"It"s the Brownrig woman," Aunt Naomi announced. "If you get mixed up with that sort of creatures there"s no knowing what you"ll come to."
"But what about her?" I demanded so eagerly that I became suddenly conscious of the keen curiosity which my manner brought into her glance.
"What has she been doing?" I went on, trying to be cool.
It was only by much questioning that I got the story. Had it not been for my real interest in Tom I would not have bothered so much, but as it was she had me at her mercy, and knew it. What happened, so far as I can make out, is this: The Brownrig woman has been worse than ever since Julia"s death. She has been drunk in the streets more than once, and I am afraid the help she has had from Tom and others has only led her to greater excesses. Once Deacon Richards came upon her lying in the ditch beside the road, and she has made trouble more than once, besides disturbing the prayer-meeting.
Last evening Tom came upon a mob of men and boys down by the Flatiron Wharf, and in the midst of them was Mrs. Brownrig, singing and howling.
They were baiting her, and saying things to provoke her to more outrageous profanity.
"They do say," observed Aunt Naomi with what seemed to me, I am ashamed to say, an unholy relish, "her swearing was something awful. John Deland told me he never heard anything like it. He said no man could begin to come up to it."
"John Deland, that owns the smoke-houses?" I put in. "What was he doing there? I always thought he was a decent man."
"So he is. He says," she returned with her drollest smile, "he was just pa.s.sing by and couldn"t help hearing. I dare say you couldn"t have helped hearing if you"d been pa.s.sing by."
"I should have pa.s.sed pretty quickly then; but what did Tom Webbe do?"
She went on to say that Tom had come upon this disgraceful scene, and found the crowd made up of all the lowest fellows in town. The men were shouting with laughter, and the old woman was shrieking with rage and intoxication.
"John Deland says as soon as Tom saw what was going on and who the woman was, he broke through the crowd, and took her by the arm, and told her to come home. She cursed him, and said she wouldn"t go; and then she cried, and they had a dreadful time. Then somebody in the crowd--John says he thinks it was one of the Bagley boys that burnt Micah Sprague"s barn. You remember about that, don"t you? They live somewhere down beyond the old shipyard"--
"I remember that the Spragues" barn was burned," answered I; "but what did the Bagley boy do last night?"
"He called out to Tom Webbe to get out of the way, and not spoil the fun. Then Tom turned on the crowd, and I guess he gave it to them hot and heavy."
"I"m sure I hope he did!" I said fervently.
"He said he thought they might be in better business than tormenting an old drunken woman like that, and called them cowards to their faces.
They got mad, and wanted to know what business it was of his, anyway.
Then he blazed out again, and said"--
I do not know whether the pause Aunt Naomi made was intentionally designed to rouse me still further, or whether she hesitated unconsciously; but I was too excited to care.
"What did he say?" I asked breathlessly.
"He told them she was his mother-in-law."
"Tom Webbe said that? To that crowd?" cried I, and I felt the tears spring into my eyes. It was chiefly excitement, of course, but the pluck of it and the hurt to Tom came over me in a flash. "What did they do?"
"They just muttered, and got out of the way. John Deland said it wasn"t two minutes before Tom was left alone with the old woman, and then he took her home. It"s a pity she wouldn"t drink herself to death."
"I think it is, Aunt Naomi," was my answer; though I wished to add that the sentiment was rather a queer one to come from anybody who believes as she does.
I do not know what else Aunt Naomi said. Indeed when she had told her tale she seemed in something of a hurry to leave, and I suspect her of going on to repeat it somewhere else. Tom"s sin has left a trail of consequences behind it which he could never have dreamed of. I cannot tell whether I pity him more for this or honor him for the courage with which he stood up. Poor Tom!
October 24. An odd thing has happened to the Westons. A man came in the storm last night and dropped insensible on the doorstep. He might have lain there all night, and very likely would have died before morning, but George, when he started for bed, chanced to open the door to look at the weather. He found the tramp wet and covered with sleet, and at first thought that he was either dead or drunk. When he had got him in and thawed out by the kitchen fire, the man proved to be ill. George sent for Dr. Wentworth, and had a bed made up in the shed-chamber, but when he told me this morning he said it seemed rather doubtful if the tramp could live.
"What did Mrs. Weston say?" I asked.
I do not know how I came to ask such a question, and I meant nothing by it. George, however, stiffened in a moment as if he suspected me of something unkind.
"Mrs. Weston didn"t like my taking him into the house," he said. "She thought I ought to have sent him off to the poor-farm."
"You could hardly do that last night," I returned, wondering how I could have offended him. "I am afraid the tramp"s looks set her against him."
"She hasn"t seen him. She"d gone to bed before I found him last night, and this morning he is pretty sick. Dr. Wentworth says he can"t be moved now. He"s in a high fever, and keeps talking all the time."
It is so very seldom we hear of tramps in Tuskamuck that it is strange to have one appear like this, and it is odd he chose George"s house to tumble down at, as it is a little out of the road. Tramps have a law of their own, however, and never do what one would expect of them. I hope his illness will not be serious. I offered to do what I could, but George said they could take care of the man for the present. Then he hesitated, and flushed a little as if confused.
"I am sorry," he said, "it should happen just now, for Gertrude ought not to be troubled when--when she isn"t well."
It is a pity, and I hope no harm will come of it, but if Mrs. Weston has not seen the tramp and has not been startled, I do not see why any should.
October 26. If I could be superst.i.tious, I think I should be now; but of course the whole thing is nonsense. People are talking--in forty-eight hours! How gossip does spring and spread!--as if there were something peculiar about that tramp. There is nothing definite to say except that he came to George"s house, which is a little off from the main street, and that in his delirium he keeps calling for some person he says he knows is there, and he will surely find, no matter how she hides. The idea of the sick in a delirium is always painful, and the talk about this man makes it doubly so. I am afraid the fact that Mrs. Weston"s servants do not like her has something to do with the whispers in the air. Dislike will create suspicion on the slightest excuse, and there can be nothing to connect her with this dying tramp. What could there be? I wish Aunt Naomi would not repeat such unpleasant things.
October 27. I have been with Tom hanging the pictures in the new reading-room, and everything is ready for the opening when the magazines and the books come. Next Wednesday is the first of the month, and then we will have it opened. Tom has already a list of over twenty men and boys who have joined, and lame Peter Tobey is to be janitor. It is delightful to see how proud and pleased he is. He can help his mother now, and the poor boy was pathetic in the way he spoke of that. He only mentioned it, but his tone touched me to the quick.
Tom and I had a delightful afternoon, hanging pictures, arranging the furniture, and seeing that everything was right. Mr. Turner and Deacon Richards came in just as we finished, and the three men were so simple in their interest, and so hearty about it, that I feel as if everything was going forward in just the right spirit. Mr. Turner saw where a bracket was needed for one of the lamps, and said at once he would make one to-morrow. It was charming to see how pleased he was to find there was something he could furnish, and which n.o.body else at hand could have supplied. We are always pleased to find we are not only needed, but we are needed in some particular way which marks our personal fitness for the thing to be done. Deacon Daniel brought a big braided rug that an old woman at the Rim had made by his orders. He was in good spirits because he had helped the old woman and the reading-room at the same time. Tom was happy because he was at work, and in an atmosphere that was friendly; and I was happy because I could not help it. And so when we locked the room, and came home in the early twilight, I felt at peace with all the world.
Tom came in and had a frolic with Tomine, and when he went he held my hand a moment, looking into my face as if to impress me with what he said.
"Thank you, Ruth," were the words; "I think you"ll succeed in making me human again. Good-night."
If I am helping him to be reconciled with the world and himself I am more glad than I can tell.
October 28. The earthquake always finds us unprepared, and to-night it has come. I feel dazed and queer, as if life had been shaken to its foundations, and as if it were trembling about me.
George came in suddenly--My hand trembles so that I am writing like an old woman. If the chief object of keeping a journal is to help myself to be sane and rational, I must have better control over my nerves.
About seven o"clock, as I sat sewing, I heard Hannah open the front door to somebody. I half expected a deacon, as it generally is a deacon in the evening, but the door opened, and George came rushing in. His hurry and his excited manner made me see at once that something unusual had happened. His face was pale, his eyes wild, and somehow his whole air was terrifying.
"What is the matter?" I cried, jumping up to meet him.
He tried to speak, but only gave a sort of choking gasp.
"Has anything happened?" I asked him. "Your wife"--
"I haven"t any wife," he interrupted.
The shock was terrible, for I thought at once she must be dead, and I made some sort of a horrified exclamation. Then we stared at each other a minute. I supposed something had happened to her, and that he had from the force of old habit come to me in hope of comfort.
"I never had a wife," he went on, almost angrily, and as if I had disputed him.
I do not know what we said then or how we said it. It was a long time before I could understand, and even now it seems like a bad dream.