"I tell ye," Mrs. Peake hissed, still in that serpent-whisper, the most penetrating sound that ever broke stillness, "She"s as crazy as a clo"esline in a gale o" wind. Some say she"s wore an onsettled eye for six weeks past, and she glared at me yesterday, when I run in to borry an egg, same as if I was one wild animal and she was another. Ssssh!
"Tis Bowler, I tell ye! They go that way, jest as often as they git a chance! I call it an awful jedgment on Elder Lindsay, bein" married into that family. Some say his mother besought him on her bended knees, but he was clean infatooated. I declare to you, Mis" Bean, I"m terrified most to death, to think of you and me alone here, so near to a ravin" lunatic. I don"t think nothin" of robbers, alongside o"
madness. She might creep in while you"re standin" there,--your house is more handy by than mine, "count of there bein" no fence, and--"
"Yah! bah! ha! ha! ha! hurrah!" sounded in sharp, clear tones from Mrs. Mellen"s window. Two ghastly faces, white with actual terror, gazed at each other for an instant, then disappeared; and immediately after was heard a sound of bolts being driven home, and of heavy furniture being dragged about.
But Mrs. Mellen sat and fanned herself, being somewhat heated, and gazed calmly at the beauty of the prospect.
"I"ve enjoyed myself real well!" she said. "I couldn"t free my mind, not while Rosy and Mr. Lindsay was round; I"ve had a real good time."
She fanned herself placidly, and then added, addressing the universe in general, with an air of ineffable good will:
"I shouldn"t wonder if my hearin" improved, too, kind o" suddin, same as it came on. That"s Bowler, too! It"s real convenient, bein" a Bowler!"
NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS
NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS.
"Hi-Hi!" said Miss Peace, looking out of the window. "It is really raining. Isn"t that providential, now?"
"Anne Peace, you are enough to provoke a saint!" replied a peevish voice from the furthest corner of the room. "You and your providences are more than I can stand. What do you mean this time, I _should_ like to know? the picnic set for to-day, and every soul in the village lottin" on goin", "xcept those who _would_ like best to go and can"t.
I"ve been longin" for these two years to go to a picnic and it"s never ben so"s I could. And now, jest when I _could_ ha" gone, this affliction must needs come to me. And then to have you rejoicin"
"cause it rains!"
The speaker paused for breath, and Miss Peace answered mildly: "I"m real sorry for you, Delia, you know I am; and if the" was any way of getting you to the grove,--but what I was thinking of, you know I couldn"t finish Jenny Miller"s dress last night, do what I could; and seeing it raining now, thinks I, they"ll have to put off the picnic till to-morrow or next day, and then Jennie can go as nice as the rest. She does need a new dress, more than most of the girls who has them. And she"s so sweet and pretty, it"s a privilege to do for her.
That"s all I was thinking, Delia."
Mrs. Delia Means sniffed audibly, then she groaned.
"Your leg hurting you?" cried Miss Peace, with ready sympathy.
"Well, I guess you"d think so," was the reply. "If _you_ had red-hot needles run into your leg. Not that it"s any matter to anybody."
"Hi-hi," said Miss Peace, cheerily. "It"s time the bandages was changed, Delia. You rest easy just a minute, and I"ll run and fetch the liniment and give you a rub before I put on the new ones."
Mrs. Means remaining alone, it is proper to introduce her to the reader. She and Miss Peace were the rival seamstresses of Cyrus Village; that is, they would have been rivals, if Mrs. Means had had her way; but rivalry was impossible where Anne Peace was one of the parties. She had always maintained stoutly that Delia Means needed work a sight more than she did, having a family, and her husband so weakly and likely to go off with consumption "most any time. Many and many a customer had Anne turned from her door, with her pleasant smile, and "I don"t hardly know as I could, though I should be pleased to accommodate you; but I presume likely Mis" Means could do it for you. She doos real nice work, and I don"t know as she"s so much drove just now as I am."
Delia Case had been a schoolmate of Anne Peace"s. She was a pretty girl, with a lively sense of her own importance and a chronic taste for a grievance. She had married well, as every one thought, but in these days her husband had lost his health and Delia was obliged to put her shoulder to the wheel. She sewed well, but there was a sigh every time her needle went into the cloth, and a groan when it came out.
"A husband and four children, and have to sew for a living!"--this was the burden of her song; and it had become familiar to her neighbours since David Means had begun to "fail up," as they say in Cyrus.
Anne Peace had always been the faithful friend of "Delia Dumps." (It was Uncle Asy Green who had given her the name which stuck to her through thick and thin--Uncle Asy believed in giving people their due, and thought "Anne made a dreffle fool of herself, foolin" round with that woman at all.") Anne had been her faithful friend, and never allowed people to make fun of her if she were present.
A week before my story opens, when Mrs. Means fell down and broke her leg, just as she was pa.s.sing Miss Peace"s house, the latter lady declared it to be a special privilege.
"I can take care of her," she explained to the doctor, when he expressed regret at being obliged to forbid the sufferer"s being moved for some weeks, "just as well as not and better. David isn"t fit to have the care of her, and--well, doctor, I can say to you, who know it as well as I do, that Delia mightn"t be the best person for David to have round him just now, when he needs cheering up. Then, too, I can do her sewing along with my own, as easy as think; work"s slack now, and there"s nothing I"m specially drove with. I"ve been wishing right along that I could do something to help, now that David is so poorly.
I"m kin to David, you know, so take it by and large, doctor, it doos seem like a privilege, doesn"t it?"
The doctor growled. He was not fond of Mrs. Means.
"If you can get her moved out of Grumble Street and into Thanksgiving Alley," he said, "it"ll be a privilege for this village; but you can"t do it, Anne. However, there"s no use talking to you, you incorrigible optimist. You"re the worst case I ever saw, Anne Peace, and I haven"t the smallest hope of curing you. Put the liniment on her leg as I told you, and I"ll call in the morning. Good day!"
"My goodness me, what was he saying to you?" Mrs. Means asked as Anne went back into the bedroom. "You"ve got something that you"ll never get well of? Well, Anne Peace, that does seem the cap sheaf on the hull. Heart complaint, I s"pose it is; and what would become of me, if you was to be struck down, as you might be any minute of time, and me helpless here, and a husband and four children at home and he failin"
up. You did look dretful gashly round the mouth yisterday, I noticed it at the time, but of course I didn"t speak of it. Why, here I should lay, and might starve to death, and you cold on the floor, for all the help I should get." Mrs. Means shed tears, and Anne Peace answered with as near an approach to asperity as her soft voice could command.
"Don"t talk foolishness, Delia. I"m not cold yet, nor likely to be.
Here, let me "tend to your leg; it"s time I was getting dinner on this minute."
It continued to rain on the picnic day; no uncertain showers, to keep up a chill and fever of fear and hope among the young people, but a good, honest downpour, which everybody past twenty must recognize as being just the thing the country needed. Jenny Miller came in, smiling all over, though she professed herself "real sorry for them as was disappointed." "Tudie Peaslee sat down and cried, when she saw "twas rainin"," she said, as she prepared to give her dress the final trying-on. "There, Miss Peace. I did try to feel for her, but I just couldn"t, seems though. Oh, ain"t that handsome? that little puff is too cute for anything! I do think you"ve been smart, Miss Peace. Not that you ever was anything else."
"You"ve a real easy figure to fit, Jenny," Miss Peace replied, modestly. "I guess that"s half the smartness of it. It doos set good, though, I"m free to think. The styles is real pretty this summer, anyhow. Don"t that set good, Delia?"
She turned to Mrs. Means, who was lying on the sofa (they call it a l"unge in Cyrus), watching the trying-on with keenly critical eyes.
"Ye-es," she said. "The back sets good enough, but "pears to me there"s a wrinkle about the neck that I shouldn"t like to see in any work of mine. I"ve always ben too particklar, though; it"s time thrown away, but I can"t bear to send a thing out "cept jest as it should be."
"It _don"t_ wrinkle, Mis" Means!" cried Jenny, indignantly. "Not a mite. I was turning round to look at the back of the skirt, and that pulled it; there ain"t a sign of a wrinkle, Miss Peace, so don"t you think there is."
Mrs. Means sniffed, and said something about the change in young folks" manners since she was a girl. "If I"d ha" spoke so to my elders--I won"t say betters, for folks ain"t thought much of when they have to sew for a livin", with a husband and four children to keer for--I guess I should ha" found it out in pretty quick time."
"Hi-hi!" said Miss Peace, soothingly. "There, Delia, Jenny didn"t mean anything. Jenny, I guess I"ll have to take you into the bedroom, so"s I can pull this skirt out a little further. This room doos get so cluttered with all my things round." She hustled Jenny, swelling like an angry partridge, into the next room, and closed the door carefully.
"You don"t want to anger Mis" Means, dear," she said gently, taking the pins out of her mouth for freer speech. "She may be jest a sc.r.a.p pudgicky now and again, but she"s seen trouble, you know, and she doos feel it hard to be laid up, and so many looking to her at home. Turn round, dear, jest a dite--there!"
"I can"t help it, Miss Peace," said Jenny. "There"s no reason why Mis"
Means should speak up and say the neck wrinkled, when anybody can see it sets like a duck"s foot in the mud. I don"t mind what she says to me, but I ain"t goin" to see you put upon, nor yet other folks ain"t.
I should like to know! and that wrapper she cut for Tudie Peaslee set so bad, you"d think she"d fitted it on the pump in the back yard, Mis" Peaslee said so herself."
"Hi-hi!" cried Anne Peace, softly, with an apprehensive glance toward the door; "don"t speak so loud, Jennie. Tudie ain"t so easy a form to fit as you, not near. And you say she was real put about, do ye, at the picnic being put off?"
"She was so!" Jenny a.s.sented, seeing that the subject was to be changed. "She"d got her basket all packed last night, she made so sure "twas goin" to be fine to-day. Chicken sandwiches, she had, and baked a whole pan of sponge-drops, jest because some one--you know who--is fond of "em." Miss Peace nodded sagely, with her mouth full of pins, and would have smiled if she could; "and now they"ve put it off till Sat.u.r.day, "cause the minister can"t go before then, and every livin"
thing will be spoiled."
"Dear, dear!" cried Miss Anne, her kind face clouding over; "that does seem too bad, don"t it? all those nice things! and Tudie makes the best sponge-cakes I ever eat, pretty nigh."
Jenny smiled, and stretched her hand toward a basket she had brought.
"They won"t really be wasted, Miss Peace," she said. "Tudie thought you liked "em, and I"ve got some of "em here for you, this very minute. You was to eat "em for your own supper, Tudie told me to tell you so."
"Well, I do declare, if that isn"t thoughtful!" exclaimed Miss Peace, looking much gratified. "Tudie is a sweet girl, I must say. Delia is real fond of cake, and she"s been longing for some, but it doos seem as if I couldn"t find time to make it, these days."