"Did you 'broider this cloth, Aunt July?" asked Mrs. Doggett when the old negress was folding the cloth.
"Naw'm, I wuz a field gal in de ole times: I nuvver larnt much o' de needle. Dis heah kiver," she said oracularly, "come to me! Hit used to belong to a town lady what allus has a passel o' gal company a hankerin' after dey fortunes!"
"I used to do 'broidery and all sech," sighed Mrs. Doggett. "I made ever' thread o' my onderclothes 'broidered; but, after I married and got to havin' chillern, I quit all nice work!"
"You's had yoah sheer o' hard times wid work and young uns, ain't you?" commiserated the old negress, with her eyes on Mrs. Doggett's long slender hands, with their big veins, and curved thumbs.
"Hain't I, though!" agreed Mrs. Doggett: "not two years between none o' 'em. I'd 'a' ruther had five pairs o' twins than ten chillern so clost together, but I didn't have my ruthers. I used to have to put the bed post on the baby's dress when I went to the spreng, to keep hit from crawlin' in the fire, and lead the next youngest one with me! Law, hain't chillern warryin' on a woman!
"They plague a body worse'n the each a gittin' in thengs! 'Ma,' I'd say when I used to go to my mother's, and she'd have to put up her aigs and ever' theng out'n the way o' the chillern: 'Ma, I'd give anytheng ef my chillern wuz all grown! I'd have so much more pleasure a visitin' you!' And Ma'd say: 'Aw hush, Ann, they're a trompin' on your toes now, but after a while they'll be a trompin' on your heart!'
"But 'tain't turned out that way altogether with me. My boys hain't got no education, nary un but Joey, and he used to slip off to school, and learnt some. They all spent their school days in the terbaccer. I used to bag Eph a many a time to quit raisin' hit, and let the chillern git some schoolin', but he wouldn't, and ef I hadn't jest spread out and nigh killed myse'f, a doin' all the work at the house myse'f, so's the girls could go to school in the falls, they'd 'a' been like the boys.
"Eph, he never insisted on the girls workin' none in the terbaccer like a heap does, but pore Callie, she wuz the oldest of our chillern, and she wanted to holp her pap when the others wuz little, and she'd work in the patch in the summers, and after she quit goin' to school. And gittin' wet all over ever' mornin' after the terbaccer got up, a wormin' and a suckerin' while the dew wuz on, wuz the startin' o' the consumption that killed her—I know hit wuz.
"I used to say when she come in, sengin', makin' like she wuzn't tired ner warried, so's not to pester me,—'Callie, child, I'm afeerd fer you to git wet this away,'—but she'd jest say, 'Ma, I don't reckon hit'll hurt me, and maybe ef we have a good crop this year I can save enough from hirin' to git us a new sewin'-machine!' But we never have got able to git no new machine yit, and Callie, my little Callie—"
Mrs. Doggett's lips quivered and the tears streamed down her face.
"Doan' grieve, Mis' Ann, honey, doan' grieve," besought old July, laying a soothing hand on Mrs. Doggett's slender shaking shoulder,—a tear of sympathy standing on each withered cheek: "de chile ain' seein' no moah hard times, nuvver no moah."
Mrs. Doggett wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. "Callie wuz my best child, but my chillern are all good chillern, and," she added, a little pathetic note of defiance as to the world's opinion in her voice, "they've got pride about their clothes, and they know how to behave in comp'ny, ef they hain't got schoolin',—though some the boys is learnin' some sence they married: their wives is a teachin' 'em a little."
"Well, anyway," broke in Aunt July, "dey's de mannerest boys I knows. 'Scuse me for sayin' so, Mis' Ann, 'foah you, but most dem ole 'baccer folks, dey don't teach dey young uns nothin'. De old uns ain't got a speck o' manners deyselves. Sometimes I passes 'em out on de road, and dey'll be drunk, reelin' and a fallin' in fence corners. Dey'll holler at me disrespectful like, 'How are you, honey? Hi da', granny!' I nuvver 'turns 'em no answer—jest looks t'other way.
"But ef one yoah boys is out anywha' and don't see no moah o' me dan my coat-tail, he'll holler at hit, and speak and axe me how I comes on, and lif' his hat when he goes on, as respectful as you please; and de gals is jest de same. How is de gals gittin' along now, Mis' Ann?"
"The best kind, both of 'em!" replied Mrs. Doggett. "Johnny, Hattie's man, he's a clerkin' in a store now, and gits her a heap o' new thengs. Don't you thenk, he's got her a new orgin! Got hit cheap on account o' one o' the peddlers bein' a little out o' prepare; but 'tain't one o' them cheap orgins that don't sound no better'n a hog rubbin' agin a splinter! Hattie can't play on hit, but then company can, and an orgin's nice furnichur anyway."
"Yes, 'tis dat!" agreed Aunt July. "I seed one when I wuz on my trip. I reckon you ain't heerd 'bout me bein' on a trip 'foah Christmas? I rid' on de cyar-train for de fust time!"
"O mercy goodness, you know you didn't!" Mrs. Doggett gaped incredulously. "Did you go to see your gran'chillern in Indianopolus?"
A look of the liveliest scorn enveloped Aunt July.
"What'd I go to see dem black rapscallions for? Dey don't keer nothin' for dey folks now,—done gone off after style and fast livin'! Last spreng when dey pap, my Jimmy, wuz sick in town wid de typhoot fever, I had a letter son't 'em, and Jimmy mout 'a' died and been th'owed to de buzzards for all dem ciderette-smokin' clothes hosses keered. Dey nuvver son't de scratch o' a pen p'int den nor sence to esquire about his edition!
"Naw'm! I went to see Bru'h. Bru'h, he'd been desistin' on me comin' for a long time, but I wuz feerd—feerd de cyar-train. Dat big storm dey had down da' las' Februray wuz a year, blowed down de meetin'-house,—de ole one wha' Bru'h kep' his membership—plumb demoralized hit, hit bein' on a hill top, and when dey got de shengles on dey new meetin'-house, Bru'h writ me be shoah to come down, dey wuz gwine offer dey new church to de Lawd, and gwine hold a big 'traction meetin' right after de des'cration—and son't me a ticklet to come on. Jimmy—he desisted so, I give up and went."
"I do thenk!" ejaculated Mrs. Doggett.
"Yes'm," continued Aunt July: "my cousin what sweeps at de depot-house, he offered resist me on de cyar-train, bein's I's sorter stove up wid de rheumaty, and can't clamb extry. When de cyar-train kim a steamin', a tootin', and a cavortin' up, I looked 'round for de conductor man he said would holp him resist me in de cyar-train; but I didn't see nobody but a big soldier man and atween 'em, dey resisted me to climb de steps, and den de Gineral, he toted in my cyarpet satchel.
"Lawd, I wuz so skeered! My laigs give way and I sunk down on one de red cordumeroy sofys, limber as a piece o' rennet what's been in soak. When de startin'-out pull kim, I cotched hold dem wooden arms of de divan and held on like a bull-dog to a hog's hind leg. Den de conductor man (him I mistook for a Brigadier Gineral) axed me for my ticklet.
"'Gineral,' I managed to sorter gasp out, dough my dry tongue wuz stuck to de ruff o' my mouf, 'you kin look in my cyarpet-satchel, I dast resk lettin' go!'
"Den he say when we git to de next stop, he'll come back and I kin git hit out myse'f. O mortal man, how I suffered in my mind whilst we wuz flyin' along! Ever' onct in a while, I'd look out'n de winder and ef you'll believe me, Mis' Ann, de cabbage heads in folks' patches we passed didn't pear no bigger dan good-sizes marbles! De train run 'long all right 'bout fifteen minutes, and my top insides 'gun to sorter ease down out'n my swallow, when we kim to a bridge; den I seed a little thread o' water 'way down below de trussle works.
"Den a young man who had been doin' a power o' laughin' and talkin' to a young gal settin' 'longside him on de sofy behind me, he axed de gal didn't she know de bridge we wuz on been condemned as dangerous. I 'lowed ef dat wuz de trufe, we wuz gone den, shoah. I give one sque'l, 'good-bye, world!' Den I let go de sofy arms and slid down on de floah and hid my head onder de sofy.
"Terrectly de conductor man teched me on de shoulder. 'Aunty, are you skeered?' he said. I wuz so bad off in my feelin's, I couldn't answer. Den a nice white lady on de settee in front (she had on sech elegant clo'se, I know she must 'a' been de richest woman dat ever wore a dress!) she kim 'round and told me da' wouldn't nothin' hurt me, and 'suaded me to git upon de divan ag'in: den she tuck some lemon pie out'n a little basket (de best pie I ever wrapped lip around), and I kindah come to myse'f and wiped my eyes. And befoah I knowed hit, de sun wuz nigh down, de conductor wuz a hollerin' out 'Mansfield!' and we wuz da'!
"I wuz so happy I blowed out real hard, and I wuz mighty oneasy for fear I'd busted de band o' my cashmere skeert, but de stitches helt tight. De fust theng I done after I sot my foots on de firm groun' wuz to set my cyarpet satchel down on de platform and feel o' my arms and laigs to see ef dey wuz all da after dat forty miles churnin'.
"'Thank de lawd, I's all heah!' I says sorter loud like, and den sich a titterin' as come from dem cyar-train winders from dem young folks what sot behind me, I nuvver heerd. I says, 'Missy be shamed! Who gwine b'leeve but what de fust time you rid' on de cyar-train, you felt to see ef you wuz all da too!' And, ef you will b'leeve me Mis' Ann, de tightness o' his skin wuz all dat kept dat young man settin by her from bustin' hisse'f!"
"The onmannerly theng!" scoffed Mrs. Doggett, sympathetically. "Some them town folks is mighty biggety."
The subject on her mind was pressing, and she hastened to lead up to it by a judicious question.
"Have any them town gals been out lately to find out about their futures, Aunt July?"
"Dat gal o' de widow Russell's—she wuz de last one out. Da's a new young man what's come to de town, and she's got acquainted wid him at one dem church s'ciety meetin's. I nuvver kin call de name right, so I jest gives hit de sound, and lets hit go at dat—de Christian devil s'ciety. I could see she'd be willin' to give all de shoes in her shop for him. Her high-steppin' ma, dough, she said 'foah she'd see her gal married to a poor man like him, she'd ruther see her dead, and buried in de colored folks' graveyard, wid only one mouner to foller her to de grave and dat one her mother, on foot a walkin'!"
"Did the young lady go home satisfied with what she heerd from you?" queried Mrs. Doggett.
"Did de moon change las' month? Do de ground git wet when hit rain?" laughed the old negress.
"I got some terbaccer and a squirrel, and a sack o' sausage on the buggy seat fer you, Aunt July: s'pose we breng 'em in, and then I'll git you to tell me some thengs. Hit's gittin' late, and I'll have to git along soon."
"De weddin' trouble! Dat's hit—dat's hit!" nodded the old seeress, when after a voluble flow of thanks for the presents, she brought out a coffee-cup and peered solemnly at the grounds in its bottom. "I sees a dark-haared woman, a kind woman, wid two beaux. One of 'em a slim man, t'other un's a big man. De woman gwine marry one dem men, but not widout de resistance o' a black-haared woman. Dis black-haared woman bound to resist de makin' o' dis marriage. She jest can't holp hit. A brown-haared woman too, gwine resist de makin' o' de marriage. I sees letters in de cup. Dar's gwine be found and handed over to de right person a letter dat'll hasten de marriage."
"Can you see which one the men'll git the woman, Aunt July?" Mrs. Doggett leaned forward eagerly.
"De most worthy man—he gwine win her—dat man dat's travelled much, dat's seed a heap o' de country, he's de one!"
"What will the black-haired woman have to do, Aunt July?" besought Mrs. Doggett.
"Why, she'll jes hab to keep her eyes open, and do what she kin. She'll hab to walk and talk, and bofe bemean and brag! But she must be cunnun' like de sarpent, and act quick like de sarpent, or what she tryin' to breng about won't come to pass."
"But hit will come to pass, ef the woman acts right?" persisted Mrs. Doggett.
"Yes, I sees a marriage. I sees a man half distracted 'long 'bout de time de blue grass gits ripe, but he'll git her, he'll git her. I sees a couple standin' afore de preacher. He'll make her a good livin'."
"Like he's done his wife afore this one?" suggested Mrs. Doggett, hopefully.
"I don't see no marriage befoah dis un," said July, vaguely: "de grounds is too black to see back, but I see from de weddin'-day on, dey gwine live in happiness and contempt!"
Mrs. Doggett drove homeward in a state of ecstasy. In the prophetess' vague words she saw the certain marriage of Miss Lucy James and Mr. Galvin Brock. Of a surety Mr. Brock was the man who would "make a good living" for her, and was he not the most worthy? Perhaps Mr. Lindsay had travelled as much as Mr. Brock, but Mrs. Doggett cast this uneasy thought aside. Surely Mr. Brock was the fortunate man.
Mrs. Doggett reached her home in a drizzling rain: her bonnet was drooping, and her vehicle, and dress were heavily splashed with mud, when she drove slowly in the yard, the pigs trotting placidly behind.
"How's Bob Ed?" asked Mr. Doggett as he assisted her to alight.
"Now Eph," Mrs. Doggett's voice was full of remonstrance, "did you thenk I wuz a goin' yonside town with them pigs a trailin' me?"
"I hadn't missed them peegs: did they foller ye?" Mr. Doggett's grin irritated Mrs. Doggett.
"I reckon they did!" she complained, "and I jest had to creep! I wuz afeerd ef I went through town they'd be picked up on Wild Cat Row, maybe, so I jest went across the river to see old July Pullins, and tuck the pigs with me."
"Over that road? Well, I do know!"
"Yes, over that road!" Mrs. Doggett jerked out resentfully: "and I had a plumb skeer a comin' back. Don't you thenk, yonside the bridge, I met one them aut'mobile waggins—a red painted one—the reddest theng this side o' predition! Big Money, he 'lowed that horn the feller blowed when he seed us, wuz old Gab'el's trump, I reckon. He come a one o' killin' me! He tuck to backin', and ef that man hadn't jumped out and ketcht holt the bridle, and helt him while t'other man driv' that red devil past us, he'd 'a' backed plumb over into the river!"
"Well, that wuz kind o' him!" remarked Mr. Doggett.
"He wuz a mighty polite, takin' kind o' man," continued Mrs. Doggett. "They must 'a' been a couple them Northern milli'n'ers out on a ja'nt. They wuzn't our kind o' people. I wished I'd 'a' asked that un that helt Big Money, who he wuz, but I wuz so pestered, hit never come in my mind onct!"
"I thought after you started, I'd ort to 'a' went with you," condoled Mr. Doggett, "although the terbaccer needed me mighty bad; but you got back all right fer all your trouble, ef I didn't go. A body has a heap to be thankful fer, now don't they?"
"Well hit hain't no matter now," Mrs. Doggett philosophized, taking off her forlorn bonnet, "though ef I'd 'a' knew hit wuz a gona rain I wouldn't 'a' went."
"With the lips meanwhile she can honor it! Oil of flattery, the best antifriction known, subdues all irregularities whatsoever."
A slight stiffness of limb next morning held Mrs. Doggett an unwilling prisoner in bed, until a somewhat later hour than she arose on the day of her visit to the seeress, and by eight o'clock, when she had gotten her morning's work done, the snow, which had begun to fall at daybreak, was full six inches deep.
The exigencies of the case, however, according to the seeress, permitted no delay, and Mrs. Doggett's purpose was not to be thwarted by any sort of weather, or sundry twinges in her joints.
She slipped on an old pair of Mr. Doggett's brown woolen socks over her Sunday shoes, tied her head carefully in a little gray breakfast shawl, in lieu of the clover-stitched sun-bonnet (drooping on its nail from the exposure of the day before), and wrapped herself in an old thick, black "dolman."
Lily Pearl seized the broom.
"Lemme sweep you a little road out to the gate, Mammy!"
"No honey, I don't want you to do that," her grandmother, who still struggled with the hooks of the dolman, answered her. "Sweepin'll spread your hands so's they won't look nice to play chunes on the orgin!"
The child ran to her grandmother and buried her face, quivering with ecstatic anticipation, in her neck.
"Oh Mammy," she breathed, "will I have a orgin to play on, sometime?"
Mrs. Doggett forgot her hurry, and sat down with the child clasped close in her arms.
"Lord, yes, darlin'," she assured her, "and maybe a pieanner, too'll be a settin' in t'other corner o' your parler. I don't never intend these little hands shall ever tech a cow's teat, ner do nary theng that'll rough 'em! I want 'em to be slim and delicate like them little bird claws o' Mrs. Castle's, when you air a grown lady! You won't never thenk hard o' Mammy when she wants you to wear your bonnet clost, and keep your shoes on in summer, will you, honey? She don't want your feet to never git big, and wants you to be raised white complected, agin the time you git to wearin' silk dresses with trails on 'em ever' day!"
Lily Pearl clasped the prospective "bird claws" in a thrill of delight. "Will I have money to buy candy fer Dock and me, when I git big, Mammy?" she queried hopefully.
Mrs. Doggett smiled, as remembering her errand, she put the little girl down. "Lord, yes, you'll be goin' 'round a tradin' in the stores, maybe carryin' a roll o' bills so big a cow couldn't swaller 'em!"
After cautioning the child to watch the fire until her return, with skirts held well aloft, Mrs. Doggett took the path that led over the hill a quarter of a mile to the James' house.
To her infinite satisfaction, while she divested herself of her wraps and her unconventional overshoes on Miss Nancy's kitchen hearth, where that lady sat, with a pressing-board on her lap, and a basket of scraps beside her, Mrs. Doggett learned that Miss Lucy had gone to town with the marketing, and that Mr. Lindsay had ridden to the store, two miles away, for the mail.
"You ain't been up lately, Mrs. Doggett," Miss Nancy remarked, reluctantly drawing her three flat-irons aside, so that her visitor might share a portion of the meagre fire with them: "ain't you been well?"
"Me? No, I hain't been well. I been a complainin' ever sence Christmas, from the top o' my head to the sole o' my foot. I thenk I must have bile on the liver, I complain so much with a ketch in the back."
"Mother used to use plasters for her back, sometimes," observed Miss Nancy.
"These here Polish plasters, I reckon," volunteered Mrs. Doggett: "I've bought 'em too, but they never done me no good. They's a new-fashioned kind o' plasters, I fergit the name. They writ on and wanted Marshall and Dock to be agents fer: I don't know how in the world they ever got holt o' their names. I been aimin' to try them, but a heap o' them remedies hain't nary bit o' count after you pay your money fer 'em.
"Whenever I go up to Susy's, when the bell rings, me and her always takes down the receiver, and evedraps the tillephorm, and last time I wuz thar, I heerd Mrs. Fetter a 'phoamin' to Miss Maud Floss about Bottum's medicine a bein' good rheumatiz medicine, and I got a little bottle, and tuck hit jest as prompt as I could, and hit never done nary bit o' good. I tuck hit by the directions, too. I dunno what causes me to have the rheumatiz so, fer I always wear red flannel underwear next to my skin, bein's hit's so good fer the rheumatiz."
Miss Nancy was not patient with Mrs. Doggett's health history.
"I heard Jim'd been complainin'," she cited without comment.
"Yes, Jim's been broke out all over his body. It tarrified him awful fer a while; he jest couldn't git nary minute o' rest ontel he got somethin' from the doctor fer hit. The doctor said his blood was out o' fix.
"He hadn't never been so bad off sence he quit killin' cats! He used to love to kill cats, Miss Nancy, better'n anytheng! And he never had no luck at nothin'. He tuck stomach trouble, and jest drinneled away to nothin', and I jest made him quit killin' cats. Sence he's had this eruptive spell, though, he's been a workin' all the time jest the same! Seems like a body jest has to keep a goin', sick er well, ef they 'spect to have anytheng!"
"That's what I tell Lucy," Miss Nancy commented briefly, with considerable emphasis.
"I've got to do a big ir'nin' termorrer, fer though I wuzn't no ways able," explained Mrs. Doggett, "I done a big washin' the first o' the week. Ever' blessed theng wuz dirty. How many shirts you reckon I put out?"
"I have no idy," acknowledged Miss Nancy.
"Twenty-five white shirts, besides three apiece o' their ever'days!"
"That's a mighty big washin'," observed Miss Nancy, stooping to pick up a piece of green cashmere.
"Now hain't hit?" Mrs. Doggett went on, in genial disregard of the unbelief in her listener's tone: "but laws, that hain't nothin' to the big washin's I done along in the early fall at terbaccer-cuttin' time. I like to 'a' killed myse'f then. Their shirts and overhalls wuz all over gum offen the terbaccer, the awfulest lookin' sights that ever you seed: and I had to bile half the thengs in Jimpson leaf tea to git the stain out'n 'em. And when they got through housin' the terbaccer, and I had the beds to strip, and the bed clothes to wash, my clothes line wuz a plumb sight to see!"
Thinking her conversation on general topics had been of sufficient length, Mrs. Doggett began adroitly to lead up to the object of her visit, by a little judicious flattery.
"You're a lookin' well, now, Miss Nancy"; she fastened her keen black eyes on Miss Nancy's dun-colored hair and forbidding eyes: "me and Mr. Brock wuz a talkin' about you night afore last, and I says: 'Actually and candidly, Miss Nancy is the best lookin' and the finest lookin' of any that family!'"
Miss Nancy uttered no word to indicate that she heard this bare-faced compliment, but the pleased red that crept slowly over her countenance was sufficient encouragement for Mrs. Doggett.
"Somebody wuz a tellin' me t'other day," she continued, "I believe hit wuz Henrietty, Jim's wife,—that Mr. West'd tuck to lookin' around ag'in, and he'd been a sendin' word he wanted to come to see you er Miss Lucy."
"Wantin'll be all then!" Miss Nancy gave a slight toss of her head.
"I don't blame you fer sayin' that. As little a chunk as he is, and as low to the ground, ef him and a fine tall woman like you wuz to walk in church together, he'd look like a reticule a hangin' onto your arm." Mrs. Doggett measured Miss Nancy's ungainly figure with an approving eye.
"More than that, ef looks wuz suitable," Miss Nancy spoke abruptly, "I ain't a wantin' no widower with eight childern! When I marry, ef ever I do, it'll be a man without a family, with a good home, and money, but I ain't—"
"You're satisfied like you are, hain't you?" broke in Mrs. Doggett. "You hain't one o' them kind to jump off and marry jest to have hit said you're married! A heap marries, a thenkin' ef they jest have a husband, they'll never have need fer nothin' else, but when they're married, they find they need ever'theng but the husband, and they don't need him at all! I told 'em all t'other night, you wuzn't a pickin', but ef you wuz, hit'd be somebody like Vaughn Castle, er Frank Arnold, your cousin, Effie Esther Willises' man,—not a man like,—"
"Like who?" Miss Nancy looked up quickly.
"Well, Miss Nancy, people will talk, you know, and when a single man's a stayin' wher' thar's two ladies that hain't married, folks will connect their names. Of course you wouldn't give no encouragement to sech as him—"
At Mrs. Doggett's tentative venture, the red blood came in a flood in Miss Nancy's face, and spread from her faded brown calico collar to the roots of the unlovely hair on her high forehead.
"And, seein' no prospect of gittin' your notice, he turned wher' his attentions wuz more welcomer," concluded her guest.
"You're a talkin' about Lucy and Mr. Lindsay, ain't you?" jerked out Miss Nancy, finally, when the tell-tale blush had partially faded.
"Yes, I am," admitted Mrs. Doggett: "the talk is they're a courtin'."
"I haven't saw no courtin' goin' on," insisted Miss Nancy in half hopeful prevarication, "have you?"
This was Mrs. Doggett's opportunity, eagerly seized.
"Well, Miss Nancy," she answered, laying a propitiatory hand on Miss Nancy's lap, "I'll tell you what little I know. As fur back as August,—the day my pore Callie lay a corpse, Miss Lucy wuz at her house, and Henrietty wuz thar, and Mr. Lindsay drapped in a few minutes. Henrietty says they looked courty then. I asked Henrietty: 'Did they say anytheng lovin', Henrietty?' 'No, Ma, I can't say that they did,' she says: 'she set down on the aidge o' the bed, a pinkin' up like a bashful young girl, and he crossed over the room, and stood by her a minute er two, and they talked about the weather and sech like.'
"But Henrietty, she says they looked love, to the best o' her belief, and a body can might' nigh tell what's up by the way folks looks and acts! And Gran'dad, he says one day when him and Mr. Lindsay wuz in town, they seed Miss Lucy a goin' in a store, and Mr. Lindsay pointed towards her, and says: 'That's my woman, Gran'dad, ef I can git her!'"
The knee on which Mrs. Doggett's fingers lay, stiffened, and its owner's whole frame grew rigid under the intensity of her emotions at this verification of her suspicions.
"Maybe, they are a keepin' hit hid from you and your Pa, Miss Nancy," Mrs. Doggett hazarded. "Mr. Lindsay is mighty sly: he knows you all know he's a puny man—nigh as sickly as a consumptive, and hain't got nothin' laid by!"
"Lucy's weakly herse'f, and it'd be plumb foolish fer her to thenk about marryin'!" Miss Nancy cried out sharply: "and ef she wuz to—to marry old Lindsay, it'd be jest the settin' up of another poor-house, and the County's got poor-houses a plenty now. Besides, Lucy owes it to me and Pa to stay here!"
"Well, yes, Miss Nancy," soothed Mrs. Doggett, "but your Pa's old, and may be tuck any time! Ef Miss Lucy wuz persuaded now to look a little higher—Mr. Brock, he hain't rich enough fer you, but he wouldn't be a bad match fer Miss Lucy, considerin'. Miss Lucy's about fifteen years older'n you, hain't she?"
"Nine years, three months, and five days," corrected Miss Nancy.
"Now Mr. Brock, he's got money laid up. He says sometimes Mr. Castle when he's got all his'n invested er somethin', actually borry's from him!" equivocated Mrs. Doggett. "And Mr. Brock's jest the best man in his fambly: Evy and Reub jest worships him. And he's sech a good pervider, and a high standin' man in the community, too."
At that moment old Zeke barked: Miss Nancy stepped to the window.
"Hit's Lucy a comin' down the lane," she informed Mrs. Doggett who had arisen: "Zeke's saw the buggy."
"Hain't that somebody on a hoss a ridin' 'longside the buggy?" Mrs. Doggett peered close to the glass: "the snow is so blindin' a body can't skeercely see."
"Hit's Mr. Lindsay," answered Miss Nancy shortly, "a comin' from the store."
"Well, I got to go." Mrs. Doggett drew on her wraps. "Ef you're shore you won't need 'em, I'll borry a couple your ir'ns fer termorrer."
When the rider, and the driver reached the yard, Mr. Lindsay, innocent of the two pairs of critical eyes that watched him from the kitchen window, turned back the top of the buggy carefully, and with a hand that all the hard work in the world could not make other than gentle, assisted Miss Lucy to alight.
"Jest watch him, will ye?" Mrs. Doggett inveighed: "a handlin' Miss Lucy like she wuz aigs! Hain't he a puttin' on a good pious face, and him what he is, now! You hain't heerd I reckon, about him a goin' to Owensboro ever' onct in a while?" She lowered her voice to a meaning whisper.
"No!" Miss Nancy waited expectant.
"Well, you've heerd tell o' married men with big famblies a passin' off fer single men, hain't you, afore today, and ever' onct in a while a sneakin' off to see their wife and childern?" With this last pointed remark, Mrs. Doggett opened the side door of the kitchen.
"No, thank you, Miss Nancy, I can't stay nary 'nother minute," she declared in a tone of regret: "jest tell Miss Lucy fer me I'm still a lookin' fer her, and both of you come down real soon!" The door closed behind her, leaving Miss Nancy in anything but an amiable state of mind. At the buggy-house in the corner of the back yard, Mrs. Doggett encountered Mr. Lindsay putting away the buggy, and his saddle, and greeted him effusively.
"Eph's been a lookin' fer you down, Mr. Lindsay," she tendered him in smiling farewell, as Mr. Lindsay courteously brushed the snow aside and opened the gate for her, "but you're a flyin' too high fer us now, I reckon!"
Late that afternoon, when Mr. Lindsay took the milk-buckets from Miss Lucy's hand, and went with her to the barn lot, to assist her at the milking, as he had done each time since the beginning of his stay with the Jameses, Miss Nancy stood looking after him with a rigid air of offended propriety. Mrs. Doggett's whisper, suggesting vague possibilities of evil, had been accepted with due allowance by Miss Nancy, but for many days, a worm had found an abiding place in her bosom, and the other information Mrs. Doggett had given her to which she could give credence, fed this worm into a mighty thing that bit her heart cruelly.
She angrily watched Miss Lucy and her aid, as they moved about the barn-yard, to the serious hindering of the supper preparations. On her second unnecessary trip to the sitting-room, she threw the door open wide.
"Jest look!" she sneered. "Jest look, Pa! How does that look, him and her out there a milkin' together? Ef I was you, Pa, I'd stop it!"
"Hit hain't modest lookin'," agreed the old man: "Lucy'd orter know better'n to allow that. She'd aggervate the patience o' Job with her foolishness. I sha'n't let her milk no more while he's here!"
After that, the pleasure of the evenings spent around the sitting-room fire was marred by the unpleasant insinuations directed at Mr. Lindsay by Miss Nancy, and the covert stabs she inflicted on Miss Lucy. One unusually cold evening Mr. Lindsay came in with a slight chill and flushed cheeks.
"Bein's hit's so cold, Mr. Lindsay, and you ain't well," remarked Miss Lucy kindly, placing a smoothing-iron on the fender, "I'll heat this iron for you to take to bed with you. Them upstairs rooms havin' no fire in 'em, is awful chilly these nights."
Presently Miss Nancy pushed the iron away from the fire.
"You're jest a burnin' that ir'n up, Lucy Ann!" she scolded.
Miss Lucy said nothing, but when Miss Nancy left the room a moment, quietly put the iron nearer the fire again, and when her sister returned and once more moved it away, she lifted it off the fender.
"I'll jest take your iron to the kitchen, Mr. Lindsay," she said in a low tone, "and get a flannel rag to wrap hit in,—that is," she looked at him with apologetic eyes, "ef you are about ready for hit!"
Mr. Lindsay arose and followed Miss Lucy to the kitchen.
"Miss Lucy," he said gravely, "I see I'm a causin' trouble a stayin' here: I'm a makin' a disturbance in the family."
"Why no, Mr. Lindsay," Miss Lucy's voice shook in eager denial of his assertion. "No, you ain't—you ain't a doin' nobody nothin' but good. We all ain't been so happy sence Mother was taken away."
"Miss Nancy," began Mr. Lindsay, but Miss Lucy interrupted him.
"Don't you pay no 'tention to Nancy, Mr. Lindsay," she supplicated: "Nancy, she has to work so hard, and she gits so tired and nervous: Nancy don't mean no harm!"
"You can't fool me, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay's forehead knotted itself in a frown. "I hain't blind and I hain't deef, and I can't holp seein' the way she does, and a hearin' her bemean you about me all the time nearly. I don't want to make no disturbance, so I'll jest leave!"
In the winter of the year before, an unusually severe winter, Miss Lucy and Miss Nancy, without help (they could get none in the time of tobacco stripping, and their father was not allowed to work by the doctor's orders) had been compelled, with damp skirts, wet by the deep snows, and fingers frosted by the cold, to feed the stock, hauling shocks of fodder from the field. At Mr. Lindsay's words, Miss Lucy's hand went up to her face in the familiar worried gesture, and a look of anxiety widened her eyes. But it was not the thought of the work that brought a hoarse sob to her throat.
"O Mr. Lindsay," she begged with dry lips, "don't leave us! We can't do without you. Don't leave us before spreng comes noway!"
Mr. Lindsay took her cold hand and held it between his own, hot and feverish.
"Ef you feel that away about hit, Miss Lucy," he said soothingly, "I reckon I can make out untel then."
Miss Lucy hastily drew away her hand, stooped to wrap the iron that he might not see the flood of joy in her face.
The hall with the stairway that led to Mr. Lindsay's room, and the sitting-room also, opened on the back porch. When they had crossed the porch, Miss Lucy paused with one hand on the sitting-room doorknob.
"I don't know how we can ever repay you, Mr. Lindsay, for your kindness to us," she murmured, her face shining with something more than sweet gratefulness. Miss Lucy did not know that her eyes held the dangerous gift of personal speech.
Because of what he read in the translucent blue eyes, Mr. Lindsay suddenly became very bold.
"I could tell you, Miss Lucy,"—mindful of the pair of sharp ears behind the door, he lowered his voice—"I could tell you how you could repay me for the little I've done for you, ef you'd listen to me!"
But Miss Lucy had fled, and had closed the door softly behind her.
"Every man in the time of courtship, puts on a behavior like my correspondent's holiday suit!"
The month of February was bitterly cold, and a deep snow lay unmelted for three weeks,—a condition of weather that seriously hindered interchange of social calls on the Silver Run creek. The last Sunday morning, however, brought a thaw that made it possible for the socially inclined, comfortably to stir out.
After the James' breakfast, Mr. Lindsay, according to his every Sunday's custom between milking times, dressed himself in his best black suit and his shining Sunday shoes, and with the more than a few white threads that were beginning to come in his hair and mustache, decently colored, and a suggestion of perfume about him, came into the sitting-room.
Miss Nancy, whose Sabbath attire was a change from a soiled brown calico to a similar unattractive clean one, professed to disapprove of this Sunday's dressy toilet, and when her sister came into the kitchen, dressed in a pretty maroon woolen house waist (one of the "remnant" waists), her second-best black woolen skirt, and wearing her watch, with its slender chain, and with the white threads in her hair concealed in a manner similar to Mr. Lindsay's, she raised her voice in sarcastic reproof.
"I see you've got on your red sack you thenk you look so purty in. The idy of an old theng like you a wearin' red! And I see you've wore a right smart of the gold off your Sunday specs too, a wearin' 'em ever' day. You and him a dressin' up ever' Sunday, like you was a goin' to church, when you know you ain't goin' to do nothin' but set around all day, makes me plumb sick! And I'm jest a gittin' tired of all the piller slips a bein' blacked up with hair dye, on account of two old fools a bein' afraid of bein' thought as old as they are!"
Miss Lucy turned a pained, guilty red. The little bottles she kept hidden in her trunk were of recent acquisition, and she had thought their work was as yet her own secret. Knowing it was useless to attempt to defend herself, she put forth a plea for her friend.
"Maybe Mr. Lindsay don't color his hair, Nancy,—hit's a mighty pretty brown, and shines jest like Sister Isabinda's used to."
"Maybe he don't," derided Miss Nancy: "but you jest tell him for me, when he puts hit on in the dark or before daylight, to take a little more pains, and don't come downstairs with hit smeared on slantways of his mustache, not techin' the roots, and leavin' 'em white on one side, and see what he says!"
Miss Lucy did not wait to hear any more, but went quietly back to the sitting-room where Mr. Lindsay sat alone.
"I jest know hit's the nicest day for meetin'," she smiled: "ef the road wasn't so rough a body could go! It'll be lonesome for you today, I'm afraid, Mr. Lindsay, with jest us," she went on: "I wish somebody'd come in to keep you company."
Mr. Lindsay looked behind him, then moved his chair nearer Miss Lucy's rocker. "I have all the company I want, Miss Lucy," he said in daring tone, "all the company I want in this world is here by me!"
Miss Lucy's eyes fell beneath the compelling power of the bright brown ones opposite her, and a warm flush dyed her face. Mr. Lindsay waited smiling for her to speak, but at this moment there came a knock, and Mr. Galvin Brock, newly shaved, so highly collared that the linen cut cruelly into the fat beneath his ears, and wearing a top coat, a gray suit, gaiters, and glossy shoes that all bore the hall-mark of recent purchase, came in.
"Why, Mr. Brock!" stammered Miss Lucy, in her surprise and embarrassment, giving the visitor a rather warmer welcome than she intended,—"I am so glad you come, and Pa'll be awful glad to see you. I was jest a tellin' Mr. Lindsay as you come in I wished somebody'd come to keep him company, too. Sunday is sech a long day when a body can't git out to church. Lemme take your coat and hat, Mr. Brock, and you set down in this rocker and warm your feet."
Mr. Brock sat, the unexpectedly cordial reception filling his heart with so much of satisfaction that the glow above the punishing neck linen rivaled the crimson in his nose, which particular spot Mr. Lindsay mentally stigmatized a "grog-blossom." On this occasion, the color of the "grog-blossom" was deeper than usual, owing to the fact that the owner of the nose was suffering from a cold which necessitated the frequent display and desecration of a beautiful hemstitched China silk handkerchief.
After a few perfunctory words to the new-comer, Mr. Lindsay relapsed into a moody silence, replying in monosyllables only, when any portion of the morning's conversation, largely carried on by Mr. James in the absence of Miss Lucy in the kitchen, chanced to be directed at him. In the afternoon, when the family were all at liberty to entertain, Mr. Brock, usually grumly taciturn, under the influence of Miss Lucy's kindly interest which he mistook for admiration, became surprisingly loquacious: it was Mr. Lindsay who sat afflicted of mien, maintaining his morning's attitude of silent gloom.
"Mr. Brock looks like a preacher, he's fixed up so fine today!" Miss Lucy remarked, as she scrutinized the heavy chinchilla coat hanging on the rack. "You must expect to come out mighty well on your tobacco, Mr. Brock, ef you can take to wearin' such a fine overcoat as this, jest to a neighbor's house. Ain't hit nice, Mr. Lindsay?" Mr. Lindsay's reply was not audible.
"I always come out tolerable well, Miss Lucy, and manage to have a check-book ahead I can draw on," Mr. Brock avouched.
"Castle offered to loan me some money along last spreng (as he does all his tobacco men) ef I needed it, but I was proud to be able to say: 'Mr. Castle, I can loan you some, ef you want it,' and I've had more offers fer my tobacco this time, than I care to consider."
"Castle says thar hain't but one terbaccer man in the County, Mr. Brock, and he fetched him over from Clarke," hinted Mr. James.
Four years before, Mr. Brock had come at the Castle behest from Clarke County. Mr. Brock smiled broadly.
"I don't claim to be the only terbaccer man in the County," he protested.
"You wuz one the big terbaccer men over thar, Castle says," went on the old man: "he says him and his brother, Reed, come mighty nigh havin' a fight over you when he fetched you over here. I told Castle when he said that to me that you must have been a sort of a Hawkins Speed among the terbaccer fellers over in Clarke.
"You knowed that triflin' Hawkins, he moved out in Oklahomy, and got to be a big feller. His Ma come back here and told hit that hit wuz a common theng to see from fifteen to twenty men ride up in Hawkins' barn lot ever' mornin' and h'ist theirselves up on the fence and set thar, ever' man waitin' his turn to be advised by Hawkins in business matters!"
"Now Pa," protested Miss Lucy, "don't poke fun at company!"
"I hain't, Lucy Ann, I'm entertainin',—that's more'n some o' the crowd's a doin'," retorted Mr. James with a covert wink at Mr. Brock.
Late in the afternoon, Mr. Brock suggested that his host show him his new pigs. When the two men came back to the house, the old man wore a look of ill humor that the subject under discussion (the pigs) did not warrant, and an angry suspicion entered Mr. Lindsay's mind.
"I do wish I could do somethin' for your cold, Mr. Brock," Miss Lucy said solicitously, as that gentleman, preparing to leave them, indulged in a rattling cough. "Ef you'll jest wait a minute, I'll hunt you up some boneset, and Aunt Jane can make you some strong tea, jest before you go to bed. Drink hit right hot and maybe hit'll break up your cold."
With the pockets of the chinchilla bulging with the boneset, and his mind at peace with the world, Mr. Brock stepped jauntily out to the road at the foot of the lawn, but when he reached it, instead of going in the direction of his home, unnoticed by any of the James household, he turned and walked briskly down the path that led to the Doggetts.
"Eph," Mrs. Doggett informed her husband when he came in about nine that evening, having tarried until after supper at the home of his sister, Mrs. Gumm: "Eph, Mr. Lindsay hain't got no chance with Miss Lucy James!"
"How did you git that in your head, Ann?"
"They wuz a person here this evenin' that saw another man there today, and he says that the treatment Miss Lucy give that man wuz the kind o' treatment a woman don't give nobody but a man she thenks is the greatest feller on earth. Mr. Lindsay, he jest tucked his head after the man come, like a whooped dog, the person said, and Miss Lucy never give Lindsay nary look ner word o' notice the whole day! And when the other man started, she told him she wisht he'd come ever' Sunday,—said her and Miss Nancy and their Pa jest set thar all day like three old owls a wishin' somebody'd come to keep 'em comp'ny!"
"Who told you all that, Ann,—did you git hit from Mr. Brock?" Mr. Doggett inquired, as he wrestled with a tight sock.
"From nobody else!" exulted Mrs. Doggett. "He's the man o' Miss Lucy's choice!"
"Now, old lady," cautioned Mr. Doggett, as he covered the fire, "don't you let Mr. Brock pull the wool over your eyes! You never can tell what a woman will do, ner a man neither fer that matter, but hit hain't best to believe more'n a quarter o' what a courtin' feller'll tell about how fur he's a beatin' another feller's time!"
"I'm a goin' up to Jim Doggett's, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay announced coolly after the supper that evening,—"to set ontel bedtime, and I want to ask you, ef you haven't got no objections, to jest leave the hall door onlocked ontel I come back: I can git in then without disturbin' anybody."
"Why, Mr. Lindsay, of course I will," fluttered Miss Lucy, "but ef you ain't a goin' to stay late, I'll set up and have a fire for you to warm your feet by."
"I thank you, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay answered in the same frigidly polite tones: "I won't be gone long, but I don't want to put nobody to any trouble fer me, what time I'll be here. I wish you good evenin'."
Miss Lucy stood in dumb wonderment on the porch until the splash of Mr. Lindsay's feet in the melting snow no longer reached her ear. What was the matter with him that he spoke to her as one stranger to another?
Unheeding the mud puddles in which he set his feet, Mr. Lindsay neared the tiny cottage Vaughn Castle furnished Jim Doggett. An owl quavered in the top of one of the ragged elms, when he paused on the step to remove his overshoes, and the bird's weird cry was not more despondent than the silent wail of the man's heart.
"She's a settin' there, now," he chafed, "a smilin' in the coals, a thenkin' about old Brock!" But he was mistaken; Miss Lucy was crying in her pillow.
Jim and Henrietty made Mr. Lindsay kindly welcome, but the plump child with the exquisitely molded features drew back the dainty chin that reminded one of nothing so much as a rosy peach, and looked shyly at him through the long curling black lashes of her dreamy brown eyes.
"Have you gone back on me too, Katie?" Mr. Lindsay's look of reproach brought the baby flying to his chair to crawl up in his lap.
"Me love Missa Linney," she lisped: "is 'oo dot a pitty f'ower for Tatie?"
"You'll never lose out with Katie, Mr. Lindsay," laughed her father, as the child began ecstatically to kiss the rose pictured on the bit of pasteboard her friend fished from an inside pocket, "ef you keep on a brengin' her flowers and picturs of flowers."
"I didn't believe she'd go back on me too," Mr. Lindsay murmured, with his cheek on the little one's red-brown hair.
"Been anybody at your house today?" asked astute Henrietty.
"Jest old man Brock."
"Did he stay all day?"
"Yes, staid until milkin' time."
"Wuz he primped up?" persisted Henrietty, with a glance at Jim.
"Yes, in an inch of his life," scoffed Mr. Lindsay, with the high collar in mind: "ever'theng he had on, as fur as I could see, wuz new. Miss Lucy," he concluded with burning sarcasm, "she told him he looked like a preacher!"
"Must 'a' been a courtin' rig," reflected Jim.
"Well Jim," expostulated Henrietty, "and poor Callie not been in her grave more'n six months! Ef I wuz Mr. Brock, I'd let my wife's tracks rain out before I took to courtin'!"
Mr. Lindsay laughed—a mirthless jeering laugh.
"Miss Lucy didn't seem to make much o' his payin' sech disrespect to Callie, a sparkin' around, the way she treated him today! Old Brock'll never be tuck up fer bein' too sociable, but I wisht you could 'a' saw him today, a makin' up to the old man and Miss Lucy,—a settin' about with his lips primped up as innocent and delicate, like they'd never shet over nothin' stronger'n buttermilk in his life. He's tuck a cold—been over to Lexington this last week a layin' out drunk as is his common habit when he goes off on them trips, in fact, hit's what he goes fer,—and Miss Lucy wuz a honeyin' him up, a wishin' she could do somethin' fer his cold, and a huntin' up hoarhound and dried stuffs fer him to docter with. Made me sick!"
"O Mr. Lindsay," placated Henrietty, "Miss Lucy thenks ever'body's all right and good. I heerd Mrs. Preacher Avery a sayin' to her one day—and she wuz jest a goin' by what Miss Lucy'd told her about 'em—'How fortunate,' she says, 'Miss Lucy, that your brothers and sisters all married good people, and in such good famblies!'
"And that Grace that married the middle Jeemes boy, she's about as mean a person as anybody is allowed to be, to keep a livin'! She treated me and Jim's Ma, when we went to see Miss Lucy one day when she wuz a visitin' there, like we wuzn't no better'n the dirt under her feet. 'Lucy,' she says, and Ma and me heerd her when we wuz leavin' the yard, 'do you allow those tobacco people—those tenant people, to call on you?'
"And another day she come down on the creek fishin'—her and them three holy-terrer chillern o' hers, and they happened to throw in their lines not fur from where me and Joey and little Katie wuz a fishin'. As soon as she saw us she drawed in her line, and says: 'Come, children, less go to a better place. I smell poor folks here!' Like poor people, ef they have any pride about keepin' clean, smell any different from rich folks!"
"I reckon now," remarked Jim, dryly, "sence she's broke up her husband, so he had to quit his store and go to clerkin' in a meat-shop, she don't have to go outside her own door to 'smell poor folks'!" Henrietty laughed.
"You see how hit is, Mr. Lindsay; you can't put no dependence on Miss Lucy's estimate o' people."
"And we oughtn't to blame her fer that," said Mr. Lindsay: "the charity that 'thenks no evil' hain't so common in folks as to be a bad theng! Miss Lucy, she's a Christian, ef there ever wuz one in Kentucky, I reckon, and ef she wuz ever out o' humor I never knowed hit. But"—his face darkened, and though his voice did not rise above its ordinary soft murmur, there was a tremulous vibration in it that told that he was fiercely moved—"she's mighty fooled in old Brock, ef she thenks he's good!"
"Hit's her cousin, Sim Willis, that's a makin' 'em thenk that," broke in Jim. "He considers Brock all right, because they both vote the same ticket, I reckon, and he hain't caught on yit to Brock's night habits."
"Hit's a pity," continued Mr. Lindsay, "but what Miss Lucy knowed about him a gittin' blind drunk in town a Christmas Eve, and a havin' to be carried down to the cellar and laid there like a sack o' bran ontel mornin'.
"I wuz in town a gittin' ready to start out, and Reub Brock, he come to me, a beggin' me to please come and holp him carry his pappy sommers. I didn't want to, but I felt sorry fer Reub—him a puffin' and a wheezin'—tryin' to git the old dead drunk fool off the sidewalk to where he wouldn't be run over er freeze, so I tuck holt, and we got him down in the cellar! Made me plumb sick a handlin' him!"
"I'd jest tell Miss Lucy," suggested Jim. "What's the use in keepin' back thengs a body ought to know?"
"I hain't never told hit to nobody, on account o' Reub and Evy," declared Mr. Lindsay. "Reub said, Christmas, 'Fer poor Mammy's sake, Mr. Lindsay, don't tell on Pappy!' and I hain't up to this time.
"I been a keepin' back more'n that too. The Jameses always set sech store by old Brock, and he wuzn't a pesterin' me, but—" he rose and threw on his coat, a hot and angry red flushing his face—"but now I despise the old snivellin' hypocrite! My mother always taught me the sin o' fightin', and I have tried to live at peace with ever'body like she taught me to, but ef I'd 'a' been brung up to wipe out them that needs a wipin' out, there wouldn't be no trace of old Brock in this vicinity long! And I'm a goin' to let Miss Lucy James know how her new beau's been in the habit o' conductin' himse'f, ef hit's the last act o' my life!"