal to look after. I’m over this way now on business. The fact of the matter is,” an accent of dejection creeping into his tone, “I’ve made a bad bargain. Ever since Almiry went I’ve kept everything up straight as a string, an’ haven’t lost a dollar till now. I s’pose she’d say it was all my fault, an’ so it is,” growing more and more depressed; “for I suppose I ought to hev known better than to hev ever lent Tom Hodges a hundred dollars. When he moved away from Horsham he couldn’t pay me, but he’d got a good place as foreman in a mill, an’ promised it all right. That was eight months ago, an’ I’ve never seen a single cent, so I made up my mind I’d go over there an’ look him up, an’ I found Tom to-day down with the rheumatism, not able to do a stroke o’ work, an’ they looked in pretty bad shape—well, now they did. Of course he couldn’t pay me, said he hadn’t but two dollars in money, but there was a cow, I could take that towards it ef I wanted to. But bless you, there was four little children who would hev to go without milk ef I took the cow, an’ I told Tom I’d wait on him till he could earn the money, which just the same as meant that I’d give it to him, for crippled up as he is he can’t more’n take care of his family. An’ when I come away I handed his wife five dollars; she looked as though she needed it, an’ they’ve both always done as well as they could. I don’t know what Almiry’d say ef she could know it. But hang it all!” giving his hat a slap on his knee, “Mirandy said not to be hard on ’em, an’ it won’t kill me ef I do lose it.

“No, I can’t stay all night,” in answer to Rose’s invitation. “I brought Mirandy an’ the little girls to my Cousin Em’ly’s, ten mile from here, an’ they’ll be lookin’ for me back. But I wish you’d come an’ see us, Posey,” as he rose to go. “I’ve told Mirandy about you, an’ she’d do everything to make it pleasant. We haven’t changed things any to speak of since you was there, only we live more in the front part o’ the house. I couldn’t help feelin’ at first that Almiry wouldn’t like it, but I wanted to make it pleasant for Mirandy an’ the children, an’ you know it wasn’t what you could call reel cheerful in that back kitchen.”

“And can Rover come in the house now?” asked Rose.

“Yes, Rover comes in, an’ we hev the front blinds open, an’ evenin’s last winter we’d hev apples an’ nuts an’ popcorn, ’most as though it was a party. You know,” with a broad smile, “I never had any children o’ my own before, an’ I sort o’ enjoy havin’ some little girls to call me ‘Pa.’”

Rose had come out along the walk with Mr. Hagood. As they paused at the gate he glanced around to be sure that no one but her could hear him, then lowering his voice as though fearing it might reach the ears of the departed Mrs. Hagood, he added confidentially, “An’ to tell the truth, Posey, just betwixt you and me, I never was so happy before in my life as I be now.”