Peter had his lesson learned and I had the lawn mowed by five o"clock.
I devoted the next hour to my correspondence, and then went up to make myself ready for the feast. For some reason I went into the spare room at the front of the house, and glancing from the window saw Miss Stella stealing up through the orchard, her hands full of flowers. I watched cautiously. She peeped into the east window, saw that the coast was clear, and I heard the front door gently opened. I tiptoed to the head of the stairs, and listened. She was in the south room. Presently I heard voices.
"Sh," she was cautioning, evidently to Mrs. Pillig. A second later I heard Buster bark his "stranger-coming!" bark by the kitchen door. When I came downstairs, there were fresh flowers beneath the Hiroshiges, a bowl of them on the piano, and a centrepiece in the dining-room. I smiled.
"That fairy"s been here again," said Mrs. Pillig slyly. "Gave me quite a start."
Promptly at seven my guests arrived, and I ushered them with great ceremony into the south room, where Mrs. Bert gazed around with unfeigned delight, and cried, "Well, land o" Goshen, to think this was them two old stuffy rooms of Milt"s, with nothin" in "em but a bed and a cracked pitcher! Hev you read all them books, young man?"
"Not quite all," I laughed, as I opened the chimney cupboard to the left of my west fireplace.
"Lucky you read what you did before you began ter run a farm," said Bert.
I now brought forth from the cupboard a bottle of my choicest Bourbon and four gla.s.ses. The ladies consented to the tiniest sip, but, "There"s nothin" stingy about me!" said Bert. "Here"s to yer, Mr. Upton, and to yer house!"
We set our gla.s.ses down just as Mrs. Pillig announced dinner. On the way across the hall I managed to touch the girl"s hand once more. "For the second centrepiece, dear fairy," I whispered.
Bert was in rare form that evening, and kept us in gales of merriment.
Mrs. Pillig brought the soup and meat with anxious gravity, set the courses on the table, and then stopped to chat with Mrs. Temple, or to listen to Bert"s stories. She amused me almost as much as Bert did.
Bert and his wife weren"t company to her, and the impersonal att.i.tude of a servant was quite impossible for her. It was a family party with the waitress included. Miss Goodwin and I exchanged glances of amus.e.m.e.nt across the table.
Then came the lemon pie.
"Now there"s a pie!" said Mrs. Pillig, setting it proudly before me.
I picked up my mother"s old silver pie knife and carefully sank it down through the two-inch ma.s.s of puffy brown meringue spangled with golden drops, the under layer of lemon-yellow body, and finally the flaky, marvellously dry and tender bottom crust.
"Mrs. Pillig," said I, "pie is right!"
"Marthy," said Bert, smacking his lips over the first mouthful, "if you could make a pie like this, you"d be perfect."
"The creation of a pie like this," said I, "transcends the achievements of Praxiteles."
"If I could make a pie like this," said Miss Goodwin, "I should resign from the dictionary and open a bakeshop."
Mrs. Pillig stood in the doorway, her thin, worried face wreathed in smiles. Under her elbow I saw Peter peeping through, less curious concerning us, I fancied, than the fate of the pie.
"You lose, Peter," I called. "There ain"t going to be no core."
At the sound of my voice Buster came squeezing into the room, and put his forepaws in my lap. Then he went around the table greeting everybody, and ended by nestling his nose against Miss Goodwin"s knee. I slid back my chair, supremely content. Bert slid back his. I reached to the mantel for a box of cigars and pa.s.sed one to Bert, along with a candle, for I had no lamp in the dining-room as yet, nor any candles for the table.
That was a little detail we had forgotten. Bert bit off the end, and puffed contentedly.
"That"s some seegar," he said. "Better"n I"m used ter. Speakin"
o" seegars, though, reminds me o" old Jedge Perkins, when he went to Williams College. They used ter what yer call haze in them days, an" the soph"mores, they come into the young Jedge"s room to smoke him out, an" they give him a dollar an" told him to go buy pipes an"
terbacker; so he went out an" come back with ninety-nine clay pipes an" a penny"s worth o" terbacker, an" it pleased the soph"mores so they let him off. "Least, that"s what the Jedge said."
We rose and went back into the south room, followed by Buster. Bert was puffing his cigar with deep delight, and sank into the depths of a Morris chair, stretching out his feet. "Say, Marthy, why don"t we hev a chair like this?" he said.
""Cause you can"t stay awake in a straight one," she replied.
Mrs. Bert wandered about the room inspecting my books and pictures like a curious child. Miss Stella and I watched them both for a moment, exchanging a happy smile that meant volumes.
"I"m so glad you invited them," she whispered.
"I"m so glad you are here, too, though," I whispered back. "I can"t think of my housewarming now, without you."
She coloured rosily, and moved to the piano, where, by some right instinct, she began to play Stephen Foster.
""Old Kentucky Home!" By jinks, Marthy, do yer hear thet? Remember how I courted you, with the Salem Cadet Band a-playin" thet tune out on the bandstand, an" us in the shadder of a lilac bush?"
Martha Temple blushed like a girl. "Hush up, Bert," she laughed. But she went over and sat on the arm of the Morris chair beside him, and I saw his big, brown, calloused hand steal about her waist. My own instinct was to go to the piano, and I followed it, bending over the player and whispering close to her ear:
"You"ve touched a chord in their hearts," I said, "that you couldn"t have reached with Bach or Mozart. Don"t stop."
"The old dears," she whispered back. "I"ll give them "The Old Folks at Home.""
She did, holding the last chord open till the sound died away in the heart of the piano, and the room was still. Then suddenly she slipped into "The Camptown Races," and Bert, with a loud shout of delight, began to beat out the rhythm on Martha"s ample hip, for his arm was still about her.
"By cricky," he cried. "I bet thet tune beats any o" these new-fangled turkey trots! Speakin" o" turkey trots, Marthy, you and me ain"t been to a dance in a year. We mus" go ter the next one."
"Do you like to dance?" asked Miss Goodwin, coming over to the settle.
"Wal, now, when I was young, I was some hand at the lancers," he laughed. "Used ter drive over ter Orville in a big sleigh full o" hay, an" hev a dance an" oyster stew to the hotel thar. Sarah Pillig wuz some tripper in them days, too."
"Ah, ha!" said I, "now I see why Mrs. Temple was so anxious to come to-night!"
"Stuff!" said that amiable woman.
The girl was looking into the ashes on the hearth. "Sleigh rides!" she said. "I suppose you all go jingling about the lovely country in sleighs all winter! Do you know, I never had a sleigh ride in my life?"
"No!" cried Bert. "Don"t seem possible. Speakin" o" sleighs, did I ever tell you about old Deacon Temple, my great uncle? He used ter hev a story he sprung on anybody who"d listen. Cricky, how he did welcome a stranger ter town! "Cordin" ter this story, he wuz once drivin"
along on a fine crust, when his old hoss run away, an" run, an" run, an" finally upset the sleigh over a wall into a hayfield whar they was mowin", an" he fell in a hayc.o.c.k an" didn"t hurt himself at all. Then the stranger would say: "But how could they be mowin" in Ma.s.sachusetts in sleighin" time?" and the Deacon would answer: "They wa"n"t. The old mare run so far she run into Rhode Island.""
Mrs. Temple rose. "Bert, you come home," she said, "before you think of any more o" them old ones."
"Oh, jest the woodchuck," Bert pleaded.
Miss Stella and I insisted on the woodchuck, so Bert sank back luxuriously, and narrated the tale. It had happened, it seems, to his grandfather and this same brother, the Deacon, when they were boys.
"The old place wuz down by the river," said Bert, "an" there was a pesky "chuck they couldn"t shoot ner trap, he wuz so smart, who hed a burrow near the bank. So one day grandad seen him go in, an"
he called the Deacon, an" the two of "em sot out ter drown the critter.
They lugged water in pails, takin" turns watchin" and luggin", for two hours, dumpin" it into the hole till she was nigh full up. Then they got too tuckered ter tote any more, an" sat down behind a bush ter rest. Pretty soon they seen the old woodchuck"s head poke up. He looked around, careful like, but didn"t see the boys behind the bush, so he come all the way out and what do you think he done?"
"Tell us!" cried Miss Stella, leaning forward, her eyes twinkling.
"He went down ter the river an" took a drink," said Bert.
"Won"t you copy the wisdom of the woodchuck?" I asked, when the laugh had subsided.
Bert nodded slyly and I opened my chimney cupboard again.