Sez I (gettin" up sort a quick and goin" into the b.u.t.tery, and bringin" out a little basket), "Here are some beautiful sweet apples, won"t you have one?"
"Apples, at such a time as this;" sez Miss Tutt
"When the slumberin" world trembles before the advancin" tread of a new poet -- When the heavens are listenin" intently to ketch the whispers of an Ardelia"s fate -- Sweet apples! in such a time as this!" sez she. But she took two.
"I demand the truth," sez she. "And you are a base, trucklin"
coward, if you give it not."
Sez I, tryin" to carry off the subject and the apples into the b.u.t.tery; "Poetry ort to have pains took with it."
"Jealousy!" sez Miss Tutt. "Jealousy might well whisper this.
Envy, rank envy might breathe the suspicion that Ardelia haint been took pains with. But I can see through it," sez she. "I can see through it."
"Well," sez I, wore out, "if they belonged to me, and if she wuz my girl, I would throw the verses into the fire, and set her to a trade."
She stood for a minute and bored me through and through with them eyes. Why it seemed as if there wuz two holes clear through my very spirit, and sole; she partly lifted that fearful lookin"
umberell as if to pierce me through and through; it wuz a fearful seen.
At last she turned, and flung the apple she wuz a holdin" onto the floor at my feet -- and sez she, "I scorn "em, and you too." And she kinder stomped her feet and sez, "I fling off the dust I have gethered here, at your feet."
Now my floor wuz clean and looked like yeller gla.s.s, almost, it wuz so shinin" and spotless, and I resented the idee of her sayin"
that she collected dust off from it. But I didn"t say nothin"
back. She had the bag of poetry on her arm, and I didn"t feel like addin" any more to her troubles.
But Ardelia, after her mother had swept out ahead, turned round and held out her hand, and smiled a sweet but ruther of a despondent and sorrowful smile, and I kissed her warmly. I like Ardelia. And what I said, I said for her good, and she knew it.
I like Ardelia.
Well, Miss Tutt and Ardelia went from our house to Eben Pixley"s.
They are distant relatives of hern, and live about 3 quarters of a mile from us. The Pixleys think everything of Ardelia but they can"t bear her mother. There has been difficulties in the family.
But Ardelia stayed there mor"n two weeks right along. She haint very happy to home I believe. And before she went back home it wuz arranged that she should teach the winter"s school and board to Miss Pixley"s. But Miss Pixley wuz took sick with the tyfus before she had been there two weeks -- and, for all the world, if the deestrict didn"t want us to board her. Josiah hadn"t much to do, so he could carry her back and forth in stormy weather, and it wuz her wish to come. And it wuz Josiah"s wish too, for the pay wuz good, and the work light -- for him. And so I consented after a parlay.
But I didn"t regret it. She is a good little creeter and no more like her mother than a feather bed is like a darnin" needle. I like Ardelia: so does Josiah.
III.
THE CHERITY OF THE JONESVILLIANS.
We have been havin" a pound party here in Jonesville. There wuz a lot of children left without any father or mother, n.o.body only an old grandma to take care of "em, and she wuz half bent with the rheumatiz, and had a swelled neck, and lumbago and fits.
They lived in an old tumble-down house jest outside of Jonesville.
The father wuz, I couldn"t deny, a shiftless sort of a chap, good-natured, always ready to obleege a neighbor, but he hadn"nt no faculty. And I don"t know, come to think of it, as anybody is any more to blame if they are born without a faculty, than if they are born with only one eye. Faculty is one of the things that you can"t buy.
He loved to hunt. That is, he loved to hunt some kinds of things.
He never loved to hunt stiddy, hard work, and foller on the trail of it till he evertook success and captured it. No, he druther hunt after catamounts and painters, in woods where catamounts haint mounted, and painters haint painted sence he wuz born.
He generally killed nothin" bigger than red squirrels and chipmunks.
The biggest game he ever brought down wuz himself. He shot himself one cold day in the fall of the year. He wuz gettin" over a brush fence, they s"posed the gun hit against somethin" and went off, for they found him a layin" dead at the bottom of the fence.
I always s"posed that the shock of his death comin" so awful sudden unto her, killed his wife. She had been sick for a long spell, she had consumption and dropsy, and so forth, and so forth, for a long time, and after he wuz brought in dead, she didn"t live a week. She thought her eyes of him, for no earthly reason as I could ever see. How strange, how strange a dispensation of Providence it duz seem, that some women love some men, and vicy versey and the same.
But she did jest about worship him, and she died whisperin" his name, and reachin" out her hands as if she see him jest ahead of her. And I told Josiah I didn"t know but she did. I shouldn"t wonder a mite if she did see him, for there is only the veil of mystery between us and the other world at any time, and she had got so nigh to it, that I s"pose it got so thin that she could see through it.
Just as you can see through the blue haze that lays before our forest in Injun summer. Come nigh up to it and you can see the silvery trunks of the maples and the red sumac leaves, and the bright evergreens, and the forms of the happy hunters a pa.s.sin"
along under the glint of the sunbeams and the soft shadows.
They died in Injun summer. I made a wreath myself of the bright-colored leaves to lay on their coffins. Dead leaves, dead to all use and purpose here, and yet with the bright mysterious glow upon them that put me in mind of some immortal destiny and blossoming beyond our poor dim vision. Jane Smedley wuz a good woman, and so wuz Jim, good but shiftless.
But I made the same wreath for her and Jim, and the strange mellow light lay on both of "em, makin" me think in spite of myself of some happy sunrisin" that haply may dawn on some future huntin"
ground, where poor Jim Smedley even, may strike the trail of success and happiness, hid now from the sight of Samantha, hid from Josiah.
Wall, they died within a week"s time of each other, and left nine children, the oldest one of "em not quite fifteen. She, the oldest one, wuz a good girl, only she had the rickets so that when she walked, she seemed to walk off all over the house backwards, and sideways, and every way, but when she sot down, she wuz a good stiddy girl, and faithful; she took after her mother, and her mother took after her grandmother, so there wuz three takin" after each other, one right after the other.
Jane wuz a good, faithful, hard-workin" creeter when she wuz well, brought up her children good as she could, learnt "em the catechism, and took in all kinds of work to earn a little somethin" towards gettin" a home for "em; she and her mother both did, her mother lived with "em, and wuz a smart old woman, too, for one that wuz pretty nigh ninety. And she wuzn"t worrysome much, only about one thing -- she wanted a home, wanted a home dretfully. Some wimmen are so; she had moved round so much, from one poor old place to another, that she sort o" hankered after bein" settled down into a stiddy home.
Wall, there wuz eight children younger than Marvilla, that wuz the oldest young girl"s name. Eight of "em, countin" each pair of twins as two, as I s"pose they ort. The Town buried the father and mother, which wuz likely and clever in it, but after that it wouldn"t give only jest so much a week, which wuz very little, because it said, Town did, that they could go to the poor-house, they could be supported easier there.
I don"t know as the Town could really be blamed for sayin" it, and yet it seemed kinder mean in it, the Town wuz so big, and the children, most of "em, wuz so little.
But any way, it wuz jest sot on it, and there wuz the end of it, for you might jest as well dispute the wind as to dispute the Town when it gets sot.
Wall, the old grandma said she would die in the streets before she would go to the poor-house. She had come from a good family in the first place,
They say she run away and left a good home and got married, and did dretful poor in the married state. He waz shiftless and didn"t have nothin" and didn"t lay up any. And she didn"t keep any of her old possessions only jest her pride. She kept that, or enough of it to say that she would die on the road before she would go to the poor-house. And once I see her cry she wanted a home so bad.
And lots of folks blamed her for it, blamed the old woman awfully.
They said pride wuz so wicked. Wimmen who would run like deers if company came when they wuzn"t dressed up slick, they would say the minute they got back into the room, all out of breath with hurryin"
into their best clothes, they"d say a pantin" "That old woman ought to be made to go to the poorhouse, to take the pride out of her, pride wuz so awfully, dretfully wicked, and it wuz a shame that she wuz so ongrateful as to want a home of her own." And then they would set down and rest.
Wall, the family wuz in a sufferin" state. The Town allowed "em one dollar a week. But how wuz ten human beings to live on a dollar a week. The children worked every chance they got, but they couldn"t earn enough to keep "em in shoes, let alone other clothin" and vittles. And the old house wuz too cold for "em to stay in durin" the cold weather, it wuz for Grandma Smedley, anyway, if the children could stand it she couldn"t. And what wuz to be done. A cold winter wuz a c.u.min" on, and it wouldn"t delay a minute because Jim Smedley had got shot, and his wife had follered him, into, let us hope, a happier huntin" ground than he had ever found in earthly forests.
Wall, I proposed to have a pound party for "em. I said they might have it to our house if they wanted it, but if they thought they wanted it in a more central place (our house wuz quite a little to one side), why we could have it to the schoolhouse.
I proposed to Josiah the first one. He wuz a settin" by the fire relapsed into silence. It wuz a cold night outside, but the red curtains wuz down at our sitting-room winders, shettin" out the cold drizzlin" storm of hail and snow that wuz a deseendin" onto the earth. The fire burned up warm and bright, and we sot there in our comfortable home, with the teakettle singin" on the stove, and the tea-table set out cosy and cheerful, for Josiah had been away and I had waited supper for him.
As I sot there waitin" for the tea-kettle to bile (and when I say bile, I mean bile, I don"t, mean simmer) the thought of the Smedleys would come in. The warm red curtains would keep the storm out, but they couldn"t keep the thought of the children, and the feeble old grandmother out of the room. They come right in, through the curtains, and the firelight, and everything, and sot right down by me and hanted me.
And what curious creeters thoughts be, haint they? and oncertain, too. You may make all your plans to get away from "em. You may shet up your doors and winders, and set with a veil on and an umbrell up - but good land! how easy they jest ontackle the doors and windows, with no sounds of ontacklin" and come right in by you.
First you know there they be right by the side of you, under your umbrell, under your veil, under your spectacles, a lookin" right down into your soul, and a hantin" you.
And then agin, when you expect to be hanted by "em, lay out to, why, they"ll jest stand off somewhere else, and don"t come nigh you. Don"t want to. Oncertain creeters, thoughts be, and curious, curious where they come from, and how.
Why, I got to thinkin" about it the other day, and I got lost, some like children settin" on a log over a creek a ridin"; there they be, and there the log is, but they don"t seem to be there, they seem to be a floatin" down the water.