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ALVMNVS BOOK FVND
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The People of Our
Neighborhood
BY
Mary E. Wilkins
AUTHOR OF
"A NEW ENGLAND NUN"
I 903
MELVILLE PUBLISHING CO.
161 Bank Street : : New York
Copyright, 1895, '96, '97, '98, by
CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.
Contents
/ 1 -..
Timotiiy Sampson :
The Wise Man .
Little Margaret Snell :
The Village Runaway
Cyrus Emmett :
The Unlucky Man .
Phebe Ann Little :
The Neat Woman .
Amanda Todd :
The Friend of Cats
Lydia Wheelock :
The Good Woman .
A Quilting Bee in Our Village .
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
1
23
41
5&
91
111
129
149
Cl3-
Timothy Samson : The
Wise Man
I
413089
Timothy Samson: The
Wise Man
Timothy Samson is not a college grad-
uate, not more than three men in this
village are. I never heard that he was
remarkable as a boy for his standing in
the district school, but he is the village
sage. Nobody disputes it. The doctor,
the lawyer and the minister all have to
give precedence to him. The doctor may
know something about physic, the lawyer
about law and the minister about theol-
ogy, but Timothy Samson knows some-
thing about everything.
The doctor's practice suffers through
Timothy. If any of the neighbors or
their children are ill they are very apt
to call in Timothy instead of the doctor.
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
For one reason, they have nearly as much
confidence in him; for another reason, it
saves the doctor's fee.
Timothy Samson seems able to tell al-
most at a glance whether a child is com-
ing down with a simple cold or the whoop-
ing cough, with measles or scarlet fever,
with mumps or quinsy. He has a little
stock of medicines in his chimney closet
in his kitchen. Timothy's medicine bot-
tles, which hold a good quart apiece, are
always kept replenished. Nothing is ever
lacking in case of need. Most of them he
concocts himself, from roots and herbs,
with a judicious use of stimulants. For
this last he is forced to make a slight
charge when medicine is taken in large
quantities. " I ask jest enough to cover
the cost of the stimulants/' he says, and
little enough it is — only a few cents upon
a quart. Timothy's ministrations are sim-
ply for humanity's sake and love of the
healing art, and not for gain.
He is a cobbler, a mender of the cheap
rustic shoes that wear out their soles and
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
stub their toes on our rough country
roads. He used, until machine-work came
in vogue, to make all the shoes for the
neighborhood by hand. Indeed, there are
now some few conservative mothers of
•families who employ him twice a year to
fit out their children with his coarse,
faithful handiwork. Timothy owns his
little cottage house, and his little garden,
and his little apple orchard. He paid for
them long ago with his small savings, and
now he earns just enough by cobbling to
pay his taxes and keep himself and his
old wife in their plain and simple neces-
saries of life.
Timothy's shoe shop forms a tiny ell
of his tiny house. In it he has a little
rusty box-stove, which is usually red hot
through the winter months, for Timothy
is a chilly man; his work-bench with its
sagging leather seat, a rude table heaped
with lasts, and three or four stools and
backless chairs for callers. The hot air
is stifling with leather and the reek of
ancient tobacco smoke, for Timothy
5
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
smokes a pipe. A strange atmosphere, it
seems, for wisdom to thrive in.
Often an anxious mother is seen to scut-
tle down the road with her shawl thrown
over her head, and disappear from the
eyes of neighbors in Timothy's shoe-shop
and reappear with Timothy ambling at
her heels.
Timothy is a small, spare old man, and
he has a curious gait, but he gets over
the ground rapidly when he goes on such
errands.
The children like Timothy; they are
not as afraid of him as of the doctor.
Sometimes one sets up a doleful lament
when the doctor is proposed, but is com-
forted when his mother says: "Well, I'll
run over an' get Timothy Samson. I guess
he'll do jest about as well."
The children run out their tongues
quite readily for Timothy to inspect; they
even stretch their mouths obediently for
his potent doses. There may, however,
be reasons for their preference. All of
Timothy's medicines are tinctured high
6
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
with, flavors which are pleasant and even
delectable to childish palates, and they
are well sweetened. So much peppermint
and sassafras and wintergrcen, indeed,
does Timothy infuse in his remedies that
the doctor has been known to be very
sarcastic over it. " Might as well take
sassafras-tea and done with it," he said
once with a sniff at the dregs of Timo-
thy's medicine when Mrs. Harrison White
called him in to see her Tommy, after
Timothy had attended him for two weeks.
But the doctor was three weeks curing
Tommy after that, and she called in Tim-
othy the next time the child was sick.
Aside from the pleasant flavors of Tim-
othy's medicines there is another induce-
ment for taking them. Always after the
patient has swallowed his dose he tucks
into his mouth a most delicious little mo-
lasses drop made by Mrs. Timothy.
She makes these drops as no one in
the village can; indeed she holds jeal-
ously to the receipt, and cannot be coaxed
to disclose it. She keeps her husband's
7
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
pockets filled with the drops; for some
occult reason they never seem to stick,
even in hot weather.
Mrs. Timothy is a tall, shy, pale old
woman who scarcely ever speaks unless
she is asked a direct question. There is
a curious lack of active individuality
about her. At times she seems like noth-
ing so much as a sort of spiritual looking-
glass for the reflection of Timothy, and
3ret he is not an imperious or unpleasantly
self-assertive man. Still, great self-con-
fidence lie undoubtedly has, and that may
eliminate a weaker nature without design-
ing to do so. Perhaps the whole village
reflects Timothy more or less, after the
manner of his wife.
Many a tale is told of a triumph of
his sagacity over the doctors, and people
listen with pride and chuckling delight.
The doctor is a surly, gruff and not very
popular old man, and everybody loves to
relate how "the doctor said Mis' Nehe-
miah Stockwell had erysipelas, and doc-
tored her for that several months, and she
8
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
got worse. Then they called in Timothy
Samson on the sly, and he said, jest as
soon as he see her, 'twa'n't erysipelas,
'twas poison ivy, an' put on plantain leaves
and castor oil, and cured her right up."
Timothy Samson's triumphs in law and
theology are even greater than in medi-
cine. He draws up wills, free of charge,
which stand without a question; he col-
lects hills with wonderful success. Every-
body knows how he made Mr. Samuel
Paine pay the twenty-five dollars and
sixty-three cents which he had been ow-
ing John Leavitt over a year for wood.
John had asked and asked, but he began
to think he should never get a cent.
Samuel Paine is one of the most pros-
perous men in the village, too; he owns
the grist mill. Finally poor John Leav-
itt sought aid from Timothy Samson, who
bestowed it.
Mrs. Samuel Paine had company to tea
that afternoon — the minister and his wife,
and some out-of-town cousins of hers who
have married well. They wore stiff black
9
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
silks trimmed with jet, and carried gold
watches; the neighbors saw them out in
the yard.
They had taken their seats at the tea-
table, which Mrs. Paine had bedecked
with her best linen and china; the min-
ister had asked the blessing, and Mrs.
Paine was about to pour the tea, and Mr.
Paine to pass the biscuits, when Timothy
Samson walked in without knocking.
He bade the company good -day, and
then, with no preface at all, addressed Mr.
Samuel Paine upon the subject of his
long-standing debt to John Leavitt. He
told him that John Leavitt was a poor
man, and in sore need of a barrel of flour.
" Poor John Leavitt, he can't afford to
have no sech fine company as you've got
to-night, an' give 'em no sech hot biscuits
and peach sauce, and frosted cake," said
Timothy, pitilessly eyeing the table; " he
can't have what he actilly needs, 'cause
you don't pay your just debt."
Samuel Paine, thus admonished, turned
red, then white, but said not a word, only
10
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
pulled his old leather wallet stiffly out
of his pocket, and poor John Leavitt had
his barrel of flour that night.
And all the village knows how Timothy
settled the dispute between Lysander
Mann and Anson White. Anson's hens
encroached upon Lysander's young gar-
den; he would not shut them up, and
Lysander threatened to go to law. They
had hot words about it. But Timothy
said to Lysander, with that inimitably
shrewd wink of his handsome bine eye?,
which must have been seen by everybody
hearing the story, who knows Timothy,
" Why don't you fix up a nice leetle coop,
an' some nice leetle nests in your yard,
Lysander? "
xlnd Lysander did, and Anson shut up
his hens when they took to laying eggs
upon his neighbor's premises, instead of
scratching up his peas and beans.
When theology is in question there is a
popular belief in the village that the min-
ister is indebted to Timothy for many a
good point in his sermen.
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
In fact, the minister, who is an old and
somewhat prosy man, seldom gets credit
among many of his congregation for any
bright and original thought of his own.
People nod meaningly at each other, as
mnch as to say, " That's Timothy Sam-
son." It is universally conceded that if
Timothy had been properly educated he
would have made a much better parson
than the parson. Timothy is especially
gifted in prayer, and often seems to bear
the whole burden of the conference meet-
ing upon his shoulders.
He is one of the deacons, and he passes
the sacramental bread and wine with the
stately and solemn bearing of an apostle.
Indeed, there is something which ap-
proaches the apostolic ideal in the appear-
ance of Timothy Samson, with his hand-
some, benignantly-beaming old face, and
his waving gray locks. There is only
one thing which conflicts with it, and
that is the twinkle of acute worldly
wisdom and shrewdness in his blue eyes.
One cannot imagine an apostle twink-
12
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
ling upon his fellow-men, after that
fashion.
Besides the wisdom comprised under
the three heads of medicine, law and the-
ology, Timothy has more of varied kinds
in stock. He is strangely weatherwise.
He seems to read the clouds and the winds
like the chapters of a book. "We all be-
lieve he could write an almanac as good
as the " Old Farmers' " if he were so dis-
posed. If the Sunday-school thinks of
having a picnic Timothy is consulted, and
the day he selects is invariably fair. He
has even been known to name the wed-
ding day instead of the bride.
Not a woman in the "village dreams of
going abroad in best bonnet and gown if
Timothy Samson says it will storm. On
the other hand, one sets forth in her fin-
est array, and carries no umbrella, no mat-
ter how lowering the clouds are, if Tim-
othy gives the word that it will be fair.
Timothy knows when there will be a
drought and when a frost. Often we
should lose our grapes or our melons were
*3
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
it not for Timothy's timely warning to
cover them before nightfall with old
blankets and carpets. Timothy is a master
gardener, and knows well how to make
refractory plants bud and blossom. He
grafts sour and stubborn old fruit trees
into sweet and luscious bearing; he knows
how to prune vines and hedges and rose-
bushes.
Timothy always knows where the blue-
berries and blackberries grow thickest, and
pilots the children thither, and he knows
the haunt of the partridge if an invalid
has a longing for delicate wild meat.
Timothy's wisdom can apply itself to
small matters as well as great, and fit the
minutest needs of daily life. If a house-
wife's carpet will not go down, if her cur-
tains will not roll up, if the stove-pipe will
not fit, his aid is sought and never fails.
If any one of the thousand little house-
hold difficulties beset her, Timothy runs
over in his shoemaker's apron and sets the
matter right.
If there is any matter which Timothy's
14
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man
wisdom can fail to cover we have yet to
find it.
If this sage did not live in our village
what should we all be? Should we ever
go anywhere without spoiling our best
bonnets? Should we have any wisdom at
all unless we paid the highest market
price for it? And we could not do that,
because we are all poor. What shall we
do when our wise man is gathered to his
fathers? AYe dare not contemplate that.
i5
Little Margaret Snell : The
Village Runaway
Little Margaret Snell : The
Village Runaway
It certainly goes rather hard for any
mother in this village, of a fanciful and
romantic turn of mind, who tries to de-
part from our staid old customs in the
naming of her children. She is directly
thought to be putting on airs in a par-
ticularly foolish fashion, and her attempts
are frustrated so far as may be.
For instance, when Mrs. White named
her second boy Reginald, and the neigh-
bors knew that there was no such appella-
tion in the family, that it was only a
" fancy name," they sniffed contemptu-
ously, and called him " Ridgy." Ridgy
White he will be in this village until the
J9
Little Margaret Snell
day of his death. And when Mrs. Beals
named her little girl Gertrude, the school-
children, who scorned such fine names,
transformed it to " Gritty," and Gritty the
poor child goes.
As for Marg'ret Snell, she fared some-
what better; she might easily have been
dubbed Gritty too, had it not been for the
fact that Gertrude Beals is eight months
older, and went to school first. She is
only called in strict conformance to the
homely old customs " Marg'ret " and
sometimes " Margy," with a hard g, when
her real name is Marguerite.
How the neighbors sniffed when they
learned what Francis Snell's wife had
named her girl-baby. Miss Lurinda Snell,
Francis' sister, told of it in Mrs. Harrison
White's. She had dropped in there one
afternoon, about a weeL after Marg'ret's
birth, and several other neighbors had
dropped in, too.
" Sophi' has named the baby," said Lu-
rinda. Mrs. Francis Snell's name is So-
phia, but everybody calls her " Sophi,"
20
Little Margaret Snell
"with a strong emphasis on the last syl-
lable.
Then the others inquired eagerly what
she had named it, and Lurinda replied
with a scornful lift and twist of her thin
nose and lips: "Marguerite/'
"; Marg'rct, you mean/' said the others.
" No, it's Marguerite," said Lurinda.
" "Where did she get such a name as
that ? " asked the neighbors.
" Out of a book of poetry," replied Lu-
rinda, with another scornful sneer.
The neighbors then and there agreed
that it was very silly to twist about a good
sensible name, and Frenchify it in that
way; that Sophi read too much, and that
she wouldn't be likely to have much gov-
ernment.
Whether the former course was silly or
not the*y have certainly never abetted it;
not one of them has ever called the little
girl anything but Marg'ret or Margy, and
whether they were right or not about
Mrs. SnelPs superfluous reading, they
most assuredly were about her lack of gov-
21
Little Margaret Snell
eminent. Sophia Snell is a good woman,
and probably one of the most intellectual
persons in the village, but she does hold
a loose rein over her domestic affairs.
That broad, white, abstracted brow of hers
cannot seem to bring itself to bear very
well upon stray buttons, and heavy bread
and childish peccadillos. Francis Snell
sews on his buttons himself or uses pins,
or his sister Lurinda calls him in and
sews them on for him with strong and
virtuous jerks. It is popularly believed
that he never cats light bread unless his
sister takes pity upon him, and as for lit-
tle Marg'ret, she runs loose. She always
has, ever since she could run at all. When
she was nothing but a bab}% and tumbled
over her petticoats every few minutes, she
was repeatedly captured and brought back
to her mother, who immediately let her
run away again, with the same impeded
but persistent species of locomotion.
Before little Marg'ret was three years
old she had toddled and tumbled all alone
by herself over the entire village, and
Little Margaret Snell
often far on the outskirts. Once Thomas
Gleason, who lives on a farm three miles
out, brought her home. Nobody could
understand how she got there, but she tod-
dled into the yard at sunset in her little
muddy pink frock, with one shoe gone,
and no bonnet, very dirty, but very smil-
ing, and not at all tired or frightened.
Little Marg'ret never was afraid of any-
body or anything. Probably there is not
another such example of absolute fearless-
ness in the village as she. She marches
straight up to cross dogs and cows, the
dark has no terrors for her, the loudest
clap of thunder does not make her child-
ish bosom quake. And she certainly has
no fear, and possibly no respect, for mor-
tal man. Speak harshly to her, even give
her a little smart shake, or cuff her small,
naughty hands, and she stands looking up
at you as innocently and unabashedly as a
pet kitten.
Everybody prophesied that little Marg'-
ret, through this fearlessness of hers,
would come soon to an untimely end.
23
Little Margaret Snell
" She'll get bitten by a dog or hooked by
a cow," they said. " She'll get lost, she'll
follow a strange man, she'll walk into the
pond and get drowned." But she never
has, so far, and she is going bravely on
to six.
Little Marg'ret's Aunt Lnrinda Snell
has probably endured sharper pangs of
anxiety on her account than anybody else.
Marg'ret's father is an easy-going man; his
sister Lurinda seems to have all the capac-
ity for worry in the family.
Lurinda is much given to sitting in her
front window. She arises betimes of a
morning, and her solitar}r maiden house is
soon set to rights, and not a soul who
comes down the street escapes her. Let
little Marg'ret essay to scamper past, and
straightway comes the sharp tap of bony
knuckles upon the window-pane, then the
window slides up with a creak, and Lu-
rinda's voice is heard, sharp and shrill,
"Marg'ret, Marg'ret, you stop! Where
you going?"
Then when Marg'ret scuds past, with a
24
Little Margaret Snell
roguish, cock of lier head toward the
window, the call comes again, "Margaret
Snell, yon stop! Yon come right in
here ! "
But Marg'ret seldom comes to order.
She goes where she wills, and nowhere
ebe. The very essence of freedom seems
to be in her childish spirit. You might as
well try to command a little wild rabbit.
All Lurinda's shrill orders are of no avail,
unless she sees her soon enough to .head
her off, and actually brings her into the
house by dint of superior bodily strength.
If Marg'ret has once the start, her aunt
can never catch her, but sometimes she
starts across her track before the little
wild thing has time to double. Then, in-
deed, there are struggles and wails and
shrill interjections of wrath.
To compensate for her lack of parental
survey the whole neighborhood, as well
as Lurinda, takes a hand at controlling
this small and refractory member,
although in uncertain fashion, which,
perhaps, does more harm than good. How-
25
Little Margaret Snell
ever, we all do our best to reduce Marg'-
ret to subjection, each for one's self — we
are driven to it.
Xone of us are safe from an invasion
of Marg'ret at any hour of the day, upon
all occasions. Have we any very particu-
lar company to tea, into the best parlor
walks Marg'ret in her soiled pinafore, with
her yellow hair in a tousle, and her face
very dirty, and sweetly smiling, and seats
herself in the best chair, if a guest has
not anticipated her. When told with that
gentle and ladylike authorit}r, which one
can display before company, that she had
better run right home like a good little
girl, Marg'ret sits still and smiles.
Then there is nothing to do but to say
in a bland voice that thinly disguises im-
patience, " Come out in the kitchen with
me, Marg'ret, and I'll give you a piece of
cake," and toll her out in that way, — ■
Marg'ret will sell her birthright of her
own way for cake, and cake alone, — and
then to cram the cake with emphasis into
the small hand, and sa}', "Marg'ret, you
Little Margaret Snell
go right home and don't you come over
here again to-day." But no one can be
sure that she will not appear at the com-
pany tea-table, and pull at the company's
black silk skirts for more cake, like a pet-
ted pussy cat.
Marg'ret walks into the minister's study
when he is writing his sermons or when he
is conducting family prayers. The doc-
tor keeps his dangerous drugs on high
shelves where she cannot reach them; he
has found her alone in his office so many
times. She walks over all our houses as
she chooses. We are never sure on going
into any room that Marg'ret will not start
up like a little elf and confront us. She
has been found asleep in the middles of
spare chamber feather-beds; she has been
found investigating with her curious lit-
tle fingers the sacred mysteries of best par-
lor china-closets.
Little Marg'ret is the one lively and ut-
terly incorrigible thing in our dull little
village. There are ethor children, but she
is that one all-pervading spirit of child-
27
Little Margaret Snell
hood which keeps us all fretting but pow-
erless under its tyranny, and yet, if the
truth must be told, ready enough to cut
for it the sweet cake, which it loves, when
it runs away into our hearts.
28
Cyrus Emmett : The
Unlucky Man
Cyrus Emmett : The
Unlucky Man
It is not probable that Cyrus Emmett'ff
relations intended any sarcasm toward a
helpless and inoffensive infant when they
gave him the name of the great Persian
conqueror, but that alone has proved a
mockery of his lot in life. Poor Cyrus
Emmett has not been able to conquer even
the petty obstacles of the narrow sphere to
which he was born. Even in this humble
village of humble folk, who regard tho
luxuries of life very much as they do the
moon, as something so beyond their reach
as to make desire ridiculous, Cyrus
Emmett has the superior lowliness of the
utterly defeated. Xot one of the other
villagers but at some time or other has
had his own little triumph of success^
31
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
which gave him that sense of power which
exalts humanity. He has married the pret-
tiest girl or has made a great crop of hay,
or he has grown the finest grapes, or built
himself a tasty house, or been deacon or
selectman.
Cyrus Emmett has never known any-
thing of these little victories, which, be-
ing well proportioned to the simple con-
tests, perhaps produce as fine a quality of
triumph as did those of the great Persian
whose name he bears.
Poor Cyrus, when a boy at school, never
■ quite got to the head of his class, although
no one studied more faithfully than he,
.and at the end of the term he knew his
books better. Once Cyrus would have gone
-to the head; he spelled the word correctly,
but the teacher misunderstood. Once the
two scholars above him had the mumps
'and were absent, and he would then have
jlaken his place at the head had he not
slipped on the ice on his way to school,
..and sprained his ankle.
Always, when he could spell a word, and
32
Cyrus Emmett ; The Unlucky Man
the scholars above him were failing, and
his heart was beating, and his head swim-
ming with anticipated triumph, when he
leaned forward and waved his arm fran-
tically, and could scarcely be restrained
from declaring his wisdom before his turn,
the next boy gave the correct answer and
went to the head. If Cyrus had not been
so near success his disappointment would
not have been so great.
Cyrus made a signal failure in his boy-
ish sports. He could never quite reach
the bottom of a hill without a swerve and
roll in the snow when almost there, and
that, too, on an experienced sled, and with
no difference in his mode of steering, that
one could see. If there was a stone or
snag heretofore unknown on the course,.
Cyrus discovered it and cut short his ca-
reer; if another boy was to collide with
any one it was with him.
At a very early age Cyrus began to ex-
cite a feeling compounded of contempt
and compassion among everybody with,
whom he came in contact.
33
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
" Cyrus Emmett is a good boy, and tries
hard, but he never seems to make out
much," they said.
" Try again, Cy," the boys shouted when
lie toiled up the hill for the twentieth time
after a hard toss in the snow. And Cy-
rus would try with fierce energy, and up-
.set again amidst exultant laughter from
the top of the hill. There has been, from
the first, no lack of energy and persever-
ance in Cyrus Emmett. It is possible that
he might have gained more respect in his
defeats if there had been. There is, after
all, a certain negative triumph in declin-
ing to bestir one's self against excessive
odds, and sitting down to the buffetings of
fate, like an Indian, maybe with a steady
fury of unconquerable soul, but no strug-
gles nor outcries. Cyrus, however, has
never ceased to kick against the unending
pricks of Providence, and fall back and
lack again, and fall, until his neighbors
seem never to have seen him in any atti-
tudes but those of futile attack and de-
ieat. Had he sat stolidly down on his
34
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
sled nor tried to coast at all, and defied
his adverse fate in that way, it is quite
probable that he might have gained more
respect.
Cyrus' father was a farmer; a thrifty
man, and considered quite well-to-do, as
he owned his place and stock clear, with,
a little balance in the savings bank, until
Cyrus was old enough to enter into active-
co-operation with him in the farm man-
agement. Then things began to go wrong,
but seemingly through no fault of Cyrus',
nor indeed of any living man.
First the woodland caught fire, and all
the standing wood and fifty cords of cut
went up in flame and smoke. Then there
was a terrible hailstorm, which seemed to
spend its worst fury on the Emmett farm,
and laid waste the garden and the corn-
fields. Then the Emmetts' potatoes rot-
ted, although nobody's else in the village
did. That year half the little balance in
the savings bank was drawn; in two years
more the Emmett account was closed. The
old man died not long after that, and his.
35
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
son inherited the farm; his wife had died
long before, and a maiden sister of his had
kept house for him.
The year after his father's death Cy-
rus' barn was struck by lightning, and
burned to the ground with several head of
cattle and a valuable horse. Then Cyrus
mortgaged the farm to build a new barn
and buy stock, and it is one of the tragic
tales of the village that the new barn had
not been finished a week before that also
was burned because of the hired man's up-
setting a lantern, and only two cows were
saved. Then Cyrus borrowed more, and
the neighbors went to the raising of an-
other barn, and lent a hand in the build-
ing. They also contributed all they could
spare from their small means and bought
Cyrus another horse.
But it was not long before the horse
sickened and died, and the lightning
struck again and badly shattered one end
of the new barn, and killed a cow, besides
stunning Cyrus so severely that he was in
/the house for a month in haying-time.
36
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
Then the neighbors gave up. "It's no use
tryin' to help Cy Emmett, he wasn't born
lucky/*' they said, and they had a terrified
and uncanny feeling, as if they had been
contending against some evil power.
Once Cyrus had what seemed for a little
while a stroke of luck, such as all the
village people have known at least the
taste of — he drew a prize. The village
does not approve of lotteries, and Cyrus
had been brought up to shun them, but
that time he was tempted. A man went
the rounds selling tickets at a quarter of
a dollar apiece on a horse which he rep-
resented as very valuable. The man was
a third cousin of Deacon Xehemiah Stock-
well, and people were inclined to think he
was reliable, although they had not seen
the horse. He represented, also, that the
money obtained was to go toward the
building of a Baptist church in East
Windsor.
Cyrus had just lost his horse, and he
h-ad a quarter in his pocket and he bought
a ticket and drew the prize. It went around
37
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
the village like wildfire. " Cy Emmett has
drawn the horse." Pretty soon two men
were seen leading the horse through the
village. It seemed odd that he should be
led instead of ridden, that it should re-
quire two men to lead him, also that he
should be so curiously strapped and tied
about the head and hindquarters. How-
ever, he looked like a fine animal, and
tugged and pranced as well as he could un-
der his restrictions, thereby showing his
spirit. He was said to be very valuable;
Cyrus Emmett was thought to be actually
in luck that time.
However, poor Cyrus' luck proved to be
only one of his usual misfortunes. The
horse was a white elephant on his hands;
he could not be harnessed, and he threw
every rider who bestrode him. As for
working the farm, he might as well have
set the fabled Pegasus at that. He kicked
and bit — it was dangerous even to feed
him.
Finally he took to chewing his halter
apart, and escaping and terrorizing the
38
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
Tillage. " Cy Emmett's horse is loose ! "
was the signal for a general stampede. At
last he had to be shot.
Cyrus Emmett, when he was a little tin-
der forty, had the mortgage on his farm
foreclosed, and went to live in a poor cot-
tage with a few acres of land attached. He
has lived there ever since, and he is now
past sixty.
Cyrus' ill luck seems to have followed
him in his love affairs. When he was quite
a young man he fell in love with Mary
Ann Linfield, hut she would not have him.
She married Edward Bassett afterward.
It was all over town one morning that
Z^Iary Ann had jilted Cyrus. Her mother
ran in to Miss Lurinda Snell and told of it.
Cyrus did not marry until his old aunt,
who kept his house, died; then he espoused
a widow in the next village, and she has
been a helpless cripple from rheumatism
ever since their marriage.
Cyrus has to toil from dawn until far
into the night, tilling his few scanty acres,
caring for two cows and hens, peddling
39
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
milk, and eggs, and vegetables, nursing
his sick wife, and doing all the household
tasks.
It is a curious thing that although Cy-
rus pays painfully, penny by penny, for
all his little necessaries of life, he has
no credit. I doubt if a man in the village
would trust him with a dollar's worth,
and he is said to purchase such infinitesi-
mal quantities as a dozen lumps of sugar,
and two drawings of tea, and a cup of
beans, because he has no ready cash to pay
for more.
Poor Cyrus Emmett goes through the
village street, his back bent with years and
the hard burdens of life, but there is still
the fire of zeal in his eyes, and he is al-
ways in spirit trying over again that coast
down the hill, although he always upsets
before he reaches the goal.
The boys call out, " Hallo, Cy," when
they meet him, and he makes as if he did
not hear, although they are, after all,
friendly enough, and intend no disrespect.
It is only that his lack of progress in life
40
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
seems somehow to put the old man on a
level with themselves.
Once he stopped and said, half angrily,
half appealing!}', "Fm too old a man for
you to speak to me like that, boys." But
they only laughed and hailed him in the
same way when they met again.
They say that luck is always sure to turn
sooner or later. Perhaps later means
not in this world; hut if poor Cyrus Em-
mett's luck does turn in his lifetime there
will be great rejoicing in this village.
4i
Phebe Ann Little : The
Neat Woman
Phebe Ann Little : The
Neat Woman
Let anybody mention Phebe Ann Little
in the neighborhood, and some one is sure
to immediately remark, " She's terrible
neat/'
It is impossible to think even of Phebe
Ann, to have her image come for an in-
stant before one's mind, without reference
to this especial characteristic of hers. She
cannot be separated by any mental pro-
cess from her "terrible neatness." It is in-
teresting to speculate what can become of
Phebe Ann in the hereafter, where, as we
are taught to believe, the contest against
moth and rust and the general untidiness
of this earth is to cease. Can Phebe Ann
exist at all in a state where neatness will
45
Phebe Ann Little
be merely a negative quality with no possi-
bility of active exposition? Will not there
have to be cobwebs for Phebe Ann to
sweep from the sky, if she is to inhabit it
in any conscious state?
Except in meeting, Phebe Ann is scarce-
ly ever seen by a neighbor without broom
and dusting-cloth in hand.
With the first flicker of dawn light and
the first cock crow, comes the flirt of
Phebe Ann's duster from her window, the
flourish of her broom on her front door-
step, and often far into the evening
Phebe Ann's scrubbing and dusting shad-
ow is seen upon the window curtains. Peo-
ple say that Phebe Ann's husband often
has to hold the lamp for her while she
cleans and dusts until near midnight. A
neighbor passing the open kitchen window
late one summer night, reported that he
heard Phebe Ann appeal to her husband
in something after this fashion: " George
Henr}T, can you remember whether I have
washed this side of the table or the oth-
er ? " There are even stories current that
46
Phebe Ann Little
her husband has often to rise during the
small hours of a winter night, light a
lamp, get the broom, and sweep down the
cellar stairs, or the back door-step, be-
cause Phebe has awakened with a species
of nightmare of unperformed duty tor-
menting her. She cannot remember, in
her bewildered state, whether she has neg-
lected the stairs and the door-step or not,
and if she has, none can say what evil
seems impending over her and her house.
Once her husband, George Henry, who
at times is afflicted with that species of
rheumatism known as a crick in the back,
is reported to have rebelled at this mid-
night call to the cellar stairs and the
broom, and Phebe to have retorted with
tragic emphasis: " Suppose I was to die
before morning, George Henry Little, and
those cellar stairs not swept." • And that
argument is said to have been too weighty
for George Henry's scruples.
Phebe Ann is also said to send George
Henry searching with a midnight taper
for cobwebs on the ceiling, which she re-
47
Phebe Ann Little
members seeing and cannot remember
having brushed away. There is a popular
picture in the village imagination of
George Henry Little, in the silent watches
of the night, standing on a chair, a feath-
er duster in one hand and a lamp in the
other, anxiously scanning the ceiling for
cobwebs.
George Henry Little, it goes without
saying, is a meek and long-suffering man.
If ever he had spirit and the capability of
sustained rebellion, Phebe Ann must long
since have scoured it away with some kind
of spiritual soap and sand. Indeed, George
Henry's relatives openly say that he never
was the same man after he married Phebe
Ann Fitch, which was his wife's maiden
name. And yet Phebe Ann is such a mild-
looking, little, sandy-haired woman, with
strained, anxious blue eyes, and small,
knotty hands with rasped knuckles, and
George Henry is black-whiskered and
rather fierce-visaged in comparison. Phebe
Ann taught school before she was mar-
ried, too, and George Henry's relatives
48
Phebe Ann Little
feared that she would not make a good
housekeeper, but their fears upon that
head were soon allayed.
When George Henry's sister, Mrs. Ezra
Wheeler, went to call at his house for the
first time after he and Phebe Ann were
married, she came home, surprised and a
little alarmed.
" It was four o'clock in the afternoon
when I got there," she tells the story,
" and there was Phebe Ann in a calico
dress and gingham apron (likely to have
wedding callers all the time, too), scrub-
bing the tops of the doors. They hadn't
been living in that brand-new house a
week either. I don't see what she found to
scrub. But there she was hard at work
with soap and sand. I said then I guessed
we needn't worry about George Henry's
not having a good housekeeper; I guessed
he'd have all the housekeeping he wanted,
and more, too."
It is fortunate for George Henry that
he has a reasonably neat and tidy occupa-
tion— he is Mr. Harrison White's confi-
49
Phebe Ann Little
dential clerk and chief assistant in the
store and post-office. If he had been em-
ployed in the grist mill, or if he had been
a farmer, Phebe Ann might have resorted
to such extreme measures as lodging him
in the woodshed or on the door-step in
mild weather. As it is he seems to work
hard to gain an entrance to his own house.
George Henry always goes around to the
back door — it is improbable that he has
ever crossed the threshold of his front
door since his wedding-day — and when
there he opens it a crack, slips his hand
around the corner and takes a pair of
slippers from a peg just inside. Then he
removes his boots, puts on the slippers and
enters. The neighbors are positive that
this is his daily custom when he returns
from the store. But should the day be
snowy or dusty or muddy, then, indeed,
George Henry Little has to painfully work
his passage into his own house. Phebe
Ann comes forth — indeed she often lies
in wait — with the broom, and sometimes,
it is asserted, with the duster, and poor
50
Phebe Ann Little
George Henry is made to undergo a puri-
fication as rigid as if he were about to en-
ter a heathen temple.
It must be a sore trial to Thebe Ann to
admit any one without the performance of
these cleansing rites; but she has to sub-
mit in other cases. She cannot make the
minister take oil his boots and put on
slippers before entering, neither can she
make such conditions with the neighbors.
She has always a little corn-husk mat on
the door-step, and there we stand and
carefully scrape and scrape, while she
watches with ill-concealed anxiety, and
then we walk in, although we feel guilty.
In very muddy weather we always, of
course, remove our rubbers and all our
outer garments which have become damp;
but otherwise our shoes, which have been
contaminated by the dust of the street,
come boldly in contact with Phebe Ann's
immaculate carpets.
But she has her revenge.
ISTot a neighbor goes in to spend a friend-
ly hour with Phebe Ann, who does not see,
5*
Phebe Ann Little
after her return, if she lives within seeing
distance — and if she does not it is faithful-
ly reported to her — her late hostess fling
windows and doors wide open, and ply
frantically broom and duster, and she
wonders uneasily how much dirt and dust
she could possibly have tracked into Phebe
Ann's.
But the neighbors have double cause for
solicitude so far as an imputation upon
their own neatness is concerned, for Phebe
Ann never herself returns from a neigh-
borly call, that she does not, it is vouched
for by competent witnesses, hang all the
garments which accompanied her upon
the clothes-line to air. Miss Lurinda Snell
declares that she turns even the sleeves
wrong side out and brushes them vigorous-
ly— that she has seen her.
We all admit, with perhaps some prick-
ings of conscience in our own cases, that
Phebe Ann Little is a notable housekeep-
er. Her window-panes flash like diamonds
in the setting sun. There is no dust on
her window-blinds; one could sit in one's
52
Phebe Ann Little
Lest silk dress on her door-step; one could,
if there were any occasion for so doing,
eat one's meals off her shed floor or her
cellar stairs. There is no speck of dirt, no
thread of disorder in all Phehe Ann's
house, nor upon her person, nor upon any-
thing which helongs to her. She is cer-
tainly a housekeeper whose equal is not
among us, and we all give her due admira-
tion and respect.
She is a credit to our village, and yet it
is possihle that one such credit is suffi-
cient. If there were another like her the
Tillage might become so clean that we
should all have to take to the fields and
survey its beautiful tidiness over pasture-
bars.
53
Amanda Todd : The
Friend of Cats
Amanda Todd : The
Friend of Cats
Amanda Todd's orbit of existence is re-
stricted of a necessity, since she was born,
brought up and will die in this village,
but there is no doubt that it is eccentric.
She moves apart on her own little course
quite separate from the rest of us. Had
Amanda's lines of life been cast elsewhere,
had circumstances pushed her, instead of
hemming her in, she might have become
the feminine apostle of a new creed, have
founded a sect, or instituted a new sys-
tem of female dress. As it is, she does
f not go to meeting, she never wears a bon-
net, and she keeps cats.
Amanda Todd is rising sixty, and she
never was married. Had she been, the close
friction with another nature might have
57
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
worn away some of the peculiarities of
hers. She might have gone to meeting,
she might have worn a bonnet, she might
even have eschewed cats, but it is not
probable. When peculiarities are in the
grain of a person's nature, as they proba-
bly are in hers, such friction only brings
them out more plainly and it is the other
person who suffers.
The village men are not, as a rule, very
subtle, but they have seemed to feel this
instinctively. Amanda was, they say, a
very pretty girl in her youth, but no young
man ever dared make love to her and mar-
ry her. She had always the reputation of
being u an odd stick," even in the district
school. She always kept by herself at re-
cess, she never seemed to have anything in
common with the other girls, and she
always went home alone from singing
school. Probably never in her whole life
has Amanda Todd known what it is to be
protected by some devoted person of the
other sex through the nightly perils of
our village street.
58
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
There is a tradition in the village that
once in her life, when she was about twen-
ty-five years old, Amanda Todd had a
beautiful bonnet and went to meeting.
Old Mrs. Xathan Morse vouches for the
reliability of it, and, moreover, she hints
at a reason. " When Mandy, she was 'bout
twenty-five years old," she says, " George
Henry French, he come to town, and
taught the district school, and he see
Mandy, an' told Almira Benton that he
thought she was about the prettiest girl he
ever laid eyes on, and Almiry she told
Mandy. That was all there ever was to it,
he never waited on her, never spoke to her,
fur's I know, but right after that, Mandy,
she had a bunnit, and she went reg'lar to
meetin'. 'Fore that her mother could
scarcely get her to keep a thing on her
head out-of-doors — allers carried her sun-
bunnit a-danglin' by the strings, wonder
she wa'n't sunstruck a million times — and
as for goin' to meetin', her mother, she
talked and talked, but it didn't do a mite
of good. I s'pose her father kind of up-
59
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
held her in it. He was 'most as odd as
Mandy. He wouldn't go to meetin' un-
less he was driv, and he waVt a mem-
ber. 'Nough sight ruther go out prowlin'
round in the woods like a wild animal,
Sabbath days, than go to meetin'. Once
he ketched a wildcat, an' tried to tame it,
but he couldn't. It bit and clawed so he
had to let it go. I guess Mandy gets her
likin' for cats from him fast enough. Well,
Mandy, she had that handsome bunnit,
an' she went to meetin' reg'lar'most a year,
and she looked as pretty as a picture, sit-
tin' in the pew. The bunnit was trimmed
with green gauze ribbon and had a wreath
of fine pink flowers inside. Her mother
was real tickled, thought Mandy had met
with a change. But land, it didn't last
no time. George Henry French, he quit
town the next year and went to Somerset
to teach, and pretty soon we heard he hed
married a girl over there. Then Mandy,
she didn't come to meetin' any more. I
dunno what she did with the bunnit — ■
stamped on it, most likely, she always had
60
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
considerable temper — anyway I never see
her wear it arterwards."
Thus old Mrs. Nathan Morse tells the
story, and somehow to a reflective mind
the picture of Amanda Todd in her youth,
decked in her pink-wreathed bonnet, self-
ishly but innocently attending in the sanc-
tuary of Divine Love in order to lay hands
on her own little share of earthly affec-
tion, is inseparable from her, as she goes
now, old and bare-headed, defiantly past
the meeting-house, when the Sabbath
bells are ringing.
However, if Amanda Todd had elected
to go bareheaded through the village
street from feminine vanity, rather than
eccentricity, it would have been no won-
der. Not a young girl in the village has
such a head of hair as Amanda. It is of
a beautiful chestnut color, and there is not
a gray thread in it. It is full of wonder-
ful natural ripples, too — not one of the
village girls can equal them with her pa-
pers and crimping-pins — and Amanda ar-
ranges it in two superb braids wound twice
6!
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
-around her head. Seen from behind,
Amanda's head is that of a young beauty;
when she turns a little, and her harsh old
profile becomes visible, there is a shock
to a stranger.
Amanda's father had a great shock of
chestnut hair which was seldom cut, and
she inherits this adornment from him. Ha
lived to be an old man, but that ruddy
crown of his never turned gray.
Amanda's mother died long ago; then
her father. Ever since she has lived alone
in her shingled cottage with her cats.
There were not so many cats at first; they
say she started with one fine tabby which
became the mother, grandmother and
great-grandmother to armies of kittens.
Amanda must destroy some when she
can find no homes for them, otherwise she
herself would be driven afield, but still
the impression is of a legion.
A cat is so covert, it slinks so secretly
from one abiding place to another, and
seems to duplicate itself with its sudden
appearances, that it may account in a
62
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
measure for this impression. Still there
are a great many. Nobody knows just
the number — the estimate runs anywhere
from fifteen to fifty. Counting, or trying
to count, Amanda Todd's cats is a favor-
ite amusement of the village children.
" Here's another," they shout, when a pair
of green eyes gleams at them from a post.
But is it another or only the same cat who
has moved? Cats sit in Amanda's win-
dows; they stare out wisely at the passers-
by from behind the panes, or they fold
their paws on the ledge outside in the
sunshine. Cats walk Amanda's ridge-pole
and her fence, they perch on her posts and
fly to her cherry trees with bristling fur
at the sight of a dog. Amanda has as
deadly a hatred of dogs as have her cats.
Every one which comes within stone-
throw of her she sends off yelping, for she
is a good shot. Kittens tumble about
Amanda's yard, and crawl out between her
fence-pickets under people's feet. Aman-
da will never give away a kitten except to
a responsible person, and is as particular
63
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
as if the kitten were a human orphan and
she the manager of an asylum.
She will never, for any consideration,
bestow one of her kittens upon a family
which keeps a dog or where there are
many small children. Once she made a
condition that the dog should be killed,
and she may be at times inwardly dis-
posed to banish the children.
x\manda Todd is extremely persistent
when she has selected a home which is per-
fectly satisfactory to her for a kitten. Once
one was found tied into a little basket
like a baby on the door-step of a childless
and humane couple who kept no dog, and
there is a story that Deacon Nehemiah.
Stockwell found one in his overcoat pock-
et and never knew how it came there. It
is probable that Amanda resorts to these
extreme measures to save herself from
either destroying her kittens or being
driven out of house and home by them.
However, once, when the case was re-
versed, Amanda herself was found want-
ing. When she began to grow old, and
64
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
the care of her pets told upon her, it
occurred to her that she might adopt a
little girl. Amanda has a comfortable
income, and would have been able to pro-
vide a good living for a child as far as that
goes.
But the managers of the institution to
whom Amanda applied made inquiries,
and the result did not satisfy them. Aman-
da stated frankly her reason for wishing
to take the child and her intentions with
regard to her. She wished the little girl
to tend her cats and assist her in caring
for them. She was willing that she should
attend school four hours per day, going af-
ter the cats had their breakfast, and re-
turning an hour earlier to give them their
supper. She was willing that she should
go to meeting in the afternoon only, and
she could have no other children come to
visit her for fear they would maltreat the
kittens. She furthermore announced her
intention to make her will, giving to the
girl whom she should adopt her entire
property in trust for the cats, to include
6S
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
lier own maintenance on condition that
she devote her life to them as she had
done.
The trustees declared that they could
not conscientiously commit a child to her
keeping for such purposes, and the poor
little girl orphan who had the chance of
devoting her life to the care of pussy cats
and kittens to the exclusion of all child-
ish followers, remained in her asylum.
So Amanda to this day lives alone, and
manages as hest she can. Nobody in the
village can be induced to live with her;
one forlorn old soul preferred the alms-
house.
" I'd 'nough sight ruther go on the
town than live with all them cats," she
said.
It is rather unfortunate that Amanda's
shingled cottage is next the meeting-
house, for that, somehow, seems to ren-
der her non-church-going more glaringly
conspicuous, and then, too, there is a lia-
bility of indecorous proceedings on the
part of the cats.
66
Amanda Todd: The Friend of Cats
They evidently do not share their mis-
tress' dislike of the sanctuary, and find its
soft pew cushions very inviting. They
watch their chances to slink in when the
sexton opens the meeting-house; he is an
old man and dim-eyed, and they are often
successful. It is wise for anybody before
taking a seat in a pew to make sure that
one of Amanda's cats has not forestalled
him; and often a cat flees down one flight
of the pulpit stairs as the minister ascends
the oilier.
We all wonder what will become of
Amanda's cats when she dies. There is
a report that she has made her will and
left her property in trust for the cats to
somebody; but to whom? Nobody in this
village is anxious for such a bequest, and
whoever it may be will probably strive to
repudiate it. Some day the cats will un-
doubtedly go by the board; young Henry
^Yilson, who has a gun, will shoot some,
the rest will become aliens and wanderers,
but we all hope Amanda Todd will never
know it.
67
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
In the meantime she is undoubtedly
carrying on among us an eccentric, but
none the less genuine mission. A home
missionary is Amanda Todd, and we
should recognize her as such in spite of
her non-church-going proclivities. Weak
in faith though she may be, she is, per-
chance, as strong in love as the best of
us. At least I do not doubt that her poor
little four-footed dependents would so give
evidence if they could speak.
68
Lydia Wheelock: The
Good Woman
Lydia Wheelock : The
Good Woman
We all agree that Lydia Wheelock is
yery plain-looking, but that she is very
good. She was never handsome, even as
a girl. She never had any youthful bloom,
and her figure was always as clumsy and
awkward as it is now. Poor Lydia, with
her round shoulders and her high hips,
always moved heavily among the light-
tripping maids of her own age. Seen from
behind, her broad, matronly back made
her look old enough to be the mother of
them all. Bright and delicate girlish rib-
bons and muslins, which set off their hap-
py, youthful, flower-like faces, made poor
Lydia's dull, thick cheeks look duller, and
thicker, and heavier.
Some women as plain-visaged as Lydia,
7i
Lydia Wheelock
seeing themselves, as it were, like dingy-
barnyard fowls among flocks of splendid
snowy doves and humming-birds, might
have deliberately tried to cultivate loving
kindness and sweet obligingness of man-
ner as an offset. But Lydia was not bril-
liant enough for that, neither had she
much personal ambition. It is doubtful if
she has ever looked in the glass much, ex-
cept to ascertain if her face was clean and
her hair smooth, and if her lack of comeli-
ness ever cost her an anxious hour.
Besides, Lydia's goodness, contrary to
the orthodox tenets, really seems to be the
result of nature, and nothing which she
has acquired at any known period since
her advent upon this earth. Nobody can
remember when Lydia was not just as
good and devout as she is now: just as
faithful in her ministrations to the af-
flicted and needy, just as constant at meet-
ing, just as patient under her own trials.
As a child at school Lydia never whis-
pered, was never tardy, seldom failed in
her lessons, and never teased away anoth-
72
Lydia Wheelock
er little girl's candy. Besides, her mother
always vouched for the fact that she was
good as a young and tender infant, and
consequently seemed to have been actual-
ly born good.
"Lyddy never cried except when she was
real sick/" her mother used to say. (She
lived to be a very old woman, and harped
upon her good daughter as if she were the
favorite string of her whole life.) " Never
knowed her cry because she was mad, as
the other children did. Lyddy allers took
her nap regular an' slept all night without
fussin'. An' she never banged her head
on the floor 'cause she couldn't have her
own way. She allers give in real pleas-
ant and smilin\"
What was true of Lydia as a baby has
undoubtedly been true of her ever since
— she has " allers give in real pleasant on'
smilinV There may be some people who
would urge the plea that Lydia has an
easy temperament, and not naturally such
a firm clutch upon her desires that it is
agony to relinquish them. But if all the
73
Lydia Wheelock
ways that Lydia has patiently and smiling-
ly accepted have been her own ways, she
must, even if her temperament had been
ever so stolid, have had peculiar tastes
and likings. Sometimes it would have
been almost like a relish for the scalping-
knife or the branding-iron. If Lydia has
not, metaphorically speaking, many times
during her life banged her head upon the
floor, it has not been from lack of proper
temptation. She has had from any hu-
man standpoint a hard life. Her father
died when she was a young girl. She had
to leave school and go about helping the
neighbors with sewing and cleaning and
extra household tasks when they had com-
pany, to earn a pittance for the support
of herself and her mother. Lydia's moth-
er, although she lived to be so old, was
always a feeble woman, crippled with
rheumatism.
Lydia lived patiently and laboriously,
earning just enough to keep her mother
comfortably and herself uncomfortably
alive, and that was all. She had one good
74
Lydia Wheeiock
meal a day when she was working at a
neighbor's. Often we know that was all
she had, although she never said so and
never complained.
Lydia's shawl was always too thin for
winter wear, and we felt that we ought to
avoid looking at her poor bonnets in order
not to hurt her feelings. Every cent that
Lydia earned, beyond what she spent for
the barest necessaries, went for her moth-
ers comfort.
Her mother was never without her three
meals a day and her warm flannels, when
the dread of Lydia's life was that she
might faint away some day at a neighbor's
from lack of proper nourishment, and the
state of her attire in midwinter be dis-
covered. She confessed her great dread
to somebody once, after she was married.
When Lydia was about thirty she sud-
denly got married, to the surprise of the
whole village. Xobody had dreamed she
would ever marry. She was so plain and
so poor, and seemed years older than she
was — old enough to be her own grand-
75
Lydia Wheelock
mother, as Mrs. Harrison White said. She
married a man who had paid some atten-
tion to Mrs. Harrison White when she waa
a girl, and she was popularly supposed to
favor him, hut her parents objected, so
she married Harrison White instead.
Elisha Wheelock, the man Lydia mar-
ried, all the neighbors had called " a poor
tool." He was good-looking and good-
hearted, but seemed to have little ambi-
tion and no taste for industry. Moreover,
everybody said he drank. Lurinda Snell
said she had seen him when he could
scarcely walk, and many others agreed with
her. Although the village was surprised,
the village gave a sort of negative approval
of the banns. Everybody agreed that a man
like Elisha Wheelock couldn't hope to do
any better. No pretty girl with a good
home would forsake it for him, and as for
Lydia, it was probably her first and only
chance, and she could never hope to do
any better either. Moreover, Elisha owned
a comfortable house — his father had just
died and left it to him, with quite a good-
76
Lydia Wheelock
sized farm; and it was said positively that
Lydia's mother was to live there. "Lydia's
got a good home for herself and her moth-
er if 'Lisha don't drink it up," people said.
Some thought he would. Everybody
Matched to see the old homestead and
the fertile acres transformed into fiery
draughts going down Elisha's throat, but
they never did.
Lydia has had her way in one respect,
if not in others, and that one may suffice
for much. She has certainly had her way
with Elisha Wheelock and made a man of
him. Not a drop has he drunk, so far as
people know — and all the neighbors have
watched — in all the years since he mar-
ried Lydia. He has worked steadily on
his farm, he does not owe a dollar, and he
is said to have a nice little sum in the
savings bank. Moreover, he is a deacon
of the church, and on the school commit-
tee.
Some of the neighbors say openly that
Elisha would never have been deacon if it
had not been for his wife; that Lydia
77
Lydia Wheelock
ought to have been deacon, and since she
could not, because she was a woman, they
made her one by proxy through her hus-
band. Elisha is a good deacon — a very
good deacon, indeed — and he has Lydia to
fully and carefully advise him.
Lydia has never had any children, but
she always had a large family. She be-
gan with her own mother and her hus-
band's mother, and a little orphan second
cousin of her husband's who had lived
with the Wheelocks since her parents died.
Her own mother, as I said before, was very
feeble and a deal of care; her husband's
mother had a jealous, irritable disposition
and was very difficult to live with; the
orphan cousin was delicate, had the rick-
ets, and, people said, none too clear a
mind. Lydia kept no servant, and she
had to work hard to keep her house in or-
der, sew and mend, build up her husband's
character, and reconcile all the opposite
dispositions and requirements of her fam-
ily. She has had to delve in a spiritual as
well as temporal field, and employ heart
78
Lydia Wheelock
and soul and hands at the same time ever
since she was married. After her mother
died an old aunt of Elisha's, who would
otherwise have had to go upon the town,
came to live with them. She is stone-
deaf and has a curiously inquiring mind,
hut it is said that Lydia never loses her
patience and never wearies of shouting the
most useless information into her strain-
ing ears.
It was accounted somewhat fortunate
that Elisha's mother did not live long af-
ter Aunt Inez appeared, for it would have
been, not too great a strain upon Lydia's
patience — nobody doubts the long-sutTer-
ing of that — but for her strength, to rec-
oncile two such characters and keep the
peace for any length of time. However,
Elisha's mother had not been dead long
before a sister of the rickety orphan cou-
sin, who grows more and more of a charge
as the years go on, lost her husband and
came to live at the Wheelock place with her
four children. They said she would be a
great help to Lydia, but she is a pretty
79
Lydia Wheelock
young thing, in spite of her four children;
she is a good singer, and she is constant at
all the sociables and singing-schools, and
does a deal of fancy-work, and the neigh-
bors think Lydia has to take nearly all the
care of the children. They also think that
the young widow is setting her cap here
and there, and hope she may marry and
so relieve poor Lydia of herself and her
children. But, after all, it would be only a
temporary relief. Some other widow, or
orphan, or aged and infirm aunt, would
descend upon her, for it is well known
that it is Lydia who aids and abets her
husband in his charity toward his needy
relations. And, moreover, it is told how
she lets the children and the additional
expense be as small a source of worry to
him as possible. Some of the neighbors
think that if Lydia Wheelock stints herself
much more, to provide for widows and
orphans, she cannot go to meeting for lack
of simply decent covering. Lurinda Snell
is positive that she keeps her shawl on in
hot weather to cover up her sleeves, which
80
Lvdia Wheelock
are past mending in any decorous fashion,
and simply make a show of their innum-
erable and not very harmonious patches.
And as for her bonnets, it is actually an
insult to look attentively at them.
Poor Lydia has not had a new carpet
in her sitting-room since she was married.
The one Elisha's mother had was old then,
and long ago went to the rag-man. Ever
since she has lived on the bare boards. It
is a dreadful thing in this village not to
have a carpet in the sitting-room. The
neighbors never get over being shocked at
the loud taps of their shoes on the hard
boards when they enter Lydia's. She had
a rag carpet almost done, they say, when
Lottie Green and her children came; since
then she has had no time nor opportunity
to finish it.
But everybody knew that if Lydia and
Ehsha did not do so much for other peo-
ple she could have a tapestry carpet in her
fitting-room, and a black silk dreSvS every
year. She sees to it, however, that Elisha
is not stinted to his discomfort. He has
81
Lydia Wheelock
his nice Sunday clothes and looks as well
as any man in the whole village.
Lydia is a good cook, and is said to sim-
ply pamper her husband's appetite, and
take more pains to do so the more she has
in her family. We are all very sure that
Lydia never neglects her husband for his
needy relations, nor relaxes for an instant
her watchful eye upon his spiritual and
temporal needs. Miss Lurinda Snell de-
clares that she has built up a fire in the
north parlor every evening this winter
that Elisha may sit in there and read his
paper, and not be annoyed by Lottie
Green's children. They are very noisy,
boisterous children.
Lydia Wheelock, busy as she is with her
own, and the needs of her own, tried as
her strength must be by her own house-
hold cares, does not confine her ministra-
tions to them. If a neighbor is ill Lydia
is always ready to watch with her, and a
most invaluable nurse she is. Not a neigh-
bor but would rather have Lydia than any-
body else over her when she is ill.
82
Lydia Wheelock.
Absolutely untiring is Lydia when min-
istering to the sick, tender as if the suf-
ferer were her own child, and yet so firm
and wise that one can feel her almost
sufficient of herself to pull one back to
health.
Lydia is always in the house of mourn-
ing; people claim her sympathy as if it
were their right, and she seems to recog-
nize her obligation toward all suffering
without a question. She is also always
ready with her aid on occasions of re-
joicings, at wedding feasts, as well as fu-
nerals. She comes to the front with her
kindly sympathy when the exigencies of
human life arise.
We look across the meeting-house on a
Sunday and see Lydia sitting listening to
the sermon, her plain face uplifted with
the expression of a saint, under that bon-
net which we avoid glancing at for love of
her, and our hearts are full of gratitude
for this good woman in our village.
83
A Quilting Bee in Our
Village
A Quilting Bee in Our
Village
One sometimes wonders whether it will
ever be possible in our village to attain
absolute rest and completion with regard
to quilts. One thinks after a week fairly
swarming with quilting bees, " Now every
housewife in the place must be well sup-
plied; there will be no need to make more
quilts for six months at least.'' Then, the
next morning a nice little becurled girl in
a clean pinafore knocks at the door and
repeats demurely her well-conned lesson:
" Mother sends her compliments, and
would be happy to have you come to her
quilting bee this afternoon."
One also wonders if quilts, like flow-
ers, have their seasons of fuller produc-
87
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
tion. On general principles it seems as if
the winter might be more favorable to
their gay complexities of bloom. In the
winter there are longer evenings for mer-
riment after the task of needlework is fin-
ished and the young men arrive; there are
better opportunities for roasted apples,
and chestnuts and flip, also for social
games. It is easier, too, as well as pleas-
anter, to slip over the long miles between
some of our farmhouses in a sleigh if it
is only a lover and his lass, or a wood-sled
if a party of neighbors or a whole family.
However, so many of our young women
become betrothed in the spring, and wed-
ded in the autumn, that the bees flourish
in the hottest afternoons and evenings of
midsummer.
For instance, Brama Lincoln White was
engaged to "William French, from Somer-
set, George Henry French's son, the first
Sunday in July, and the very next week
her mother, Mrs. Harrison White, sent out
invitations to a quilting bee.
The heat during all that week was
88
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
something to be remembered. It was so
warm that only the very youngest and
giddiest of the village people went to the
Fourth of July picnic. Cyrus Emmett
had a sunstroke out in the hayfield, and
Mrs. Deacon Stockwell's mother, who was
over ninety, was overcome by the heat and
died. Mrs. Stoekwell could not go to the
quilting, because her mother was buried
the day before. It was a misfortune to
Mrs. White and Brama Lincoln, for Mrs.
Stoekwell is one of the fastest quilters who
ever lived, but it was no especial depriva-
tion to Mrs. Stoekwell. Hardly any wom-
an who was invited to that quilting was
anxious to go. The bee was on Thursday,
which was the hottest day of all that hot
week. The earth seemed to give out heat
like a stove, and the sky was like the lid
of a fiery pot. The hot air steamed up in
our faces from the ground and beat down
on the tops of our heads from the sky.
There was not a cool place anywhere. The
village women arose before dawn, aired
their rooms, then shut the windows, drew
g9
A Ouilting Bee in Our Village
the curtains and closed blinds and shut-
ters, excluding all the sunlight, but in an
hour the heat penetrated.
Mrs. Harrison White's parlor faced
southwest, and the blinds would have to
be opened in order to have light enough;
it seemed a hard ordeal to undergo. Lu-
rinda Snell told Mrs. Wheelock that
it did seem as if Brama Lincoln might
have got ready to be married in better
weather, after waiting as long as she had
done. Brama was not very young, but
Lurinda was older and had given up being
married at all years ago. Mrs. Wheelock
thought she was a little bitter, but she
only pitied her for that. Lydia Wheelock
is always pitying people for their sins and
shortcomings instead of blaming them.
She pacified Lurinda, and told her to wear
her old muslin and carry her umbrella and
her palm-leaf fan, and the wind was from
the southwest, so there would be a breeze
in Mrs. White's parlor even if it was sun-
The women went early to the quilting;
90
'A Quilting Bee in Our Village
they were expected to be there at one
o'clock, to secure a long afternoon for
work. Eight were invited to quilt: Lu-
rinda and Mrs. Wheelock, the young wid-
ow, Lottie Green, and five other women,
some of them quite young, but master
hands at such work.
Brama and her mother were not going
to quilt; they had the supper to prepare.
Brama's intended husband was coming
over from Somerset to supper, and a
number of men from our village were
invited.
A few minutes before one o'clock the
quilters went down the street, with their
umbrellas bobbing over their heads. Mrs,
Harrison White lives on the South Side
in the great house where her husband
keeps store. She opened the door when
she saw her guests coming. She is a
stout woman, and she wore a large plaid
gingham dress, open at her creasy throat.
Her hair clung in wet strings to her tem-
ples and her face was blazing. She had
just come from the kitchen where she was
9i
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
baking cake. The whole house was sweet
and spicy with the odor of it.
She ushered her guests into the parlor,
where the great quilting-frame was
stretched. It occupied nearly the entire
room. There was just enough space for
the quilters to file around and seat them-
selves four on a side. The sheet of patch-
work was tied firmly to the pegs on the
quilting-frame. The pattern was intri-
cate, representing the rising sun, the num-
ber of pieces almost beyond belief; the
calicoes comprising it were of the finest
and brightest.
* Most all the pieces are new, an* I don't
believe but what Mis' White cut them
right off goods in the store," Lurinda
Snell whispered to Mrs. Wheelock when
the hostess had withdrawn and they had
begun their labors.
They further agreed among themselves
that Mrs. White and Brama must have
secretly prepared the patchwork in view
of some sudden and wholly uncertain mat-
rimonial contingency.
92
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
" I don't believe but what this quilt ha*
been pieced ever since Brama Lincoln was
eixteen years old/' whispered Lurinda
Snell, so loud that all the women could
hear her. Then suddenly she pounced
forward and pointed with her sharp fore-
finger at a piece of green and white calico
in the middle of the quilt. " There, I
knew it," said she. " I remember that
piece of calico in a square I saw Brama
Lincoln piecing over to our house before
Francis was married." Lurinda Snell has
a wonderful memory.
" That's a good many years ago," said
Lottie Green.
"Yes," whispered Lurinda Snell. When
she whispers her s's always hiss so that
they make one's ears ache, and she is very
apt to whisper. " LTsed to be hangin' round
Francis considerable before he was mar-
ried," she whispered in addition, and then
she thought that she heard Mrs. White
coming, and said, keeping up very loud,
in such a pleasant voice, " How comforta-
ble it is in this room for all it is such a
93
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
hot afternoon." But her cunning was
quite needless, for Mrs. White was not
coming.
The women chalked cords and marked
the patchwork in a diamond pattern for
quilting. Two women held the ends of a
chalked cord, stretching it tightly across
the patchwork, and a third snapped it.
That made a plain chalk line for the nee-
dle to follow. When a space as far as they
could reach had been chalked they quilted
it. When that was finished they rolled the
quilt up and marked another space.
Brama Lincoln's quilt was very large;
it did seem impossible to finish it that af-
ternoon, though the women worked like
beavers in that exceeding heat. They
feared that Brama Lincoln would be dis-
appointed and think they had not worked
as hard as they might when she and her
mother had been at so much trouble to
prepare tea for them.
Nobody saw Brama Lincoln or Mrs.
White again that afternoon, but they
could be heard stepping out in the kitchen
94
A Ouilting Bee in Our Village
and sitting-room, and at five o'clock the
china dishes and silver spoons began to
clink.
At a quarter before six the men came.
There were only three elderly ones in the
company: Mr. Harrison White, of course,
and Mrs. Wheeloek's husband, and Mr.
Lucius Downey, whose wife had died the
jpear before. All the others were young,
and considered beaus in the village.
The women had just finished the quilt
and rolled it up, and taken down the
frame, when Lurinda Snell spied Mr. Lu-
aius Downey coming, and screamed out
Mid ran, and all the girls after her. They
had brought silk bags with extra finery,
wach as laces and ribbons and combs, to
put on in the evening, and they all raced
upstairs to the spare chamber.
When they came down with their rib-
bons gayly flying, and some of them with
their hair freshly curled, all the men had
arrived, and Mrs. White asked them to
walk out to tea.
Poor Mrs. White had put on her purple
95
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
eilk dress, but her face looked as if the
blood would burst through it, and her hair
as if it were gummed to her forehead.
Brama Lincoln looked very well; her front
hair was curled, and Lurinda thought
she had kept it in papers all day. She
wore a pink muslin gown, all ruffled to
the waist, and sat next her beau at the
table.
Lurinda Snell sat on one side of Mr.
Lucius Downey and Lottie Green on the
other, and they saw to it that his plate
was well filled. Once somebody nudged
me to look, and there were five slices of
cake and three pieces of pie on his plate.
However, they all disappeared — Mr.
Downey had a very good appetite.
Mrs. White had a tea which will go into
the history of the village. Everybody won-
dered how she and Brama had man-
aged to do so much in that terrible heat.
There were seven kinds of cake, besides
doughnuts, cookies and short ginger-
bread; there were five kinds of pie, and
cup custards, hot biscuits, cold bread, pre-
96
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
serves, cold ham and tongue. No woman
in the village had ever given a better quilt-
ing supper than Mrs. Harrison White and
Brama.
After supper the men went into the par-
lor and sat in a row against the wall, while
the women all assisted in clearing away
and washing the dishes.
Then the women, all except Mrs. Wheel-
ock, who went home to take care of Lottie
Greens children, joined the men in the
parlor, and the evening entertainment be-
gan. Mrs. White tried to have everything
as usual in spite of the heat. She had
even got the Slocum boy to come with his
fiddle that the company might dance.
First they played games — Copenhagen,
and post-office, roll the cover, and the rest.
Young and old played, except Brama Lin-
coln and her beau; they sat on the sofa
and were suspected of holding each oth-
er's hands under cover of her pink
flounces. Many thought it very silly in
them, but when Lurinda Snell told Mrs.
Wheelock of it next day she said that
97
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
she thought there were many worse things
to be ashamed of than love.
Lurinda Snell played the games witk
great enjoyment; she is very small and
wiry, and could jump for the rolling cover
like a cricket. Lurinda, in spite of her
bitterness over her lonely estate, and her
evident leaning toward Mr. Lucius Dow-
ney, is really very maidenly in some
respects. She always caught the cover be-
fore it stopped rolling, and withdrew her
hands before they were slapped in Copen-
hagen, whereas Lottie Green almost in-
variably failed to do so, and was, in conse-
quence, kissed so many times by Mr.
Downey that nearly everybody was smiling
and tittering about it.
However, Lurinda Snell was exceeding-
ly fidgety when post-office was played,
and Lucius Downey had so many letters
for Lottie Green, and finally she succeed-
ed in putting a stop to the game. The
post-office was in the front entry, and of
-course the parlor door was closed during
the delivery of the letters, and Lurinda
9*
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
objected to that. She said the room was
go warm with the entry door shut that
she began to feel a buzzing in her head,
which was always dangerous in her family.
Her grandfather had been overheated,
been seized with a buzzing in his head,
and immediately dropped dead, and so
had her father. When she said that, peo-
ple looked anxiously at Lurinda; her face
was flushed, and the post-office was given
up and the entry door opened.
Next Lottie Green was called upon to
fiing, as she always is in company, she has
iuch a sweet voice. She stood up in the
middle of the floor, and sang "Annie Lau-
rie" without any accompaniment, because
the Slocum boy, who is not an expert mu-
sician, did not know how to play that
tune, but Lurinda was taken with hic-
coughs. Nobody doubted that she really
had hiccoughs, but it was considered just-
ly that she might have smothered them in
her handkerchief, or at least have left the
room, instead of spoiling Lottie Green's
beautiful song, which she did completely-
99
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
If the Slocum boy could have played the
tune on his fiddle it would not have been
so disastrous, but "Annie Laurie" with no
accompaniment but that of hiccoughs was
a failure. Brama Lincoln tiptoed out into
the kitchen, and got some water for Lu-
rinda to take nine swallows without stop-
ping, but it did not cure her. Lurinda
hiccoughed until the song was finished.
The Slocum boy tuned his fiddle then
and the dancing began, but it was not a
success — partly because of Lurinda and
partly because of the heat. Lurinda would
not dance after the first; she said her head
buzzed again, but people thought — it may
have been unjustly — that she was hurt be-
cause Lucius Downey had not invited her
to dance. That spoiled the set, but aside
from that the room was growing insuffer-
ably warm. The windows were all wide
open, but the night air came in like puffs
of dark, hot steam, and swarms of mos-
quitoes and moths with it. The dancers
were all brushing away mosquitoes and
wiping their foreheads. Their faces were
ioo
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
blazing with the heat, and even the pretty
girls had a wilted and stringy look from
their hair out of curl and their limp mus-
lins.
When Lurinda refused to dance Brama
Lincoln at once said that she thought it
would be much pleasanter out-of-doors,
and took William French by the arm and
led the way. The rest of the quilting bee
was held in Harrison White's front yard.
The folks sat there until quite late, tell-
ing stories and singing hymns and songs.
Lottie Green would not sing alone; she
said it would make her too conspicuous.
The front yard is next to the store, and
there was a row of men on the piazza set-
tee, besides others coming and going. The
yard was light from the store windows.
Brama Lincoln and William French sat
as far back in the shadow as they could.
Mr. Lucius Downey sat on the door-step,
but of the dampness; he considers him-
self delicate. Lottie Green sat on one side
of him and Lurinda Snell on the other.
There was much covert curiosity as to
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
which of the two he would escort home.
Some thought he would choose Lottie,
some Lurinda. The problem was solred
in a most unexpected manner.
Lottie Green lives nearly a mile out of
his way, in one direction, Lurinda half a
mile in another. When the quilting bee
disbanded Lottie, after lingering and look-
ing back with sweetly-pleading eyes from
under her pretty white rigolette, went
down the road with Lydia Wheelock's hus-
band; Lurinda slipped forlornly up the
road in the wake of a fond young couple,
keeping close behind them for protection
against the dangers of the night, and Mr.
Lucius Downey went home by himself.
102
The Stockwells' Apple-
Paring Bee
The Stockwells' Apple-
Paring Bee
During " apple years " there are always
many paring bees in our village. During
other years there are, of course, not so
many, and people, consequently, are more
eager to attend them. When Mr. Nehe-
miah Stoekwell gave his great bee it was
the only one that autumn, and, therefore,
an occasion to be remembered on that ac-
count, had not so many remarkable things
happened during the evening. It seemed
singular, when all the other orchards
yielded so little fruit, for it was an unus-
ually " of! year," that ]STehemiah Stock-
welPs trees should have been bent to the
ground and even had some of their
branches broken beneath the great weight
*°5
The Stockwells* Apple-Paring Bee
of apples, but thus matters often are with
him.
The neighbors regard Nehemiah Stock-
well with admiration, somewhat tinctured
with a curious jealousy as of his favorit-
ism with Providence. The)r cannot under-
stand why, when every other garden im
the village shows blasted melon-vines, his
are rampant with golden globes; when the
cut-worms eat everybody else's cabbages
his are left undisturbed.
To use the language of one of the bit-
terest dissenters against Mr. StoekwelFs
good fortune: "It does seem as if every-
body else's ' off year ' was his ' on year/ "
and "he always gets double what any-
thing is worth, because nobody else las
got it/'
Still, when people were invited to the
paring bee they went, though many felt
aggrieved and puzzled at such an unequal
distribution of the fruits of the earth. Lu-
rinda Snell said she was going anyhow,
for she hadn't " eat " a good apple that
year, and probably many shared her politic
TO*
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
imposition not to slight the good things
•f others, because of rancor at haying
Bone of their own.
The bee was held in the barn instead of
th« kitchen, since it would accommodate
a greater number of people. The Stock-
well barn is a very lajge one on the oppo-
fite side of the road from the house. It
was as clean as a parlor, and well lighted
with rows of lanterns hung from the
fceams and scaffolds. Mrs. Stockwell used
all her own, and borrowed many of the
neighbors', kitchen chairs, and there were
a number of tables set out with pans and
knives, and needles aud strings. Bushel-
fcaskets of apples stood around the tables,
and the whole place was full of their
goodly smell. There was also a woody
fragrance of evergreen and pine, for Lot-
tie Green and Zepheretta Stockwell and
some other girls had been at work all day
trimming the barn. It was a pretty sight,
and, moreover, quite a novel one. The
stanchions of the cow-stalls, the straight
ladders to the scaffolds, and the posts sup-
107
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
porting them were all wound with ever-
green, and great branches of red and yel-
low maple, and sumach, were stuck in the
shaggy fleeces of hay in the mows. Then
Lottie Green, who has quite a daring in-
vention of her own, had gone a step be-
yond— each mild-faced Jersey cow in the
stalled row had her#horns decorated with
evergreens and yellow leaves, and looked
out of her stanchions at the company like
some queer beast of fable, and, it must be
confessed, with somewhat uneasy tossing
of her crowned head.
Lurinda Snell whispered to somebody
that Lottie Green had called in Mr. Lu-
cius Downey, who happened to be passing
by, to tie the greens on the cows' horns
when they came home from pasture, and
she thought it was pretty silly work.
However, everybody agreed that the
barn was a charming sight, and it became
still more so when the company was seat-
ed around paring apples and stringing
them.
Old and young had come to the bee, and
1 08
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
the lantern light shone on silvery glancing"
heads and dark and golden ones. It was
a very warm night for October, so warm
that the great barn doors were slid apart
for air. People could see through the open-
ing a young maple tree full of yellow
leaves, which gleamed like a torch in the
light from the barn.
The girls often motioned the young
men to look at it. " See how handsome
that tree looks," they cried.
One young man, Jim Paine, whispered
to the girl beside him, so loud that Lurin-
da Snell heard, that he did not need to
look outside the barn to see something
handsome, but all the others looked at
the beautiful tree and assented. Jim
Paine is, perhaps, the most gallant young
man in the village, but he has had the ad-
vantage of living in Boston. He was in
business there for two years, and, though
he has now come home to live, and set-
tled down with his father, he does not lose
his city polish, and he makes the other
young men appear provincial. He ia
109
The Stockwclls' Apple-Paring Bee
handsome, too, and considered a great
catch by the village girls and their moth-
ers.
People were not surprised at Jim
Paine's remark; they admitted that it
sounded just like him, but they wondered
that it should have been addressed to such
a girl. Zepheretta Stockwell is a good
girl, no one denies that. She is faithful
and industrious, but she is not only very
plain-featured, but quite lame, and none
of the young men have fancied her.
The other girls were almost too scorn-
ful to be jealous, and tittered when Lurin-
da Snell repeated Jim's speech. As for
poor Zepheretta, who had never, during*
her whole life, had anything like that said
to her, she turned white as a sheet at first,
and then looked at Jim in a sad, sharp
way that she has; then she blushed so that
her cheeks were as red as the apple she
was paring, and she looked almost pretty.
Zepheretta's hair is a common, lustreless
brown, but she brushes it until it is very
smooth; she never crimps it. There is a
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
sort of patient hopelessness of attraction
about Zepheretta. She does not even have
her dresses trimmed much. That night
she wore a plain brown cashmere with a
little white ruffle in the neck, and a very
fine white cambric apron beautifully hem-
stitched. People thought that Zepheretta
was rather extravagant to wear such an
apron to a paring bee, though her father
was well-to-do. All the women wore
aprons, but most of them were made of
gingham or calico.
The men pared the apples, and some of
the women pared and some strung. The
stringing was regarded as rather the nicer
work, and the prettiest girls, as a rule, did
it. After a while Jim Paine took away
Zepheretta's pan of apples and knife, and
got a dish of nicely-cut quarters, and a
needle and string for her. Then some of
the pretty girls began to look spiteful and
sober. Presently one of them, Maria Rice,
cut her finger, for she was paring, and said
she would not work at all; she would
go home if she could not string. The»
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
Zepheretta at once gave up her stringing
to Maria and fell to paring again, while
Jim Paine looked bewildered and vexed.
After a little he edged over beside Maria,
and pared and cut for her to string, and
she was radiant. As for Zepheretta she
pared away as patient as ever. She is
always giving up to other people, still she
looked rather sober.
All the young people were twirling ap-
ple-parings three times around their heads
and letting them fall over their left shoul-
ders to determine the initials of their fu-
ture husbands or wives. They also named
apples and counted the seeds, all except-
ing Zepheretta. They would have been
inclined to laugh if she had followed their
example, for nobody thought Zepheretta
would ever marry.
Finally, Jim Paine, in spite of Maria
Rice's efforts to keep him, rose and saun-
tered over to where Zepheretta sat patient-
ly paring. Her face lit up so when he
6at down beside her that she looked al-
most pretty. Maria Rice looked non-
112
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
plusscd, but only for a moment. She had
enough strategic instinct for a general.
She also rose promptly, followed Jim, and
sat down, not beside him, as a less clever
girl would have done, but on the other
side, next Zepheretta. She began to ad-
mire, with great effusion, the knitted lace
on Zepheretta's apron, and begged for the
pattern. She took up Zepheretta's atten-
tion so completely that Jim Paine, on the
other side, was quite ignored, and pared
apples in silence.
Probably not many people in the barn
saw through Maria's manoeuvre. Our vil-
lage does not rear many diplomats. Few
would have even noticed it had it not been
for the accident which resulted and came
near changing our festivity to tragedy.
Maria, in order to sit beside Zepheretta,
had forced herself into a corner where no
one was expected to sit, and which was oc-
cupied by a low-hung lantern. Her head
came very near it when she first sat down,
and some one called to her to take care.
She jerked aside, with a coquettish giggle,
"3
The Stockwclls' Apple-Paring Bee
but it was not long before she forgot and
brought her head up severely against the
lantern. There was a crash, a scream, thea
a wild flash of fire, and Zepheretta Stock-
well was flying to the nearest horse-stali
and dragging off the bay mare's blanket
before anybody could think. Maria's aproa
was blazing, and if it had not beea
for Zepheretta she would certainly have
been dangerously, if not fatally, burned.
Zepheretta flung the horse blanket over
Maria, and threw her down to the floor un-
der it before any one else stirred. Thea
Jim Paine sprung, but Zepheretta cried t*
him fiercely to keep off, and crouched M
closely over Maria that he could not come
near. However, there was enough to do,
for a fringe of hay from the scaffold had
caught fire, and if it had not been for quick
work the barn would have gone. It was
a narrow escape as it was, for hay burns
like powder. The men tore off their coata
to smother the flames; they formed a line
to the well and passed buckets of water.
In fifteen minutes the fire was completely
114
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
under control, but that was an end of the
apple paring for that night. The barn
was drenched with water, the apples were
swollen and dripping, and everybodj was
too nervous to settle down to work again
under any circumstances.
Maria Eice was not burned at all. When
Zepheretta released her from the blanket
she got up, looking pale and disheveled,
with her apron a blackened rag, but she
was quite uninjured. But poor Zepheret-
ta's hands were burned to a blister, though
she said nothing, and nobody would have
known it had she not almost fainted away-
after the scare was over.
Mr. Nehemiah Stockwell stood up in the
middle of the barn and said he guessed we
had better call the paring over, and all
come into the house and have supper. His
voice trembled, and we could see that he
was still fairly quaking with the fright.
It would have been a great loss to ISTe-
hemiah Stockwell had his barn been de-
stroyed, for he carried only a very small
insurance on it.
Ir5
The Stockwells* Apple-Paring Bee
"Well, we all went across the road to the
house — those who had not fled there al-
ready in the fear of being burned alive in
the barn — and there was the supper-table
all laid in the sitting-room.
It was just after we entered the house
that Zepheretta nearly fainted from the
pain of her burns, and her Aunt Hannah,
Mr. StockwelPs sister, who had been as-
sisting Mrs. Stockwell, went with her to
her own room. That was possibly the rea-
son why we had such a singular experi-
ence with the supper. Hannah Stockwell
being very calm and clear-headed, it is not
probable that she would have allowed us
to sit down to the table until certain mat-
ters had been differently arranged. Poor
Mrs. Stockwell was almost in hysterics —
tears rolling down her cheeks in spite of
her frequent dabs with her apron, catch-
ing her breath, and trembling so that
when she took up a cup and saucer they
rattled like castanets.
"We placed ourselves as best we could
around the table. There was not quite
116
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
chairs enough; some stood all through
the meal, though Mr. Stockwell and his
hired man raced wildly back and forth
with chairs, after the blessing had been
asked.
The minister asked the blessing, and it
was a very long one, including fervent
thanks for deliverance from perils, from
fire and flood. Then we began to eat sup-
per, but there was very little to eat. There
was really nothing but bread — and cold
bread at that — and dried-apple sauce, and
one small pumpkin pie. There was neith-
er tea nor coffee, though many were
sure they could smell them. Everybody
had expected a fine supper at the Stock-
wells', but there was such a poor repast as
nobody in our village had ever been known
to offer at a paring bee. However, we
were all too polite, of course, to speak of
it, and Mrs. Stockwell did not appear to
notice anything out of the way. Lurinda
Snell whispered that she acted as if she
didn't know whether she was at a wed-
ding or a funeral. Lurinda looked out
i*7
The Stockwells, Apple-Paring Bee
that Lucius Downey had a piece of the
one pumpkin pie. We all discussed the
fire and tried to eat as if we enjoyed the
supper, but it was hard work. The dried-
apple sauce was not sweetened, and there
was no butter, even, on the table.
We went home soon after supper. Usu-
ally there is an after-course of flip and
roasted chestnuts on these occasions, but
nothing was said about it that night. We
all sat around a half hour or so and dis-
cussed the fire, and then, with one accord,
rose and took leave. Zepheretta had not
returned, and we understood that she had
gone to bed. I heard Jim Paine inquir-
ing of Mrs. Stockwell how she was, and
she replied that Hannah had put scraped
potato on the burns, and they were less
painful, but she guessed Zepheretta
wouldn't come down again. Jim Paine
had to take Maria Rice home, for she de-
clared that she felt too weak to walk, and
he was the only one who had a vacant seat
in his carriage.
We were all flocking out of the front
118
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
gate, looking across at the barn, and say-
ing for the hundredth time how thankful
we ought to be, when we heard Hannah
StockwelPs voice, and after her Mrs. Ne-
hrrniah StockweH's, like a shrill echo.
" You haven't had a single thing that
we meant to have for supper," cried Han-
nah Stockwell.
" No, you ain't, oh, dear ! oh, dear ! "
cried Mrs. Stockwell after her.
" There was mince pies, and apple pies,
and Indian pudding," said Hannaji.
"And plum pudding," declared Mrs.
Stockwell.
" Pumpkin pie and cranberry pie, and
Aoughnuts."
" And cheese »
u There was hot biscuits, and corn-
"bread, and freshly-baked beans."
" And pork, and pickles "
° There was a great chicken pie, and
coffee."
"And tea for them that wanted it,"
said Mrs. Stockwell. " I forgot every-
thing. I was so upset. Oh, dear ! "
119
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
" There was pound cake, and fruit cake,
and sponge cake," Hannah Stockwell said.
u And ginger cookies, and seed cakes —
oh, dear ! "
The two women went on with the cata-
logue of that feast which we had missed.
No such supper had ever "been prepared
for an apple-paring bee in our village.
They begged us, and Mr. Stockwell begged
us, to return and partake of the dainties,
but it was too late, we were all more or
less shaken by our exciting experience,
and we all refused, though some of the
men would have accepted had not their
wives hindered them.
We bade the Stockwells good-night, as-
suring them that we had had a delightful
evening, and that the supper did not sig-
nify in the least, and departed. But, as we
were going down the road, we heard Han-
nah StockwelPs voice again:
" There were fried apple turnovers and
currant jelly tarts," and Mrs. Stockweirs,
feebly, but insistently, "And peach pre-
serves and tomato ketchup."
120
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
We went home that night feeling sure,
and we have felt sure ever since, that we
had never in our lives eaten, nor ever
should eat, such a supper as the one we
missed at the Stockwells' apple-paring
bee.
121
The Christmas Sing in Our
Village
The Christmas Sing in Our
Village
The singing-school is, of course, a regu-
lar institution in our village during the
winter months, but the one of special in-
terest is held on Christmas Eve. That is
called, to distinguish it from the others,
" The Christmas Sing/' On that night
only the psalms and fugues appropriate to
the occasion are sung, and the town hall is
trimmed with holly and evergreen.
The Sing begins at eight o'clock and is
always preceded by a turkey supper. The
supper is in the tavern, as it used to be
called — now we say "hotel " — still it is
the tavern, and always will be the same
old house where the stages drew up be-
fore the railroad was built.
I2s
The Christmas Sing in Cur Village
The turkey supper is at six o'clock, and
at least two hours are required to dispose
of the good things and speechify; then the
people cross the road to the town hall,
where the Sing is held. It is a great oc-
casion in our village, and the women give
as much care to their costumes as if they
were going to a ball. The dressmaker is
hard worked for weeks before the Sing.
Everybody who can afford it has a new
dress, and those who cannot, have their
old ones made over. The women all try
to keep their costumes secret until the
night of the Sing, and the dressmaker is
bound over by the most solemn promises
not to reveal anything. The Christmas
Sing is often most brilliant and surprising
to our humble tastes in the matter of
dress, and was especially so last year. The
sing of last year was also noteworthy in
another respect; there were three betroth-
als and a runaway marriage that night.
It was ideal weather for Christmas Eve
and our Sing; very cold and clear, a full
moon, and a beautiful, hard level of snow
126
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
for sleighing. At six o'clock everybody
was assembled at the tavern; past and
present members of the singing-school —
even old man Veazie, who is over ninety
— were there. There were also some guests
— fine singers — from out of town.
The turkey supper was excellent, and
so were the speeches. One of the best was
made by Mr. Cassius C. Powell from East
Langham, a village about eight miles from
ours, ile is a very line tenor singer and
quite a celebrity. He sings in the church
choir in Langham, and is in great demand
to sing at funerals. He is not very young,
but fine looking and a great favorite with
the ladies. He has a gentle, deferential
way of looking at them which is consid-
ered very attractive. Lottie Green sat next
him at the supper-table, and lie looked at
her, and made sure that she had plenty
of white meat and gravy. Mr. Lucius
Downey was on the other side of Lottie,
but she paid no attention to him. Had it
not been for Lurinda Snell. who was next
on his right, lie might have felt slighted _
127
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
She looked very well, too, in a fine new
silk dress, plum color with velvet trim-
ming. Lurinda was quite pretty in her
youth, and sometimes dress and excite-
ment seem to revive something of her old
beauty. Her cheeks were pink and her
eyes bright; her hair, which is still abun-
dant, was most beautifully crimped.
Lottie Green, also, looked very pretty.
She had not been able to afford a new
dress, but she had made over her old blue
cloth one and put in silk sleeves, and it
was as good and quite as pretty as when it
was new.
Probably Maria Bice had the finest new
dress of any of the girls. Everybody stared
at Maria when she entered with a great
rustle of silk and rattle of starched petti-
coats. The dress was of pink silk, and —
a most startling innovation in our village
— the waist was cut square and quite low.
Maria has a beautiful neck, and she wore
a great bunch of pink roses on one shoul-
der. She had elbow sleeves, too, and drew
-off her long gloves with a very fme air
128
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
when she sat down to table. The other
girls were half admiring, half scandalized.
No such costume as that had ever been
worn to our singing school before. Poor
Zepheretta Stockwell, in a black silk
which might have been worn appro-
priate!}' by her grandmother, was entirely
eclipsed by Maria in more senses than
one. Jim Paine sat between the two girls
at supper. Maria's pink skirts spread over
his knee, her pretty face was tilted up in
his and her tongue was wagging every
minute. Once I saw Jim try to speak to
Zepheretta, but Maria was too quick for
him.
When supper was over the people all
assembled in the town hall without delay.
The hall was finely decorated — green
wreaths hung in all the windows, and the
portrait of the gentleman who gave the
town house to the village fifty years ago,
'\Squire Ebenezer Adams, was draped with
an American flag. It is a life-size por-
trait, and hangs on the right of the
stage. Our old singing master and choir
129
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
leader, Mr. Orlando Sage, stood on the
stage, and conducted the school, as usual.
The piano was on his right. The south
district teacher, Mis? Elmira Crane, played
that. There was old Mr. Joseph Nelson,
With his hass viol, which he used to play
in the church choir, and Thomas Farr and
Charlie Morse, with their violins.
The school was arranged in the usual
manner, in the four divisions of sopranos,
tenors, bassos and altos. At eight o'clock
Mr. Sage raised his baton, and the music
began.
Everybody stood up, and sang their best
and loudest, with, perhaps, one exception.
The result was quite magnificent, unless
you happened to stand close to certain
singers, and did not sing loud enough
yourself to drown them out.
"We went on with the fine old fugues,
and it was grand, had it not been for the
weakness in the sopranos. At length, Mr.
Orlando Sage stood directly in front of
the sopranos, waving his baton frantical-
ly, raising himself up on his toes, and
130
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
jerking his head as if in such ways he
would stimulate them to greater volume
of voice. Mr. Sage is a nervous little
man. Finally, with an imperious switch
of his baton, and a stamp of his foot, he
brought the whole school to a dead stop.
"Miss Stockwell/' he said, "why don't
you sing ? "
Everybody stared at Zepheretta. She
turned white, then red, and replied mcek-
0
that she was sinsin
" Xo, you are not singing," returned
Mr. Sage. " I was riding pasi your fa-
ther's yesterday, and I heard you singing.
You have a voice. Why don't you sing ? ''
Mr. Sage brandished his baton, as if he
would like to hit her with it, and poor
Zepheretta looked almost frightened to
death. " Why don't you sing ? " sternly
demanded Mr. Sage again. " You never
sing in this school as you can sing."
Zepheretta looked as if she were going
lo cry. She opened her mouth, as if to
speak, but did not. Then, suddenly, Lu-
riuda Snell, who sat on her right, spoke
1^1
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
for her. " I can tell you why, if you want
to know, Mr. Sage," she said; " I haven't
told a soul before, but much as three
years ago I heard Maria Rice tell Zepher-
etta not to sing so loud, she drowned her
all out, and Zepheretta hasn't sung so
loud since/'
When Lurinda stopped, with a defiant
nod of her head, you could have heard a
pin drop. Maria Rice, on the other side
of Zepheretta, was blushing as pink as her
•dress. Then Mr. Sage brought his baton
down. " Sing ! " he shouted, and we all
began again — " When shepherds watch
their flocks by night.*'
Zepheretta did let out her voice a little
more then, and we were all amazed; no-
body had dreamed she could sing so well.
Still it was quite evident that she held her
voice back somewhat on her high notes,
on account of Maria's feelings, though
Maria would not sing at all during the
rest of the evening. I think she was glad
when the Sing was over, though everybody
else had enjoyed it.
132
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
It was ten o'clock when we closed, after
singing " When marshaled on the nightly
plain/*' and all the young men who had
come with teams hastened out to get
them. Many a young woman who had
come to the Sing with her father or
brother went home in the sleigh of some
gallant swain who was waiting for her
when she emerged from the town hall.
All the girls in coming down the steps ran
a sort of gauntlet of love and jealousy
between double lines of waiting beaus,
beyond whom the restive horses pranced
with frequent flurries of bells.
Then Maria Rice, to the great delight
of the vindictive of her sex and the
amused pity of others, was seen, after
manifestly hurrying and lingering, and
peering with eagerly furtive eyes toward
Jim Paine, to gather up her pink silk
skirts and go forlornly down the road
with Lydia Wheelock, who lived her way.'
It was rumored that she wept all the way
home, in spite of Lydia's attempts to com-
fort her, but nobody ever knew. She was
*33
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
not far on the road before Jim Paine and
Zepheretta passed her in Jim's sleigh,
drawn by his fast black horse.
Everybody was astonished to see Jim
step out from the waiting file, accost
Zepheretta, and lead her to his sleigh as
if she had been a princess, and probably
Zepheretta was the most astonished of all.
; Mr. Caseins C. Dowell, who had driven
over from Langham, took Lottie Green
home, and Mr. Lucius Downey escorted
Lurinda Snell. He had brought a lantern,
though it wras bright moonlight — he is
fond of carrying *one because his eyes are
poor. The lantern light shone full on
Lurinda's face as she went proudly past
on his arm, and she looked like a young
girl.
The next day we heard that all three
couples were going to be married, and
that another young couple, who had
driven down the road at such a furious
rate that everybody had hastened out of
the way, and there had been narrow es-
capes from collisions, were married. They
*34
The Christinas Sing in Our Village
had driven ten miles to Dover for that
purpose, nobody ever knew why. The
parents on either side would have given
free consent to the match, but they drove
to Dover that Christmas Eve as if a whole
regiment of furious relatives were savage-
ly charging at their back-.
However, that marriage has been happy
so far, and the others also. Jim and
Zepheretta are a devoted pair; Lurinda
Snell makes a good wife for Lucius Dow-
ney, and does not talk as bitterly about
her neighbors as she was accustomed to
do formerly. Cassius C. Dowell seems
very happy with Lottie, so the neighbor-
all say, and Lydia Wheclock, now that
she has not Lottie and her children to
look after and provide for, has bought.
herself a new parlor carpet and a bonnet.
Take it altogether, that Sing seemed to
bring much happiness to our village, set.
as it were, to sweet Christmas music.
THE
JAMESONS
BY
MARY E. WILKINS
'A Humble Romance," "A New England Nun,
"TiiMDROKE," Etc.
NEW YORK
Intbrmational Association of Newspapers & Authors
1901
Copyright, 189S, 1899, by thk
CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CoPYRICHT, 1899, BY THK
BOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO.
hOKiH tUVEK iSJNDEKY
PKIN'TKKS AN!) BINDERS
NEW YORK CITV, N. Y.
THE JAMESONS
THEY ARRIVE
Until that summer nobody in our vil-
lage had ever taken boarders. There had
been no real necessity for it, and we had
always been rather proud of the fact.
"While we were certainly not rich — there
was not one positively rich family among
us — we were comfortably provided with
all the necessities of life. We did not
need to open our houses, and our closets,
and our bureau drawers, and give the
freedom of our domestic hearths, and, as
it were, our household gods for playthings,
to strangers and their children.
1 136
The Jamesons
Many of us had to work for our daily
bread, but, we were thankful to say, not
in that way. We prided ourselves be-
cause there was no summer hotel with a
demoralizing bowling-alley, and one of
those dangerous chutes, in our village.
We felt forbiddingly calm and superior
when now and then some strange city
people from Grover, the large summer
resort six miles from us, travelled up and
down our main street seeking board in
vain. We plumed ourselves upon our
reputation of not taking boarders for love
or money.
Nobody had dreamed that there was to
be a break at last in our long-established
custom, and nobody dreamed that the
break was to be made in such a quarter.
One of the most well-to-do, if not the
most well-to-do, of us all, took the first
boarders ever taken in Linnville. When
Amelia Powers heard of it she said,
" Them that has, gits."
On the afternoon of the first day of
137
They Arrive
June, six years ago, I was sewing at my
sitting-room window. I was making a
white muslin dress for little Alice, my
niece, to wear to the Seventeenth-of-June
picnic. I had been sitting there alone all
the afternoon, and it was almost four
o'clock when I saw Amelia Powers, who
lives opposite, and who had been sewing
at her window — I had noticed her arm
moving back and forth, disturbing the
shadows of the horse-chestnut tree in the
yard — fling open her front door, run out
on the piazza, and stand peering around
the corner post, with her neck so stretched
that it looked twice as long as before.
Then her sister Candace, who has poor
health and seldom ventures out-of-doors,
threw up the front chamber window and
leaned out as far as she was able, and
stared with her hand shading her eyes
from the sun. I could just see her head
through an opening in the horse-chestnut
branches.
Then I heard another door open, and
138
The Jamesons
Mrs. Peter Jones, who lives in the house
next below the Powers', came running
out. She ran down the walk to her front
gate and leaned over, all twisted sideways,
to see.
Then I heard voices, and there were
Adeline Ketchum and her mother coming
down the street, all in a nutter of hurry.
Adeline is slender and nervous ; her elbows
jerked out, her chiu jerked up, and her
skirts switched her thin ankles; Mrs.
Ketchum is very stout, and she walked
with a kind of quivering flounce. Her
face was blazing, and I knew her bonnet
was on hindside before — I was sure that
the sprig of purple flowers belonged on
the front.
When Adeline and her mother reached
Mrs. Peter Jones' gate they stopped, and
they all stood there together looking.
Then I saw Tommy Gregg racing along,
and I felt positive that his mother had
sent him to see what the matter was.
She is a good woman, but the most curi-
i39
They Arrive
ous person in our village. She never
seems to have enough affairs of her own
to thoroughly amuse her. I never saw a
hoy run as fast as Tommy did — as if his
mother's curiosity and his own were a
sort of motor compelling him to his ut-
most speed. His legs seemed never to
come out of their running crooks, and his
shock of hair was fairly stiffened out he-
hind with the wind.
Then I began to wonder if it were pos-
sible there was a fire anywhere. I ran to
my front door and called :
"Tommy! Tommy!" said T, "where is
the fire?"
Tommy did not hear me, but all of a
sudden the fire-bell began to ring.
Then I ran across the street to Mrs.
Peter Jones' gate, and Amelia Powers
came hurrying out of her yard.
M Where is it ? Oh, where is it ? " said
she, and Candace put her head out of the
window and called out, "Where is it?
Is it near here ? "
740
The Jamesons
"We all sniffed for smoke and strained
our eyes for a red fire glare on the hori-
zon, but we could neither smell nor see
anything unusual.
Pretty soon we heard the fire-engine
coming, and Amelia Powers cried out:
"Oh, it's going to Mrs. Liscom's! It's
her house ! It's Mrs. Liscom's house ! "
Candace Powers put her head farther
out of the window, and screamed in a
queer voice that echoed like a parrot's,
" Oh, 'Melia ! 'Melia ! it's Mrs. Liscom's,
it's Mrs. Liscom's, and the wind's this
way ! Come, quick, and help me get out
the best feather bed, and the counterpane
that mother knit ! Quick ! Quick ! w
Amelia had to run in and quiet Can-
dace, who was very apt to have a bad
spell when she was over-excited, and the
rest of us started for the fire.
As we hurried down the street I asked
Mrs. Jones how she had known there was
a fire in the first place, for I supposed
that was why she had run out to her front
141
They Arrive
dcor and looked down the street. Then
I learned about the city boarders. She
and Amelia, from the way they faced at
their sitting-room windows, had seen the
Grover stage-coach stop at Mrs. Liscom's,
and had run out to see the boarders
alight. Mrs. Jones said there were five
of them — the mother, grandmother, two
daughters, and a son.
I said that I did not know Mrs. Lis-
com was going to take boarders; I was
very much surprised.
" I suppose she thought she would earn
some money and have some extra things,"
said Mrs. Jones.
" It must have been that," said Mrs.
Ketch urn, panting — she was almost out of
breath — " for, of course, the Liscoms don't
need the money."
I laughed and said I thought not. I
felt a little pride about it, because Mrs.
Liscom was a second cousin of my hus-
band, and he used to think a great deal
cf her.
142
The Jamesons
"They must own that nbe place clear,
if it ain't going to bum to the ground,
and have something in the bank besides,"
assented Mrs. Peter Jones.
Ever so many people were running
down the street with us, and th^ air
seemed full of that brazen clang cf the
fire-bell; still we could not see any fire,,
nor even smell any smoke, until we got
to the head of the lane where the Liscom
house stands a few rods from the main
street.
The lane was about choked up with the
fire-engine, the hose- cart, the fire depart-
ment in their red shirts, and, I should
think, half the village. We climbed
over the stone wall into Mrs. Liscom's
oat-field; it was hard work for Mrs.
Ketchum, but Mrs. Jones and I pushed
and Adeline pulled, and then we ran
along close to the wall toward the house.
We certainly began to smell smoke,
though we still could not see any fire.
The firemen were racing in and out of
143
They Arrive
the house, bringing out the furniture, as
were some of the village boys, and the
engine was playing upon the south end,
where the kitchen is.
Mrs. Peter Jones, who is very small
and alert, said suddenly that it looked to
her as if 'die smoke were coming out of
the kitchen chimney, but Mrs. Ketchum
said of course it was on lire inside in the
woodwork. " Oh, only to think of Mrs.
Liscom's nice house being all burned up,
and what a dreadful reception for those
boarders ! " she groaned out.
I never saw sunh a hubbub, and appar-
ently over nothing at all, as there was.
There was a steady yell of fire from a
crowd of boys who seemed to enjoy it;
the water was swishing, the firemen's
arms were pumping in unison, and every-
body generally running in aimless circles
like a swarm of ants. Then we saw the
boarders coming out. "Oh, the house
must be all in a light blaze inside 1 *
groaned Mrs. Ketchum.
i44
The Jamesons
There were five of the boarders. The
mother, a large, fair woman with a long,
massive face, her reddish hair crinkling
and curling around it in a sort of ivy-
tendril fashion, came first. Her two
daughters, in blue gowns, with pretty,
agitated faces, followed ; then the young
son, fairly teetering with excitement;
then the grandmother, a little, tremulous
old lady in an auburn wig.
The woman at the head carried a
bucket, and what should she do but form
her family into a line toward the well at
the north side of the house where we
were I
Of course, the family did not nearly
reach to the well, and she beckoned to
us imperatively. " Come immediately ! "
said she ; " if the men of this village have
no head in an emergency like this, let the
women arise ! Come immediately. "
So Mrs. Peter Jones, Mrs. Ketchum,
Adeline, and I stepped into the line, and
the mother boarder filled the bucket at
*45
They Arrive
the well, and we passed it back from hand
to hand, and the boy at the end flung it
into Mrs. Liscom's front entry all over
her nice carpet.
Then suddenly we saw Caroline Liscom
appear. She snatched the bucket out of
the hands of the boy boarder and gave it
a toss into the lilac-bush beside the door;
then she stood there, looking as I had
never seen her look before. Caroline
Liscom lias always had the reputation of
being a woman of a strong character; she
is manifestly the head of her family. It
is always, "Mrs. Liscom's house," and
"Mrs. Liscom's property," instead of Mr.
Liscom's.
It is always understood that, though
Mr. Liscom is the nominal voter in town
matters, not a selectman goes into office
with Mr. Liscom's vote unless it is au-
thorized by Mrs. Liscom. Mr. Liscom
is, so to speak, seldom taken without
Mrs. Liscom's indorsement.
Of course, Mrs. Liscom being such a
146
The Jamesons
character has always more or less author-
ity in her bearing, but that day she dis-
played a real majesty which I had never
seen in her before. She stood there a
second, then she turned and made a back-
ward and forward motion of her arm as
if she were sweeping, and directly red-
shirted firemen and boys began to fly out
of the house as if impelled by it.
"You just get out cf my house; every
one of you ! " said Caroline in a loud but
slow voice, as if she were so augry that
she was fairly reining herself in ; and they
got out. Then she called to the firemen
who were working the engine, and they
heard her above all the uproar.
"You stop drenching my house with
water, and go home ! " said she.
Everybody began to hush and stare,
but Tommy Gregg gave one squeaking
cry of fire as if in defiance.
"There is no fire," said Caroline Lis-
com. "My house is not on fire, and has
not been on fire. I am getting tea, and
i47
They Arrive
the kitchen chimney always smokes when
the wind is west. I don't thank you,
any of you, for coming here and turning
my house upside down and drenching it
with water, and lugging my furniture out-
of-doors. Now you can go home. I don't
see what fool ever sent you here ! "
The engine stopped playing, and you
could hear the water dripping off the
south end of the house. The windows
were streaming as if there had been a
shower. Everybody looked abashed, aud
the chief engineer of the fire department — ■
who is a little nervous man who always
works as if the river were on lire and he
had started it — asked meekly if they
shouldn't bring the furniture back.
"No," said Caroline Liscom, "I want
you to go home, and that is all I do want
of you."
Then the mother boarder spoke — she
was evidently not easily put down. M I
refuse to return to the house or to allow
my family to do so unless I am officially
148
The Jamesons
notified by the fire department that the
fire is extinguished," said she.
"Then you can stay out-of-doors," said
Caroline Liscom, and we all gasped to hear
her, though we secretly admired her for it.
The boarder glared at her in a curious
kind of way, like a broadside of stoniness,
but Caroline did not seem to mind it at
all. Then the boarder changed her tactics
like a general on the verge of defeat. She
sidled up to Mr. Spear, the chief engineer,
who was giving orders to drag home the
engine, and said in an unexpectedly sweet
voice, like a trickle of honey off the face
of a rock : " My good man, am I to un-
derstand that I need apprehend no further
danger from fire ! I ask for the sake of
my precious family."
Mr. Spear looked at her as if she had
spoken to him in Choctaw, and she was
obliged to ask him over again. "My
good man," said she, "is the fire out? "
Mr. Spear looked at her as if he were
half daft then, but he answered: "Yes,
149
They Arrive
ma'am, yes, ma'am, certainly, ma'am, no
danger at all, ma'am." Then he went on
ordering the men : " A leetle more to the
right, boys ! All together ! "
"Thank you, my good man, your word
is sutiicient," said the boarder, though
Mr. Spear did not seem to hear her.
Then she sailed into the house, and her
son, her two daughters, and the grand-
mother after her. Mrs. Peter Jones and
Adeline and her mother went home, but
I ventured, since I was a sort of relation,
to go in and offer to help Caroline set
things to rights. She thanked me, and
said that she did not want any help;
when Jacob and Harry came home they
would set the furniture in out of the yard.
" I am sorry for you, Caroline," said T.
" Look at my house, Sophia Lane," said
she, and that was all she would say. She
shut her mouth tight over that. That
lior.se was enough to make a strong-
minded woman like Caroline dumb, and
jbend a weak one into hysterics. It was
The Jamesons
dripping with water, and nearly all the
furniture out in the yard piled up pell-
mell. I could not see how she was going
to get supper for the boarders : the kitchen
fire was out and the stove drenched, with
a panful of biscuits in the oven.
" What are you going to give them for
supper, Caroline ? " said I, and she just
shook her head. I knew that those
boarders would have to take what they
could get, or go without.
When Caroline was in any difficulty
there never was any help for her, except
from the working of circumstances to their
own salvation. I thought I might as well
go home. I offered to give her some pie
or cake if he^s were spoiled, but she only
shook he^: nead again, and I knew she
must have some stored away in the parlor
china-closet, where the water had not
penetrated.
I went through the house to the front
entry, thinking I would go out the front
door — the side one was dripping as if it
i5l
They Arrive
were under a waterfall. Just as I reached
it I heard a die-away voice from the front
chamber say, "My good woman."
I did not dream that I was addressed,
never having been called by that name,
though always having hoped that I was a
good woman.
So I kept right on. Then I heard a
despairing sigh, and the voice said, " You
speak to her, Harriet."
Then I heard another voice, very sweet
and a little timid, " Will you please step
upstairs? Mamma wishes to speak to
you."
I began to wouder if they were talking
to me. I looked up, and there discovered
a pretty, innocent, rosy little face, peering
over the balustrade at the head of the
stairs. " Will you please step upstairs ? "
said she again, in the same sweet tones.
"Mamma wishes to speak to you."
I have a little weakness of the heartt
and do not like to climb stairs more than
I am positively obliged to ; it always puts
2 i r 2
The Jamesons
me so out of breath. I sleep downstairs
on that account. I looked at Caroline's
front stairs, which are rather steep, with
some hesitation. I felt shaken, too, on
account of the alarm of fire. Then I
heard the first voice again with a sort of
languishing authority : " My good woman,
will you be so kind as to step upstairs
immediately ? "
I went upstairs. The girl who had
spoken to me — I found afterward that she
was the elder of the daughters — motioned
me to go into the north chamber. I
found them all there. The mother, Mrs.
H. Boardman Jameson, as I afterward
knew her name to be, was lying on the
bed, her head propped high with pillows ;
the younger daughter was fanning her,
and she was panting softly as if she were
almost exhausted. The grandmother sat
beside the north window, with a paper-
covered book on her knees. She was eat-
ing something from a little white box on
the window-sill. The boy was at an-
i53
They Arrive
other window, also with a book in which
he did not seem to be interested. He
looked up at me, as I entered, with a most
peculiar expression of mingled innocence
and shyness which was almost terror. I
could not see why the boy should possi-
bly be afraid of me, but I learned after-
ward.that it was either his natural atti-
tude or natural expression. He was either
afraid of every mortal thing or else ap-
peared to be. The singular elevated arch
of his eyebrows over his wide-open blue
eyes, and his mouth, which was always
parted a little, no doubt served to give
this impression. He was a pretty boy,
with a fair pink-and-white complexion,
and long hair curled like a girl's, which
looked odd to me, for he was quite large.
Mrs. Jameson beckoned me up to the
bed with one languid finger, as if she
could not possibly do more. I began to
think that perhaps she had some trouble
with her heart like myself, and the fire had
overcome her, and I felt very sympathetic.
*54
The Jamesons
" I am sorry you have had such an un-
pleasant experience, " I began, but she cut
me short.
"My good woman," said she in little
more than a whisper, " do you know of
any house in a sanitary location where
we can obtain board immediately ? I am
very particular about the location. There
must be no standing water near the house,
there must not be trees near on account
of the dampness, the neighbors must not
keep hens — of course, the people of the
house must not keep hens — and the wom-
an must have an even temper. I must
particularly insist upon an even temper.
My nerves are exceedingly weak ; I can-
not endure such a rasping manner as that
which I have encountered to-day. "
When she stopped and looked at me
for an answer I was so astonished that I
did not know what to say. There she
was, just arrived ; had not eaten one meal
in the house, and wanting to find another
boarding-place.
They Arrive
Finally I said, rather stupidly I sup-
pose, that I doubted if she could find
another boarding-place in our village as
good as the one which she already had.
She gave another sigh, as if of the most
determined patience. " Have I not al-
ready told you, my good woman," said
she, " that I cannot endure such a rasping
manner and voice as that of the woman
of the house ? It is most imperative that
I have another boarding-place at once."
She said this in a manner which net-
tled me a little, as if I had boarding-
places, for which she had paid liberally
and had a right to demand, in my hand,
and was withholding them from her. I
replied that I knew of no other boarding-
place of any kind whatsoever in the vil-
lage. Then she looked at me in what I
suppose was meant to be an ingratiating
way.
"My good woman," said she, "you
look very neat and tidy yourself, and I
don't doubt are a good plain cook; I am
>5<5
The Jamesons
willing to try your house if it is net sur-
rounded by trees and there is no standing
water near; I do not object to running
water. "
In the midst of this speech the elder
daughter had said in a frightened way,
"Oh, mamma! " but her mother had paid
no attention. As for myself, I was angry.
The memory of my two years at VVard-
ville Young Ladies' Seminary in my
youth and my frugally independent life
as wife and widow was strong upon me.
I had read and improved my mind. I
was a prominent member of the Ladies'
Literary Society of our village: I wrote
papers which were read at tjie meetings ;
I felt, in reality, not one whit below Mrs.
H. Boardman Jameson, and, moreover,
large sleeves were the fashion, and my
sleeves were every bit as large as hers,
though she had just come from the city.
That added to my conviction of my own
importance.
" Madam," said I, " I do not take board-
*57
They Arrive
ers. I have never taken boarders, and I
never shall take boarders. " Then I turned
and went out of the room, and downstairs^
with, it seemed to me, much dignity.
However, Mrs. Jameson was not im-
pressed by it, for she called after me : " My
good woman, will you please tell Mrs.
Liscom that I must have some hot water
to make my health food with imme-
diately? Tell her to send up a pitcher at
once, very hot."
I did not tell Caroline about the hot
water. I left that for them to manage
themselves. I did not care to mention
hot water with Caroline's stove as wet as
if it had been dipped in the pond, even if
I had not been too indignant at the per-
sistent ignoring of my own dignity. I
went home and found Louisa Field, my
brother's widow, and her little daughter
Alice, who live with me, already there.
Louisa keeps the district school, and with
her salaryr, besides the little which my
brother left her, gets aloug very comfort-
The Jamesons
ably. I have a small sum in bank, besides
my house, and we have plenty to live on,
even if we don't have much to spare.
Louisa was full of excitement over the
false alarm of fire, and had heard a rea-
son for it which we never fairly knew to
be true, though nearly all the village be-
lieved it. It seems that the little Jame-
son boy, so the story ran, had peeped into
the kitchen and had seen it full of smoke
from Caroline's smoky chimney when she
was kindling the fire ; then had run out
into the yard, and seeing the smoke out
there too, and being of such an exceed-
ingly timid temperament, had run out to
the head of the lane calling fire, and had
there met Tommy Gregg, who had spread
the alarm and been the means of calling
out the fire department.
Indeed, the story purported to come
from Tommy Gregg, who declared that
the boy at Liscom's had "hollered " fire,
and when he was asked where it was had
told him at Liscom's. However that may
159
They Arrive
have been, I looked around at our humble
little home, at the lounge which I had
covered myself, at the threadbare carpet
on the sitting-room floor, at the wall-
paper which was put on the year before
my husband died, at the vases on the
shelf, which had belonged to my mother,
and I was very thankful that I did not
care for " extra things " or new furniture
and carpets enough to take boarders who
made one feel as if one were simply a
colonist of their superior state, and the
Kepublic was over and gone.
60
n
WE BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THEM
It was certainly rather unfortunate, as
far as the social standing of the Jamesons
among us was concerned, that they
brought Grandma Cobb with them.
Everybody spoke of her as Grandma
Cobb before she had been a week in the
village. Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson al-
ways called her Madam Cobb, but that
made no difference. People in our vil-
lage had not been accustomed to address
old ladies as madam, and they did not
take kindly to it. Grandma Cobb was of
a very sociable disposition, and she soon
developed the habit of dropping into the
village houses at all hours of the day and
evening. She was an early riser, and all
the rest of her family slept late, and she
161
We Become Acquainted
probably found it lonesome. She often
made a call as early as eight o'clock in
the morning, and she came as late as ten
o'clock in the evening When she came
in the morning she talked, and when she
came in the evening she sat in her chair
and nodded. She often kept the whole
family up, and it was less exasperating
when she came in the morning, though it
was unfortunate for the Jamesons.
If a bulletin devoted to the biography
of the Jameson family had been posted
every week on the wall of the town house
it could have been no more explicit than
was Grandma Cobb. Whether we would
or not we soon knew all about them ; the
knowledge was fairly forced upon us.
We knew that Mr. II. Boardman Jameson
had been very wealthy, but had lost most
of his money the year before through the
failure of a bank. We knew that his
wealth had all been inherited, and that
he would never have been, in Grandma
Cobb's opinion, capable of earning it him-
162
The Jamesons
self. We knew that lie had obtained,
through the influence of friends, a posi-
tion in the custom-house, and we knew
the precise amount of his salary. We
knew that the Jamesons had been obliged
to give up their palatial apartments in
New York and take a humble flat in a
less fashionable part of the city. We
knew that they had always spent their
summers at their own place at the sea-
shore, and that this was the first season
of their sojourn in a little country village
in a plain house. We knew how hard a
struggle it had been for them to come here ;
we knew just how much they paid for their
board, how Mrs. Jameson never wanted
anything for breakfast but an egg and a
hygienic biscuit, and had health food in
the middle of the forenoon and afternoon.
We also knew just how old they all
were, and how the H. in Mr. Jameson's
name stood for Hiram. We knew that
Mrs. Jameson had never liked the name
— might, in fact, have refused to marry
163
We Become Acquainted
on that score had not Grandma Cobb
reasoned with her and told her that he
was a worthy man with money, and she
not as young as she had been ; and how
she compromised by always using the ab-
breviation, both in writing and speaking.
"She always calls him H," said Grandma
Cobb, "and I tell her sometimes it doesn't
look quite respectful to speak to her hus-
band a.s if he were a part of the alphabet."
Grandma Cobb, if the truth had been told,
was always in a state of covert rebellion
against her daughter.
Grandma Cobb was always dressed in
a black silk gown which seemed sumptu-
ous to the women of our village. They
could scarcely reconcile it with the state-
ment that the Jamesons had lost their
money. Black silk of a morning was
stupendous to them, when they reflected
how they had, at the utmost, but one
black silk, and that guarded as if it were
cloth of gold, worn only upon the grand-
est occasions, and designed, as they knew
164
The Jamesons
in their secret hearts, though they did not
proclaim it, for their last garment of
earth. Grandma Cobb always wore a fine
lace cap also, which should, according to
the opinions of the other old ladies of the
village, have been kept sacred for other
women's weddings or her own funeral.
She used her best gold-bowed spectacles
every day, and was always leaving them
behind her in the village houses, pud lit-
tle Tommy or Annie had to run after her
with a charge not to lose them, for no-
body knew how much they cost.
Grandma Cobb always carried about
with her a paper-covered novel and a
box of cream peppermints. She ate tlie
peppermints and freely bestowed them
upon others; the novel she never read.
She said quite openly that she only car-
ried it about to please her daughter, who
had literary tastes. "She belongs to a
Shakespeare Club, and a Browning Club,
and a Current Literature Club," said
Grandma Cobb.
i65
We Become Acquainted
We concluded that she had, feeling al-
together incapable of even carrying about
Shakespeare and Browning, compromised
with peppermints and current literature.
" That book must be current literature,"
said Mrs. Ketchum one day, " but I looked
into it when she was at our house, and I
should not want Adeline to read it."
After a while people looked upon
Grandma Cobb's book with suspicion ; but
since she always carried it, thereby keep-
ing it from her grandchildren, and never
read it, we agreed that it could not do
much harm.
The very first time that I saw Grandma
Cobb, at Caroline Liscom's, she had that
book. I knew it by the red cover and
a baking-powder advertisement on the
back ; and the next time also — that was
it the seventeenth-of-June picnic.
The whole Jameson family went to
the picnic, rather to our surprise. I think
}«eople had a fancy that Mrs. II. Board -
man Jameson would be above our little
iGG
The Jamesons
Tural picnic. We had yet to understand
Mrs. Jameson, and learn that, however
much she really held herself above and
aloof, she had not the slightest intention
of letting us alone, perhaps because she
thoroughly believed in her own non-
mixable quality. Of course it would al-
ways be quite safe for oil to go to a picnic
with water, no matter how exclusive it
might be.
The picnic was in Leonard's grove, and
young and old were asked. The seven-
teenth-of- June picnic is a regular institu-
tion in our village. I went with Louisa,
and little Alice in her new white muslin
dress; the child had been counting on it
for weeks. We were nearly all assem-
bled when the Jamesons arrived. Half a
dozen of us had begun to lay the table
for luncheon, though we were not to have
it for an hour or two. We always
thought it a good plan to make all our
preparations in season. We were collect-
ing the baskets and boxes, and it did look
167
We Become Acquainted
as if we were to have au unusual feast
that year. Those which we peeped in-
to appeared especially tempting. Mrs.
Nathan Butters had brought a great loaf
of her rich fruit cake, a kind for which
she is famous in the village, and Mrs.
Sim White had brought two of her
whipped-cream pies. Mrs. Ketchum had
brought six mince pies, which were a real
rarity in June, and Flora Clark had
brought a six-quart pail full of those
jumbles she makes, so rich that if you
drop one it crumbles to pieces. Then
there were two great pinky hams and a
number of chickens. Louisa and I had
brought a chicken ; we had one of ours
killed, and I had roasted it the day be-
fore.
I remarked to Mrs. Ketchum that we
should have an unusually nice dinner;
and so we should have had if it had not
been for Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson.
The Jamesons came driving into the
grove in the Liscom carryall and their
3 168
The Jamesons
buggy. Mr. Jacob Liscom was in charge
of the carryall, and the Jameson boy was
on the front seat with him ; on the back
seat were Grandma, or Madam Cobb, and
the younger daughter. Harry Liscom
drove the bay horse in the buggy, and
Mrs. Jameson and Harriet were with
him, he sitting between them, very un-
comfortably, as it appeared — his knees
were touching the dasher, as he is a tall
young man.
Caroline Liscom did not come, and I
did not wonder at it for one. She must
have thought it a good chance to rest one
day from taking boarders. We were sur-
prised that Mrs. Jameson, since she is
such a stout woman, did not go in the
carryall, and let either her younger daugh-
ter or the boy go with Harry and Harriet
in the buggy. We heard afterward that
she thought it necessary that she should
go with them as a chaperon. That
seemed a little strange to us, since our
village girls were all so well conducted
169
We Become Acquainted
that we thought nothing of their going
buggy-riding with a good young man like
Harry Lis com; he is a church member
and prominent in the Sunday-school, and
this was in broad daylight and the road
full of other carriages. So people stared
and smiled a little to see Harry driving
in with his knees braced against the
dasher, and the buggy canting to one side
with the weight of Mrs. H. Boardman
Jameson. He looked rather shamefaced,
I thought, though he is a handsome,
brave young fellow, and commonly car-
ries himself boldly enough. Harriet
Jameson looked very pretty, though her
eostume was not, to my way of thinking,
quite appropriate. However, I suppose
that she was not to blame, poor child,
and it may easily be more embarrassing
to have old fine clothes than old poor
ones. Really, Harriet Jameson would
have looked better dressed that day in an
old calico gown than the old silk one
which she wore. Her waist was blue
170
The Jamesons
Bilk with some limp chiffon at the neck
and sleeves, and her skirt was old brown
silk all frayed at the bottom and very
shiny. There were a good many spots on
it, too, and some mud stains, though it
had not rained for two weeks.
However, the girl looked pretty, and
her hair was done with a stylish air, and
she wore her old Leghorn hat, with its
wreath of faded French flowers, in a way
which was really beyond our girls.
And as for Harry Liscom, it was plain
enough to be seen that, aside from his
discomfiture at the close attendance of
Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson, he was bliss*
fully satisfied and admiring. I was rather
sorry to see it on his account, though I
had nothing against the girl. I think, on
general principles, that it is better usually
for a young man of our village to marry
one of his own sort; that he has a better
chance of contentment and happiness.
However, in this case it seemed quite
likely that there would be no chance of
'7*
We Become Acquainted
married happiness at all. It did not
look probable that Mrs. H. Boardman
Jameson would smile upon her eldest
daughter's marriage with the son of "a
good woman," and I was not quite sure
as to what Caroline Liscom would say.
Mr. Jacob Liscom is a pleasant-faced,
mild-eyed man, very tall and slender.
He lifted out the Jameson buy, who did
not jump out over the wheel, as boys
generally do when arriving at a picnic,
and then he tipped over the front seat
and helped out Madam Cobb, and the
younger daughter, whose name was Sarah.
We had not thought much of such old-
fashioned names as Harriet and Sarah for
some years past in our village, and it
seemed rather odd taste in these city
people. We considered Hattie and Sadie
much prettier. Generally the Harriets
and Sarahs endured only in the seclusion
of the family Bible and the baptismal
records. Quite a number of the ladies
had met Mrs. Jameson, having either
172
The Jamesons
called at Mrs. Lis corn's and seen her
there, or having spoken to her at church ;
and as for Grandma Cobb, she had had
time to visit nearly every house in the
village, as I knew, though she had not
been to mine. Grandma Cobb got out,
all smiling, and Jacob Liscom handed
her the box of peppermints and the paper-
covered novel, and then Harry Liscom
helped out Harriet and her mother.
Mrs. Jameson walked straight up to us
who were laying the table, and Harry
followed her with a curiously abashed
expression, carrying a great tin cracker-
box in one hand and a large basket in
the other. We said good-morning as
politely as we knew how to Mrs. Jame-
son, and she returned it with a brisk air
which rather took our breaths away, it
was so indicative of urgent and very
pressing business. Then, to our utter as-
tonishment, up she marched to the nearest
basket on the table and deliberately took
off the cover and began taking out the
i73
We Become Acquainted
content?. It happened to he Mrs. Nathan
Butters' basket. Mrs. Jameson lifted out
the great loaf of fruit cake and set it on
the table with a contemptuous thud, as it
seemed to us ; then she took out a cran-
berry pie and a frosted apple pie, and set
them beside it. She opened Mrs. Peter
Jones' basket next, and Mrs. Jones stood
there all full of nervous twitches and saw
her take out a pile of ham sandwiches
and a loaf of chocolate cake and a bottle
of pickles. She went on opening the
baskets and boxes one after another, and
we stood watching her. Finally she came
to the pail full of jumbles, and her hand
slipped and the most of them fell to the
ground and were a mass of crumbles.
Then Mrs. Jameson spoke; she had
not before said a word. "These are
enough to poison the whole village," said
she, and she sniffed with a proud uplift-
ing of her nose.
I am sure that a little sound, something
between a groan and a gasp, came from
i74
The Jamesons
us, but no one spoke. I felt that it was
fortunate, and yet I was almost sorry that
Mora Clark, who made those jumbles,
was not there ; she had gone to pick wild
flowers with her Sunday-school class.
Flora is very high-spirited and very proud
of her jumbles, and I knew that she
would not have stood it for a minute to
hear them called poison. There would
certainly have been words then and there,
for Flora is afraid of nobody. She is a
smart, handsome woman, and would have
been married long ago if it had not been
for her temper.
Mrs. Jameson did not attempt to gather
up the jumbles ; she just went on affcer
that remark of hers, opening the rest of
the things; there were only one or two
more. Then she took the cracker-box
which Harry had brought; he had stolen
away to put up his horse, and it looked
to me very much as if Harriet had stolen
away with him, for I could not see ker
anywhere.
*75
We Become Acquainted
Mrs. Jameson lifted this cracker-box
on to the table and opened it. It was
quite full of thick, hard-looking biscuits,
or crackers. She laid them in a pile be-
side the other things; then she took up
the basket and opened that. There was
another kind of a cracker in that, and
two large papers of something. When
everything was taken out she pointed at
the piles of eatables on the table, and ad-
dressed us : " Ladies, attention ! " rapping
slightly with a spoon at the same time.
Her voice was very sweet, with a curious
kind of forced sweetness: "Ladies, at-
tention ! I wish you to carefully observe
the food upon the table before us. I wish
you to consider it from the standpoint of
wives and mothers of families. There is
the food which you have brought, un-
wholesome, indigestible; there is mine,
approved of by the foremost physicians
and men of science of the day. For ten
years I have had serious trouble with the
alimentary canal, and this food has kept
176
The Jamesons
me in strength and vigor. Had I at-
tempted to live upon your fresh biscuits,
your frosted cakes, your rich pastry, I
should be in my grave. One of those
biscuits which you see there before you
is equal in nourishment to six of your
indigestible pies, or every cake upon the
table. The great cause of the insanity and
dyspepsia so prevalent among the rural
classes is rich pie and cake. I feel it my
duty to warn you. I hope, ladies, that you
will consider carefully what I have said."
With that, Mrs. Jameson withdrew
herself a little way and sat down under a
tree on a cushion which had been brought
in the carryall. We looked at one an-
other, but we did not say anything for a
few minutes.
Finally, Mrs. White, who is very good-
natured, remarked that she supposed that
she meant well, and she had better put
her pies back in the basket or they would
dry up. We all began putting back the
things which Mrs. Jameson had taken
i77
We Become Acquainted
out, except the broken jumbles, and were
very quiet. However, we could not help
feeling astonished and aggrieved at what
Mrs. Jameson had said about the insan-
ity and dyspepsia in our village, since we
could scarcely remember one case of in-
sanity, and very few of us had to be in
the least careful as to what we ate. Mrs.
Peter Jones did say in a whisper that if
Mrs. Jameson had had dyspepsia ten
years on those hard biscuits it was more
than any of us had had on our cake and
pie. We left the biscuits, and the two
paper packages which Mrs. Jameson had
brought, in a heap on the table just
where she had put them.
After we had replaced the baskets we
all scattered about, trying to enjoy our-
selves in the sweet pine woods, but it
was hard work, we were so much dis-
turbed by what had happened. We won-
dered uneasily, too, what Flora Clark
would say about her jumbles. We were
all quiet, peaceful people who dreaded
>78
The Jamesons
altercation ; it made our hearts beat too
fast. Taking it altogether, we felt very
much as if some great, overgrown bird of
another species had gotten into our vil-
lage nest, and we were in the midst of an
awful commotion of strange wings and
beak. Still we agreed that Mrs. Jame-
son had probably meant well.
Grandma Cobb seemed to be enjoying
herself. She was moving about, her
novel under her arm and her peppermint
box in her hand, holding up her gown
daintily in front. She spoke to every-
body affably, and told a number confiden-
tially that her daughter was very delicate
about her eating, but she herself believed
in eating what you liked. Harriet and
Harry Liscom were still missing, and so
were the younger daughter, Sarah, and
the boy. The boy's name, by the way,
was Cobb, his mother's maiden name.
That seemed strange to us, but it possibly
would not have seemed so had it been a
prettier name.
179
We Become Acquainted
Just before liuich-tiine Cobb and his
sister Sarah appeared, and they were in
great trouble. Joints Green, who owns
the farm next the grove, was with them,
and actually had Cobb by the hair, hold-
ing all his gathered-up curls tight in his
list, lie held Sarah by one arm, too, and
she was crying. Cobb was crying, too,
for that matter, and crying out loud like
a baby.
Jonas Green is a very brusque man,
and he did look as angry as I had ever
seen any one, and when I saw what those
two were carrying I did not much won-
der. Their hands were full of squash
blossoms and potato blossoms, and Jonas
Green's garden is the pride of his life.
Jonas Green marched straight up to
Mrs. Jameson under her tree, and said in
a loud voice : " Ma'am, if this boy and
girl are yours I think it is about time
you taught them better than to tramp
through folks' fields picking things that
don't belong to them, and I expect what
180
The Jamesons
I've lost in squashes and potatoes to be
made good to me."
We all waited, breathless, and Mrs.
Jameson put on her eyeglasses and looked
up. Then she spoke sweetly.
"My good man," said she, "if, when
you come to dig your squashes, you find
less than usual, and when you come to
pick your potatoes the bushes are not in
as good condition as they generally are,
you may come to me and I will make it
right with you."
Mrs. Jameson spoke with the greatest
dignity and sweetness, and we almost
felt as if she were the injured party, in
spite of all those squash and potato blos-
soms. As for Jonas Green, he stared at
her for the space of a minute, then he
gave a loud laugh, let go of the boy and
girl, and strode away. We heard him
laughing to himself as he went; ail
through his life the mention of potato
bushes and digging squashes was enough
to send him into iits of laughter. It was
181
We Beceme Acquainted
the joke of his lifetime, for Jonas Green
had never been a merry man, and it was
probably worth more than the vegetables
which he had lost. I pitied Cobb and
Sarah, they were so frightened, and got
hold of them myself and comforted them.
Sarah was just such another little timid,
open-mouthed, wide-eyed sort of thing as
her brother, and they were merely pick-
ing flowers, as they supposed.
" I never saw such beautiful yellow
t owers,M Sarah said, sobbing and looking
ruefully at her great bouquet of squash
blossoms. This little Sarah, who was
only twelve, and very small and childish
for her age, said sooner and later many
ignorant, and yet quaintly innocent things
about our country life, which were widely
repeated. It was Sarah who said, when
she was offered some honey at a village
tea-drinking, "Oh, will you please tell me
what time you drive home your bees?
and do they give honey twice a day like
the cows ? " It was Sarah who, when
182
The Jamesons
ner brother was very anxious to see the
pigs on Mr. White's farm, said, "Oh,
be quiet, Cobb, dear; it is too late to-
night; the pigs must have gone into their
holes."
I think poor Cobb and Sarah might
have had a pleasant time at the picnic,
after all — for my little Alice made friends
with them, and Mi's. Sim White's Charlie
— had it not been for their mother's
obliging them to eat her hygienic biscuits
for their luncheons. It was really pitiful
to see them looking so wistfully at the
cake and pie. I had a feeling of relief
that all the rest of us were not obliged to
make our repast of hygienic bread. I
had a fear lest Mrs. Jameson might try
to force us to do so. However, all she
did was to wait until we were fairly
started upon our meal, and then send
around her children with her biscuits,
following them herself with the most ten-
der entreaties that we would put aside that
unwholesome food and not risk our pre-
183
We Become Acquainted
cious lives. She would not, however,
allow us to drink our own coffee — about
that she was firm. She insisted upon our
making some hygienic coffee which she
had brought from the city, and we were
obliged to yield, or appear in a very stub-
born and ungrateful light. The coffee
was really very good, and we did not
mind. The other parcel which she had
brought contained a health food, to be
made into a soit of porridge with hot
water, and little cups of that were passed
around, Mrs. Jameson's face fairly beam-
ing with benevolence the while, and there
was no doubt that she was entirely in
earnest.
Still, we were all so disturbed — that is,
all of us elder people — that I doubt if
anybody enjoyed that luncheon unless it
was Grandma Cobb. She did not eat
hygienic biscuits, but did eat cake and
pie in unlimited quantities. I was really
afraid that she would make herself ill
with Mrs. Butters' fruit cake. One thing
4 184
The Jamesons
was a great relief, to me at least: Flora
Clark did not know the true story of her
jumbles until some time afterward. Mrs.
White told her that the pail had been
upset and they were broken, and we were
all so sorry; and she did not suspect.
We were glad to avoid a meeting between
her and Mrs. Jameson, for none of us
felt as if we could endure it then.
I suppose the young folks enjoyed the
picnic if we did not, and that was the
principal thing to be considered, after all.
I know that Harry Liscom and Harriet
Jameson enjoyed it, and all the more that
it was a sort of stolen pleasure. Just
before we went home I was strolling off
by myself near the brook, and all of a
sudden saw the two young things under
a willow tree. I stood back softly, and
they never knew that I was there, but
they were sitting side by side, and
Harry's arm was around the girl's waist,
and her head was on his shoulder, and
they were looking at each other as if they
185
Wc Become Acquainted
eaw angels, and I thought to myself that,
whether it was due to hygienic bread
or pie, they were in love— and what
would Mrs. H. Bcaidman Jameson and
Caroline Liscom say?
186
Ill
MRS. JAMESON IMPROVES US
It was some time before we really un-
derstood that we were to be improved.
We might have suspected it from the
episode of the hygienic biscuits at the
picnic, but we did not. We were not
fairly aware of it until the Ladies' Sew-
ing Circle met one afternoon with Mrs.
Sim White, the president, the first week
in July.
It was a very hot afternoon, and I
doubt if we should have had the meeting
that day had it not been that we were
anxious to get off a barrel as soon as
possible to a missionary in Minnesota.
The missionary had seven children, the
youngest only six weeks old, and they
were really suffering. Flora Clark did
187
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
say that if it were as hot in Minnesota:
as it was in Linnville she would not
thank anybody to send her clothes; she
would be thankful for the excuse of pov-
erty to go without them. But Mrs. Sim
White would not hear to having the meet-
ing put off ; she said that a cyclone might
come up any minute in Minnesota and
cool the air, and then think of all those
poor children with nothing to cover them.
Flora Clark had the audacity to say that
after the cyclone there might not be any
children to cover, and a few of the
younger members tittered ; but we never
took Flora's speeches seriously. She
always came to the sewing meeting, no-
matter how much she opposed it, and
sewed faster than any of us. She came
that afternoon and made three flannel
petticoats for three of the children,
though she did say that she thought the
money would have been better laid out
in palm-leaf fans.
We were astonished to see Mrs. BL
188
The Jamesons
Boardman Jameson come that very hot
rafternoon, for we knew that she consid-
ered herself delicate, and, besides, we
wondered that she should feel interested
in our sewing circle. Her daughter Har-
riet came with her; Madam Cobb, as I
afterward learned, went, instead, to Mrs.
Ketchum's, and stayed all the afternoon,
and kept her from going to the meeting
at all.
Caroline Liscom came with her board-
ers, and I knew, the minute I saw her,
that something was wrong. She had a
look of desperation and defiance which I
had seen on her face before. Thinks I to
myself: "You are all upset over some-
thing, but you have made up your mind
to hide it, whether or no."
Mrs. Jameson had a book in her hand,
and when she first came in she laid it on
the table where we cut out our work.
Mrs. Liscom went around the room with
her, introducing her to the ladies whom
she had not met before. I could see that
189
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
she did not like to do it, and was simply
swallowing her objections with hard gulps
every time she introduced her.
Harriet walked behind her mother and
Mrs. Liscom, and spoke very prettily
every time she was addressed.
Harriet Jameson was really an exceed-
ingly pretty girl, with a kind of apolo-
getic sweetness and meekness of manner
which won her friends. Her dress that
afternoon was pretty, too: a fine white
lawn trimmed with very handsome em-
broidery, and a white satin ribbon at the
waist and throat. I understood after-
ward that Mrs. Jameson did not allow
her daughters to wear their best clothes
generally to our village festivities, but
kept them for occasions in the city, since
their fortunes were reduced, thinking that
their old finery, though it might be a little
the worse for wear, was good enough for
our unsophisticated eyes. But that might
not have been true ; Harriet was very well
dressed that afternoon, at all events.
190
The Jamesons
Mrs. Jameson seemed to be really very
affable. She spoke cordially to us all,
and then asked to have some work given
her; but, as it happened, there was noth-
ing cut out except a black dress for the
missionary's wife, and she did not like to
strain her eyes working on black.
"Let me cut something out," said she
in her brisk manner ; " I have come here
to be useful. What is there needing to
be cut out?"
It was Flora Clark who replied, and I
always suspected her of a motive in it,
for she had heard about her jumbles by
that time. She said there was a little
pair of gingham trousers needed for the
missionary's five-year-old boy, and Mrs.
Jameson, without a quiver of hesitation,
asked for the gingham and scissors. I
believe she would have undertaken a
suit for the missionary with the same
alacrity.
Mrs. Jameson was given another little
pair of trousers, a size smaller than thos«
191
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
required, for a pattern, a piece of blue
and white gingham and the shears, and
she began. We all watched her fur-
tively, but she went slashing away with
as much confidence as if she had served
an apprenticeship with a tailor in her
youth. We began to think that possibly
she knew better how to cut out trousers
than we did. Mrs. White whispered to
me that she had heard that many of those
rich city women learned how to do every-
thing in case they lost their money, and
she thought it was so sensible.
When Mrs. Jameson had finished cut-
ting out the trousers, which was in a
very short space of time, she asked for
some thread and a needle, and Flora
Clark started to get some, and got there-
by an excuse to examine the trousers.
She looked at them, and held them up
so we all could see, and then she spoke.
"Mrs. Jameson," said she, "these are
cut just alike back and front, and they
are large enough for a boy of twelve.*
192
The Jamesons
She spoke very clearly and decisively.
Flora Clark never minces matters.
We fairly shivered with terror as to
what would come next, and poor Mrs.
White clutched my arm hard. "Oh,"
she whispered, " I am so sorry she spoke
so.*
But Mrs. Jameson was not so easily
put down. She replied very coolly and
sweetly, and apparently without the
slightest resentment, that she had made
them so on purpose, so that the boy
would not outgrow them, and she always
thought it better to have the back and
front cut alike; the trousers could then
be worn either way, and would last much
longer.
To our horror, Flora Clark spoke again.
u I guess you are right about their last-
ing," said she; "I shouldn't think those
trousers would wear out any faster on a
five-year-old boy than they would on a
pair of tongs. They certainly won't
touch him anywhere."
i93
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
Mrs. Jameson only smiled in her
calmly superior way at that, and we
concluded that she must be good-tem-
pered. As for Flora, she said nothing
more, and we all felt much relieved.
Mrs. Jameson went to sewing on the
trousers with the same confidence with
which she had cut them out; but I must
say we had a little more doubt about her
skill. She sewed with incredible swift-
ness ; I did not time her exactly, but it
did not seem to me that she was more
than an hour in making those trousers.
I know the meeting began at two o'clock,
and it was not more than half -past three
when she announced that they were done.
Flora Clark rose, and Mrs. White
clutched her skirt and held her back
while she whispered something. How-
ever, Flora went across the room to the
table, and held up the little trousers that
we all might see. Mrs. Jameson had
done what many a novice in trousers-
making does: sewed one leg over the
194
The Jamesons
other and made a bag of them. The}
were certainly a comical sight. 1 don't
know whether Flora's sense of humor got
the better of her wrath, or whether Mrs.
White's expostulation influenced her, but
she did not ,say one word, only stood there
holding the trousers, her mouth twitching.
As for the rest of us, it was all we could
do to keep our faces straight. Mrs.
Jameson was looking at her book, and
did not seem to notice anything; and
Harriet was sitting with her back to
Flora, of which I was glad. I should
have been sorry to have had the child's
feelings hurt.
Flora laid the trousers on the table and
came back to her seat without a word,
and I know that Mrs. White sat up nearly
all night ripping them, and cutting them
over, and sewing them together again, in
season to have them packed in the barrel
the next day.
In the mean time, Mrs. Jameson was
finding the place in her book; and just as
*95
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
Mrs. Peter Jones had asked Mrs. Butters
if it were true that Dora Peckham was
going to marry Thomas Wells and had
bought her wedding dress, and before
Mrs. Butters had a chance to answer
her (she lives next door to the Peck-
hams), she rapped with the scissors on
the table.
"Ladies," said she. "Ladies, atten-
tion ! "
I suppose we all did stiffen up invol-
untarily; it was so obviously not Mrs.
Jameson's place to call us to order and
attention. Of course she should have
been introduced by our President, who
should herself have done the rapping
with the scissors. Flora Clark opened
her mouth to speak, but Mrs. White
clutched her arm and looked at her so
beseechingly that she kept quiet.
Mrs. Jameson continued, utterly un-
conscious of having given any offence.
We supposed that she did not once think
it possible that we knew what the usages
196
The Jamesons
of ladies' societies were. "Ladies," said
she, " I am sure that you will all prefer
having your minds improved and your
spheres enlarged by the study and con-
templation of one of the greatest authors
of any age, to indulging in narrow vil-
lage gossip. I will now read to you a
selection from Robert Browning."
Mrs. Jameson said Eobert Browning
with such an impressive and triumphantly
introductory air that it was almost im-
possible for a minute not to feel that
Browning was actually there in our sew-
ing circle. She made a little pause, too,
which seemed to indicate just that. It
was borne upon Mrs. White's mind that
she ought to clap, and she made a feeble
motion with her two motherly hands
which one or two of us echoed.
Mrs. Jameson began to read the selec-
tion from Robert Browning. Now, as I
have said before, we have a literary soci-
ety in our village, but we have never
attempted to read Browning at our meet-
197
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
h»gs. Some of us read him a little and
strive to appreciate him, but we have
been quite sure that some other author
would interest a larger proportion of the
ladies. I don't suppose that more than
three of us had ever read or even heard
of the selection which Mrs. Jameson read.
It was, to my way of thinking, one of
the most difficult of them all to be under-
stood by an untrained mind, but we lis-
tened politely, and with a semblance, at
least, of admiring interest.
I think Harriet Jameson was at first
the only seriously disturbed listener, to
judge from her expression. The poor
child looked so anxious and distressed
that I was sorry for her. I heard after-
ward that she had begged her mother not
to take the Browning book, saying that
she did not believe the ladies would like
it; and Mrs. Jameson had replied that she
felt it to be her duty to teach them to
like it, and divert their minds from the
petty gossip which she had always heard
198
The Jamesons
was the distinguishing feature of rural
sewing meetings.
Mrs. Jameson read and read; when
she had finished the first selection she
read another. At half -past four o'clock,
Mrs. White, who had been casting dis-
tressed glances at me, rose and stole out
on tiptoe.
I knew why she did so ; Mrs. Bemis'
hired girl next door was baking her bis-
cuits for her that she need not heat her
house up, and she had brought them in.
I heard the kitchen door open.
Presently Mrs. White stole in again
and tried to listen politely to the reading,
but her expression was so strained to
maintain interest that one could see the
anxiety underneath. I knew what wor-
ried her before she told me, as she did
presently. " I have rolled those biscuits
up in a cloth," she whispered, "but I am
dreadfully afraid that they will be spoiled."
Mrs. Jameson began another selection,
and I did pity Mrs. White. She whis-
199
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
pered to me again that her table was not
set, and the biscuits would certainly be
spoiled.
The selection which Mrs. Jameson was
then reading was a short one, and I saw
Mrs. White begin to brighten as she evi-
dently drew near the end. But her joy
was of short duration, as Mrs. Jameson
began another selection.
However, Mrs. White laid an implor-
ing hand on Flora Clark's arm when she
manifested symptoms of rising and inter-
rupting the reading. Flora was getting
angr}7 — I knew by the way her forehead
was knitted and by the jerky way she
sewed. Poor Harriet Jameson looked
more and more distressed. I was sure
she saw Mrs. White holding back Flora,
and knew just what it meant. Harriet
was sitting quite idle with her little
hands in her lap ; we had set her to hem-
ming a ruffle for the missionary's wife's
dress, but her stitches were so hopelessly
uneven that I had quietly taken it from
5 200
The Jamesons
her and told her I was out of work and
would do it myself. The poor child had
blushed when she gave it up. She evi-
dently knew her deficiencies.
Mrs. Jameson read selections from
Robert Browning until six 'oclock, and
by that time Mrs. White had attained to
the calmness of despair. At a quarter of
six she whispered to me that the biscuits
were spoiled, and then her face settled
into an expression of stony peace. When
Mrs. Jameson finally closed her book
there was a murmur which might have
been considered expressive of relief or
applause, according to the amount of self-
complacency of the reader. Mrs. Jame-
son evidently considered it applause, for
she bowed in a highly gracious manner,
and remarked : " I am very glad if I have
given you pleasure, ladies, and I shall be
more than pleased at some future time to
read some other selections even superior
to these which I have given, and also to
make some remarks upon them."
201
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
There was another murmur, which
might have been of pleasure at the pros-
pect of the future reading, or the respite
from the present one; I was puzzled to
know which it did mean.
We always had our supper at our sew-
ing meetings at precisely five o'clock, and
now it was an hour later. Mrs. White
rose and went out directly, and Flora
Clark and I followed her to assist. We
began laying the table as fast as we could,
while Mrs. White was cutting the cake.
The ladies of the society brought the cake
and pie, and Mrs. White furnished the
bread and tea. However, that night it
was so very warm we had decided to have
lemonade instead of tea. Mrs. White
had put it to vote among the ladies when
they first came, and we had all decided in
favor of lemonade. There was another
reason for Mrs. White not having tea:
she has no dining-room, but eats in her
kitchen summer and winter. It is a very
large room, but of course in such heat as
202
The Jamesons
there was that day even a little fire would
have made it unendurably warm. So she
had planned to have her biscuits baked in
Mrs. Bemis' stove and have lemonade.
Our preparations were nearly com-
pleted, and we were placing the last things
on the table, when my sister-in-law,
Louisa Field, came out, and I knew that
something was wrong.
"What is the matter? " said I.
Louisa looked at Flora as if she were
almost afraid to speak, but finally it came
out: Mrs. Jameson must have some hot
water to prepare her health food, as she
dared not eat our hurtful cake and pie,
especially m such heat.
Flora Clark's eyes snapped. She could
not be repressed any longer, so she turned
on poor Louisa as if she were the offender.
* Let her go home, then ! " said she. " She
sha'n't have any hot water in this
house ! '
Flora spoke very loud, and Mrs. White
was in agony. " Oh, Flora ! don't, don't I "
203
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
said she. But she looked at the cold
kitchen stove in dismay.
I suggested boiling the kettle on Mrs.
Bemis' stove ; but that could not be done,
for the hired girl had gone away buggy-
riding with her beau after she had brought
in the biscuits, and Mrs. Bemis was not
at the sewing circle : her mother, in the
next town, was ill, and she had gone to
see her. So the Bemis house was locked
up, and the fire no doubt out. Mrs.
White lives on an outlying farm, and
there was not another neighbor within a
quarter of a mile. If Mrs. Jameson must
have that hot water for her hygienic food
there was really nothing to do but to
make up the fire in the kitchen stove, no
matter how uncomfortable we all might
be in consequence.
Flora Clark said in a very loud voice,
and Mrs. White could not hush her, that
she would see Mrs. II. Boardman Jame-
son in Gibraltar first; and she was so in-
dignant because Mrs. White began to put
204
The Jamesons
kindlings into the stove that she stalked
off into the other room. Mrs. White
begged me to follow her and try to keep
her quiet, but I was so indignant myself
that I was almost tempted to wish she
would speak out her mind. I ran out
and filled the tea-kettle, telling Mrs.
White that I guessed Flora wouldn't say
anything, and we started the fire.
It was a quarter of seven before the
water was hot, and we asked the ladies
to walk out to supper. Luckily, the gen-
tlemen were not coming that night. It
was haying-time, and we had decided,
since we held the meeting principally be-
cause of the extra work, that we would
not have them. We often think that the
younger women don't do as much work
when the gentlemen are coming ; they are
upstairs so long curling their hair and
prinking.
I wondered if Flora Clark had said
anything. I heard afterward that she
had not, but I saw at once that she was
205
Mis. Jameson Improves Us
endeavoring to wreak a little revenge
upon Mrs. Jameson. By a series of very
skilful and scarcely perceptible manoeu-
vres she gently impelled Mrs. Jameson,
without her being aware of it, into the
seat directly in front of the stove. I
knew it was not befitting my age and
Christian character, but I was glad to
see her there. The heat that night was
something terrific, and the fire in the
stove, although we had made no more
than we could help, had increased it de-
cidedly. I thought that Mrs. Jameson,
between the stove at her back and the
hot water in her health food, would have
her just deserts. It did seem as if she
must be some degrees warmer than any
of the rest of us.
However, who thought to inflict just
deserts upon her reckoned without Mrs.
H. Boardman Jameson. She began stir-
ring the health food, which she had
brought, in her cup of hot water; but
suddenly she looked around, saw the stove
206
The Jamesons
at her back, and sweetly asked Mrs.
White if she could not have another seat,
as the heat was very apt to affect her
head.
It was Harriet, after all, upon whom
the punishment for her mother's thought-
lessness fell. She jumped up at once,
and eagerly volunteered to change seats
with her.
" Indeed, my place is quite cool, mam-
ma," she said. So Mrs. Jameson and her
daughter exchanged places ; and I did not
dare look at Flora Clark.
Though the kitchen was so hot, I think
we all felt that we had reason to be thank-
ful that Mrs. Jameson did not beseech us
to eat health food as she did at the pic-
nic, and also that the reading was over
for that day.
Louisa, when we were going home that
night, said she supposed that Mrs. Jame-
son would try to improve our literary
society also; and she was proved to be
right in her supposition at the very next
207
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
meeting. Mrs. Jameson came, and she
not only read selections from Browning,
but she started us in that mad problem
of Shakespeare and Bacon. Most of the
ladies in our society had not an intimate
acquaintance with either, having had, if
the truth were told, their minds too fully
occupied with such humble domestic
questions of identity as whether Johnny
or Tommy stole the sugar.
However, when we were once fairly
started there was no end to our interest;
we all agonized over it, and poor Mrs.
Sim White was so exercised over the
probable deception cf either Bacon or
Shakespeare, in any case, that she told
m 3 privately that she was tempted to
leave the literary society and confine her-
self to her Bible.
There was actual animosity between
some members of our society in conse-
quence. Mrs. Charles Eoot and Rebecca
Snow did not speak to each other for
weeks because Mrs. Boot believed that
208
The Jamesons
Shakespeare was Bacon, and Eebecca be*
lieved he was himself. Rebecca even
stayed away from church and the society
on that account.
Mrs. Jameson expressed herself as very
much edified at our interest, and said she
considered it a proof that our spheres
were widening.
Louisa and I agreed that if we could
only arrive at a satisfactory conclusion in
the matter we should feel that ours were
wider; and Flora Clark said it did not
seem of much use to her, since Shake-
speare and Bacon were both dead and
gone, and we were too much concerned
with those plays which were written any-
how, and no question about it, to bother
about anything else. It did not seem to
her that the opinion of our literary soci-
ety would make much difference to either
of them, and that possibly we had better
spend our time in studying the plays.
At the second meeting of our society
which Mrs. Jameson attended she gave
209
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
us a lecture, which she had written and
delivered before her Shakespeare club in
the city. It was upon the modem drama,
and we thought it must be very instruc-
tive, only as few of us ever went to the
theatre, or even knew the name of a
modem playwright, it was almost like a
lecture in an unknown tongue. Mrs.
Ketchum went to sleep and snored, and
told me on the way home that she did
not mean to be ungrateful, but she could
not help feeling that it would have been
as improving for her to stay at home and
read a new Sunday-school book that she
was interested in.
Mrs. Jameson did not confine herself
in her efforts for our improvement to our
diet and our literary tastes. After she
had us fairly started in our bewildering
career on the tracks of Bacon and Shake-
speare— doing a sort of amateur detective
work in the tombs, as it were — and after
she had induced the storekeeper to lay in
a supply of health food — which ho finally
The Jamesons
fed to the chickens — she turned her atten-
tion to our costumes. She begged us to
cut off our gowns at least three inches
around the bottoms, for wear when en-
gaged in domestic pursuits, and she tried
to induce mothers to take off the shoes
and stockings of their small children, and
let them run barefoot. Children of a
larger growth in our village quite gener-
ally go barefoot in the summer, but the
little ones are always, as a rule, well
shod. Mrs. Jameson said that it was
much better for them also to go without
shoes and stockings, and Louisa and I
were inclined to think she might be right
— it does seem to be the natural way of
things. But people rather resented her
catching their children on the street and
stripping off their shoes and stockings,
and sending the little things home with
then in their hands. However, their
mothers put on the shoes and stockings,
and thought she must mean well. Very
few of them said anything to her by way
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us
of expostulation ; but the children finally
ran when they saw her coming, so they
would not have their shoes and stockings
taken off.
All this time, while Mrs. H. Boardman
Jameson was striving to improve us, her
daughter Harriet was seemingly devoting
all her energies to the improvement of
Harry Liscom, or to the improvement of
her own ideal in his heart, whichever it
may have been ; and I think she succeeded
in each case.
Neither Mrs. Liscom nor Mrs. Jame-
son seemed aware of it, but people began
to say that Harry Liscom and the eldest
Jameson girl wrere going together.
I had no doubt of it after what I had
seen in the grove ; and one evening during
the last of July I had additional evidence.
In the cool of the day I strolled down the
road a little way, and finally stopped at
the old Wray house. Nobody lived there
then; it had been shut up for many a
year. I thought I would sit down on the
212
The Jamesons
old doorstep and rest, and I had barely
settled myself when I heard voices. They
came around the corner from the south
piazza, and I could not help hearing
what they said, though I rose and went
away as soon as I had my wits about me
and fairly knew that I was eavesdropping.
"You are so far above me," said a boy's
voice which I knew was Harry Lis corn's.
Then came the voice of the girl in
reply: "Oh, Harry, it is you who are so
far above me. " Then I was sure that they
kissed each other.
I reflected as I stole softly away, lest
they should discover me and be ashamed,
that, after all, it was only love which
could set people upon immeasurable
heights in each other's eyes, and stimu-
late them to real improvement and to live
up to each other's ideals.
213
IV
THEY TAKE A FARM
I had wondered a little, after Mrs.
Jameson's frantic appeal to me to secure
another boarding-place for her, that she
seemed to settle down so contentedly
at Caroline Liscom's. She said nothing
more about her dissatisfaction, if she felt
any. However, I fancy that Mrs. Jame-
son is one to always conceal her distaste
for the inevitable, and she must have
known that she could not have secured
another boarding-place in Linnville. As
for Caroline Liscom, her mouth is always
closed upon her own affairs until they
have become matters of history. She
never said a word to me about the Jame-
sons until they had ceased to be her
boarders, which was during the first week
214
The Jamesons
in August. My sister-in-law, Louisa
Field, came home one afternoon with the
news. She had been over to Mrs. Gregg's
to get her receipt for blackberry jam, and
had heard -it there. Mrs. Gregg always
knew about the happenings in our village
before they fairly gathered form on the
horizon of reality.
"What do you think, Sophia?" said
Louisa when she came in — she did not
wait to take off her hat before she began
— "the Jamesons are going to leave the
Lis corns, and they have rented the old
Wray place, and are going to run the farm
and raise vegetables and eggs. Mr. Jame-
son is coming on Saturday night, and
they are going to move in next Monday. *
I was very much astonished; I had
never dreamed that the Jamesons had
any taste for farming, and then, too, it
was so late in the season.
" Old Jonas Martin is planting the gar-
den now," said Louisa. " I saw him as I
came past."
215
They Take a Farm
"The garden," said I; "why, it is the
first of August ! "
" Mrs. Jameson thinks that she can raise
late peas and corn, and set hens so as to
have spring chickens very early in the sea-
son, " replied Louisa, laughing; "at least,,
that is what Mrs. Gregg says. The Jame-
sons are going to stay here until the last of
October, and then Jonas Martin is going to
take care of the hens through the winter. "
I remembered with a bewildered feel-
ing what Mrs. Jameson had said about
not wanting to board with people who
kept hens, and here she was going to keep
them herself.
Louisa and I wondered what kind of a
man Mr. H. Boardman Jameson might
be ; he had never been to Linnville, being
kept in the city by his duties at the
custom-house.
" I don't believe that he will have much
to say about the farm while Mrs. Jame-
son has a tongue in her head," said
Louisa; and I agreed with her.
6 216
The Jamesons
When we saw Mr. H. Boardman Jame-
son at church the next Sunday we were
confirmed in our opinion.
He was a small man, much smaller
than his wife, with a certain air of de-
funct style about him. He had quite a
fierce bristle of moustache, and a nervous
briskness of carriage, yet there was some-
thing that was unmistakably conciliatory
and subservient in his bearing toward
Mrs. Jameson. He stood aside for her
to enter the pew, with the attitude of
vassalage ; he seemed to respond with an
echo of deference to every rustle of her
silken skirts and every heave of her wide
shoulders. Mrs. Jameson was an Episco-
palian, and our church is Congregational.
Mrs. Jameson did not attempt to kneel
when she entered, but bent her head for-
ward upon the back of the pew in front
of her. Mr. Jameson waited until she
fcras fairly in position, with observant and
anxious eyes upon her, before he did like-
wise.
217
They Take a Farm
This was really the first Sunday on
which Mrs. Jameson herself had appeared
at church. Ever since she had been in
our village the Sundays had been excep-
tionally warm, or else rainy and disagree-
able, and of course Mrs. Jameson was
in delicate health. The girls and Cobb
had attended faithfully, and always sat
in the pew with the Lis coins. To-day
Harry and his father sat in the Jones
pew to make room for the two elder
Jamesons.
There was an unusual number at meet-
ing that morning, partly, no doubt, be-
cause it had been reported that Mr. Jame-
son was to be there, and that made a
little mistake of his and his wife's more
conspicuous. The minister read that
morning the twenty-third Psalm, and
after he had finished the first verse Mrs.
Jameson promptly responded with the
second, as she would have done in her
own church, raising her solitary voice
with great emphasis. It would not have
218
The Jamesons
been so ludicrous had not poor Mr. Jame-
son, evidently seeing the mistake, and his
face blazing, yet afraid to desert his wife's
standard, followed her dutifully just a
few words in the rear. While Mrs.
Jameson was beside the still waters, Mr.
Jameson was in the green pastures, and
so on. I pitied the Jameson girls. Har-
riet looked ready to cry with mortifica-
tion, and Sarah looked so alarmed that I
did not know but she would run out of
the church. As for Cobb, he kept staring
at his mother, and opening his mouth to
speak, and swallowing and never saying
anything, until it seemed as if he might
go into convulsions. People tried not to
laugh, but a little repressed titter ran over
the congregation, and the minister's voice
shook. Mrs. Jameson was the only one
who did not appear in the least disturbed ;
she did not seem to realize that she had
done anything unusual.
Caroline Liscom was not at church —
indeed, she had not been much since the
219
They Take a Farm
boarders arrived ; she had to stay at home
to get the dinner. Louisa and I won-
dered whether she was relieved or dis-
turbed at losing her boarders, and whether
we should ever know which. When we
passed the Wray house on our way home,
and saw the blinds open, and the fresh
mould in the garden, and the new shin-
gles shining on the hen-house roof, we
speculated about it.
"Caroline had them about nine weeks,
and at fifteen dollars a week she will have
one hundred and thirty-five dollars," said
Louisa. "That will buy her something
extra. "
" I know that she has been wanting
some portieres for her parlor, and a new
set for her spare chamber, and maybe that
is what she will get," said I. And I said
furthermore that I hoped she would feel
paid for her hard work and the strain it
must have been on her mind.
Louisa and I are not very curious, but
the next day we did watch — though
220
The Jamesons
rather furtively — the Jamesons moving
into the old Wray house.
All day we saw loads of furniture pass-
ing, which must have been bought in
Orover. So many of the things were
sewed up in burlap that we could not tell
much about them, which was rather un-
fortunate. It was partly on this account
that we did not discourage Tommy Gregg
— who had been hanging, presumably
with his mother's connivance, around the
old Wray house all day — from reporting
to us as we were sitting on the front door-
step in the twilight. Mrs. Peter Jones
and Amelia Powers had run over, and
were sitting there with Louisa and me.
Little Alice had gone to bed ; we had re-
fused to allow her to go to see what was
going on, and yet listened to Tommy
Gregg's report, which was not, I suppose,
to our credit. I have often thought that
punctilious people will use cats '-paws to
gratify curiosity when they would scorn
to use them for anything else. Still,
221
They Take a Farm
neither Louisa nor I would have actually*
beckoned Tommy Gregg up to the door,
as Mrs. Jones did, though I suppose we
had as much cause to be ashamed, for we
certainly listened full as greedily as she.
It seemed to me that Tommy had seen
all the furniture unpacked, and much of
it set up, by lurking around in the silent,
shrinking, bright-eyed fashion that he
has. Tommy Gregg is so single-minded
in his investigations that I can easily
imagine that he might seem as impersonal
as an observant ray of sunlight in the
window. Anyway, he had evidently seen
everything, and nobody had tried to stop
him.
"It ain't very handsome," said Tommy
Gregg with a kind of disappointment and
wonder. " There ain't no carpets in the
house except in Grandma Cobb's room,
and that's jest straw mattin' ; and there's
some plain mats without no roses on 'em ;
and there ain't no stove 'cept in the
kitchen; jest old andirons like mother
222
The Jamesons
keeps up garret; and there ain't no stuffed
furniture at all ; and they was eatin' sup-
per without no table-cloth."
Amelia Powers and Mrs. Jones thought
that it was very singular that the Jame-
sons had no stuffed furniture, but Louisa
and I did not feel so. We had often
wished that we could afford to change the
haircloth furniture, which I had had
when I was married, for some pretty rat-
tan or plain wood chairs. Louisa and I
rather fancied the Jamesons' style of
house-furnishing when we called there.
It was rather odd, certainly, from our
Tillage standpoint, and we were not ac-
customed to see bare floors if people
could possibly buy a carpet; the floors
were pretty rough in the old house, too.
It did look as if some of the furniture
was sliding down-hill, and it was quite
a steep descent from the windows to the
chimney in all the rooms. Of course, a
carpet would have taken off something of
that effect. Another thing struck us as
223
They Take a Farm
odd, and really scandalized the village at
large: the Jamesons had taken down
every closet and cupboard door in the
house. They had hung curtains before
the clothes- closets, but the shelves of the
pantry which opened out of the dining-
room, and the china-closet in the parlor,
were quite exposed, and furnished with,
to us, a very queer assortment of dishes.
The Jamesons had not one complete set,
and very few pieces alike. They had
simply ransacked the neighborhood for
forsaken bits of crockery-ware, the rem-
nants of old wedding-sets which had been
long stored away on top shelves, or used
for baking or preserving purposes.
I remember Mrs. Gregg laughing, and
saying that the Jamesons were tickled to
death to get some old blue cups which
she had when she was married and did
not pay much for then, and had used for
fifteen years to put up her currant jelly
in; and had paid her enough money for
them to make up the amount which she
224
The Jamesons
had been trying to earn, by selling eggs,
to buy a beautiful new tea-set of a brown-
and- white ware. I don't think the Jame-
sons paid much for any of the dishes
which they bought in our village ; we are
not very shrewd people, and it did not
seem right to ask large prices for articles
which had been put to such menial uses.
I think many things were given them.
I myself gave Harriet Jameson an old
blue plate and another brown one which
I had been using to bake extra pies in
when my regular pie-plates gave out.
They were very discolored and cracked,
but I never saw anybody more pleased
than Harriet was.
I suppose the special feature of the
Jamesons' household adornments which
roused the most comment in the village
was the bean-pots. The Jamesons, who
did not like baked beans and never cooked
them, had bought, or had given them,
a number of old bean-pots, and had them
fitting about the floor and on the tables
225
They Take a Farm
with wild flowers in them. People could
not believe that at first; they thought
they must be some strange kind of vase
which they had had sent from New York.
They cast sidelong glances of sharpest
scrutiny at them when they called. When
they discovered that they were actually
bean-pots, and not only that, but were
sitting on the floor, which had never been
considered a proper place for bean-pots in
any capacity, they were really surprised.
Mora Clark said that for her part her
bean-pot went into the oven with beans in
it, instead of into the corner with flowers
in it, as long as she had her reason. But
I must say I did not quite agree with her.
I have only one bean-pot, and we eat
beans, therefore mine has to be kept
sacred to its original mission ; and I must
say that I thought Mrs. Jameson's with
goldenrod in it really looked better than
mine with beans. I told Louisa that I
could not see why the original states of
inanimate things ought to be remembered
226
The Jamesons
against them when they were elevated to
finer uses any more than those of people,
and now that the bean-pot had become a
vase in a parlor why its past could not be
forgotten. Louisa agreed with me, but
I don't doubt that many people never
looked at those pots full of goldenrod
without seeing beans. It was to my
way of thinking more their misfortune
than the Jamesons' mistake; and they
made enough mistakes which were not to
be questioned not to have the benefit of
any doubt.
Soon the Jamesons, with their farm,
were the standing joke in our village. I
had never known there was such a strong
sense of humor among us as their pro-
ceedings awakened. Mr. H. Boardman
Jameson did not remain in Fairville long,
as he had to return to his duties at
the custom-house. Mrs. Jameson, who
seemed to rouse herself suddenly from
the languid state which she had assumed
at times, managed the farm. She cer-
227
They Take a Farm
tainly had original ideas and the courage
of her convictions.
She stopped at nothing; even Nature
herself she had a try at, like some met-
tlesome horse which does not like to be
balked by anything in the shape of a
wall-
Old Jonas Martin was a talker, and he
talked freely about the people for whom
he worked. "Old Deacon Sears had a
cow once that would jump everything.
Wa'n't a wall could be built that was
high enough to stop her," he would say.
" 'Tain't no ways clear to my mind that
she ain't the identical critter that jumped
the moon ; — and I swan if Mis' Jameson
ain't like her. There ain't nothin' that's
goin' to stop her; she ain't goin' to be
hendered by any sech little things as
times an' seasons an' frost from raisin'
corn an' green peas an' flowers in her
garden. 'The frost'll be a-nippin' of 'em,
marm,' says I, 'as soon as they come up,
marm/ 'I wish vou to leave that to me,
228
The Jamesons
my good man,' says she. Law, she ain't
a-goin' to hev any frost a-nippin' her gar-
den unless she's ready for it. And as for
the chickens, I wouldn't like to be in
their shoes unless they hatch when Mis1
Jameson she wants 'em to. They have
to do everything else she wants 'em to,
and I dunno but they'll come to time on
that. They're the fust fowls I ever see
that a woman could stop scratchm'."
With that, old Jonas Martin would
pause for a long cackle of mirth, and his
auditor would usually join him, for Mrs.
Jameson's hens were enough to awaken
merriment, and no mistake. Louisa and
I could never see them without laughing
enough to cry; and as for little Alice,
who, like most gentle, delicate children,
was not often provoked to immoderate
laughter, she almost went into hysterics.
"We rather dreaded to have her catch
sight of the Jameson hens. There were
twenty of them, great, fat Plymouth
Rocks, and every one cf them in shoes,
229
They Take a Farm
■which were made of pieces of thick cloth
sewed into little bags and tied firmly
around the legs of the fowls, and they
were effectually prevented thereby from
scratching up the garden seeds. The
gingerly and hesitating way in which
these hens stepped around the Jameson
premises was very funny. It was quite
a task for old Jonas Martin to keep the
hens properly shod, for the cloth buskins
had to be often renewed; and distressed
squawkings amid loud volleys of aged
laughter indicated to us every day what
was going on.
The Jamesons kept two Jersey cows,
and Mrs. Jameson caused their horns to
be wound with strips of cloth terminating
in large, soft balls of the same, to prevent
their hooking. When the Jamesons first
began farming, their difficulty in suiting
themselves with cows occasioned much
surprise. They had their pick of a num-
ber of fine ones, but invariably took them
on trial, and promptly returned them
230
The Jamesons
with the message that they were not sat-
isfactory. Old Jonas always took back
the cows, and it is a question whether or
not he knew what the trouble was, and
was prolonging the situation for his own
enjoyment.
At last it came out. Old Jonas came
leading back two fine Jerseys to Sim
White's, and he said, with a great chuckle :
" Want to know what aib these ere crit-
ters, Sim? Well, I'll tell ye: they ain't
got no upper teeth. The Jamesons ain't
goin' to git took in with no cows without
no teeth in their upper jaws, you bet."
That went the rounds of the village.
Mrs. White was so sorry for the Jame-
sons in their dilemma of ignorance cf our
rural wisdom that she begged Sim to go
over and persuade them that cows were
created without teeth in their upper jaw,
and that the cheating, if cheating there
were, was done by Nature, and all men
alike were victimized. I suppose Mr.
White must have convinced her, for they
23*
They Take a Farm
bought the cows ; but it must have been
a sore struggle for Mrs. Jameson at least
to swallow instruction, for she had the
confidence of an old farmer in all matters
pertaining to a farm.
She, however, did listen readily to one
singular piece of information which
brought much ridicule upon them. She
chanced to say to Wilson Gregg, who is
something of a wag, and had just sold the
Jamesons a nice little white pig, that she
thought that ham was very nice in alter-
nate streaks of fat and lean, though she
never ate it herself, and only bought the
pig for the sake of her mother, who had
old-fashioned tastes in her eating and
would have pork, and she thought that
home-raised would be so much healthier.
"Why, bless you, ma'am," said he, "if
you want your ham streaky all you have
to do is to feed the pig one day and starve
him the next."
Tiie Jamesons tried this ingenious plan ;
then, luckilv for the pig, old Jonas, who
The Jamesons
had chuckled over it for a while, revealed
the fraud and put him on regular rations.
I suppose the performance of the Jame-
sons which amused the village the most
was setting their hens on hard-boiled
eggs for sanitary reasons. That seemed
incredible to me at first, but we had it on
good authority — that of Hannah Bell, a
farmer's daughter from the West Corners,
who worked for the Jamesons. She
declared that she told Mrs. Jameson
that hens could not set to any pur-
pose on boiled eggs; but Mrs. Jameson
had said firmly that they must set upon
them or none at all ; that she would not
have eggs about the premises so long
otherwise ; she did not consider it sani-
tary. Finally, when the eggs would
not hatch submitted to such treatment,
even at her command, she was forced
to abandon her position, though even
then with conditions of her surrender t«
Nature. She caused the nests to be well
soaked with disinfectants.
233
They Take a Farm
The Jamesons shut the house up the
last of October and went back to the city,
and I think most of us were sorry. I
was, and Louisa said that she missed
them.
Mrs. Jameson had not been what we
call neighborly through the summer, when
she lived in the next house. Indeed, I
think she never went into any of the
village houses in quite a friendly and
equal way, as we visit one another.
Generally she came either with a view
toward improving us — on an errand of
mercy as it were, which some resented — -
or else upon some matter of business.
Still we had, after all, a kindly feeling
for her, and especially for Grandma Cobb
and the girls, and the little meek boy.
Grandma Cobb had certainly visited us,
and none of us were clever enough to find
©ut whether it was with a patronizing
spirit or not. The extreme freedom
which she took with our houses, almost
seeming to consider them as her own,
234
The Jamesons
living in them some days from dawn till
late at night, might have indicated either
patronage or the utmost democracy.
We missed her auburn-wigged head ap-
pearing in our doorways at all hours, and
there was a feeling all over the village as
if company had gone home.
I missed Harriet more than any of
them. During the last of the time she
had stolen in to see me quite frequently
when she was released from her mother's
guardianship for a minute. None of our
village girls were kept as close as the
Jamesons. Louisa and I used to wonder
whether Mrs. Jameson kept any closer
ward because of Harry Liscom. He cer-
tainly never went to the Jameson house.
We knew that either Mrs. Jameson had
prohibited it, or his own mother. We
thought it must be Mrs. Jameson, for
Harry had a will of his own, as well as
his mother, and was hardly the man te
yield to her in a matter of this kind with-
out a struggle.
235
They Take a Farm
Though Harry did not go to the Jame-
son house, I, for one, used to see two sus-
picious-looking figures steal past the house
in the summer evenings ; but I said noth-
ing. There was a little grove on the
north side of our house, and there was a
bench under the trees. Often I used to
see a white flutter out there of a moon-
light evening, and I knew that Harriet
Jameson had a little white cloak. Louisa
saw it too, but we said nothing, though
we more than suspected that Harriot
must steal out of the house after her
mother had gone to her room, which we
knew was early. Hannah Bell must
know if that were the case, but she kept
their secret.
Louisa and I speculated as to what
was our duty if we were witnessing clan-
destine meetings, but we could never
bring our minds to say anything.
The night before the Jamesons left it
was moonlight and there was a hard frost,
and I saw those young things stealing
236
The Jamesons
down the road for their last stolen meet-
ing, and I pitied them. I was afraid, too,
that Harriet would take cold in the sharp
air. I thought she had on a thin cloak.
Then I did something which I never
quite knew whether to blame myself for
or not. It did seem to me that, if the
girl were a daughter of mine, and would
in any case have a clandestine meeting
with her lover, I should prefer it to be in
a warm house rather than in a grove on
a frosty night. So I caught a shawl
from the table, and ran out to the front
door, and called.
" Harry ! " said I, " is that you ? " They
started, and I suppose poor Harriet was
horribly frightened ; but I tried to speak
naturally, and as if the two being there
together were quite a matter of course.
" I wonder if it will be too much for
me to ask of you," said I, when Harry
had responded quite boldly with a " Good-
evening, Aunt Sophia " — he used to call
me Aunt when he was a child, and still
237
They Take a Farm
kept it up — " I wonder if it will be too
much to ask if you two will just step in
here a minute while I run down to Mrs.
Jones' ? I want to get a pattern to use
the first thing in the morning. Louisa
has gone to meeting, and I don't like to
leave Alice alone."
They said they would be glad to come
in, though, of course, with not as much
joy as they felt later, when they saw that
I meant to leave them to themselves for
a time.
I stayed at Mrs. Jones' until I knew
that Louisa would be home if I waited
any longer, and I thought, besides, that
the young people had been alone long
enough. Then I went home. I suppose
that they were sorry to see me so soon,
but they looked up at me very gratefully
when I bade them good-night and thanked
them. I said quite meaningly that it
was a cold night and there would be a
frost, and Harriet must be careful and
not take cold. I thought that would be
-238
The Jamesons
enough for Harry Liscom, unless being in
love had altered him and made him self-
ish. I did not think he would keep his
sweetheart out, even if it were his last
chance of seeing her alone for so long, if
he thought she would get any harm by it,
especially after he had visited her for a
reasonable length of time.
I was right in my opinion. They did
not turn about directly and go home — I
did not expect that, of course — but they
walked only to the turn of the road the
other way; then I saw them pass the
house, and presently poor Harry returned
alone.
I did pity Harry Liscom when I met
him on the street a few days after the
Jamesons had left. I guessed at once
that he was missing his sweetheart
sorely, and had not yet had a letter from
her. He looked pale and downcast,
though he smiled as he lifted his hat to
me, but he colored a little as if he sus-
pected that I might guess his secret.
239
They Take a Farm
I met him the next day, and his face
was completely changed, all radiant and
glowing with the veritable light of youth-
ful hope upon it. lie bowed to me with
such a flash of joy in his smile that I
felt quite warmed by it, though it was
none of mine. I thought, though I said
nothing, " Harry Liscom, you have had a
letter."
THEIR SECOND SUMMER
The Jamesons returned to Linnville
the first of June. For some weeks we
had seen indications of their coming.
All through April and May repairs and
improvements had been going on in their
house. Some time during the winter the
Jamesons had purchased the old Wray
place, and we felt that they were to be
a permanent feature in our midst.
The old Wray house had always been
(painted white, with green blinds, as were
most of our village houses ; now it was
painted red, with blinds of a darker shade.
When Louisa and I saw its bright walls
through the budding trees we were some-
what surprised, but thought it might look
rather pretty when we became accustomed
241
Their Second Summer
to it. Very few of the neighbors agreed
with us, however; they had been so used
to seeing the walls of their dwellings white
that this startled them almost as much as
a change of color in their own faces would
have done.
" We might as well sot up for red In-
juns and done with it," said Mrs. Gregg
one afternoon at the sewing circle.
"What anybody can want anything any
prettier than a neat white house with
green blinds for, is beyond me."
Every month during the winter a let-
ter had come to our literary society in
care of the secretary, who was my sister-
in-law, Louisa Field. Louisa was al-
ways secretary because she was a school-
teacher and was thought to have her hand
in at that sort of work. Mrs. Jameson
wrote a very kind, if it was a somewhat
patronizing, sort of letter. She extended
to us her very best wishes for our im-
provement and the widening of our
spheres, and made numerous suggestions
242
The Jamesons
which she judged calculated to advance
us in those respects. She recommended
selections from Eobert Browning to be
read at our meetings, and she sent us
some copies of explanatory and critical
essays to be used in connection with
them. She also in March sent us a copy
of another lecture about the modern
drama which she had herself written and
delivered before her current literature
club. With that she sent us some works
of Ibsen and the Belgian writer, Maeter-
linck, with the recommendation that we
devote ourselves to the study of them at
once, they being eminently calculated for
the widening of our spheres.
Flora Clark, who is the president of
the society; Mrs. Peter Jones, who is
the vice-president; Louisa, and I, who
am the treasurer, though there is nothing
whatever to treasure, held a council over
the books. We all agreed that while we
were interested in them ourselves, though
they were a strange savor to our mental
243
Their Second Summer
palates, yet we would not read Mrs.
Jameson's letter concerning them to the
society, nor advise the study of them.
" I, for one, don't like to take the re-
sponsibility of giving the women of this
village such reading," said Flora Clark.
" It may be improving and widening, and
it certainly is interesting, and there are
fine things in it, but it does not seem to
me that it would be wise to take it into
the society when I consider some of the
members. I would just as soon think of
asking them to tea and giving them noth-
ing but olives and Russian caviare, which,
I understand, hardly anybody likes at
first. I never tasted them myself. We
know what the favorite diet of this vil-
lage is ; and as long as we can eat it our-
selves it seems to me it is safer than to
try something which we may like and
everybody else starve on, and I guess we
haven't exhausted some of the older, sim-
pler things, and that there is some nour-
ishment to be gotten out of them yet for
244
The Jamesons
all of us. It is better for us all to eat
bread and butter and pie than for two or
three of us to eat the olives and caviare,
and the rest to have to sit gnawing their
forks and spoons."
Mrs. Peter Jones, who is sometimes
thought of for the president instead of
Flora, bridled a little. "I suppose you
think that these books are above the ladies
of this village," said she.
" I don't know as I think they are so
much above as too far to one side," said
Flora. "Sometimes it's longitude, and
sometimes it's latitude that separates peo-
pie. I don't know but we are just as far
from Ibsen and Maeterlinck as they are
from us."
Louisa and I thought Flora might be
right. At all events, we did not wish
to set ourselves up in opposition to her.
We never carried the books into the soci-
ety, and we never read Mrs. Jameson's
letter about them, though we did feel
somewhat guilty, especially as we reflected
245
Their Second Summer
that Flora had never forgotten the affair
of the jumbles, and might possibly have
allowed her personal feelings to influence
her.
"I should feel very sorry," said Louisa
to me, " if we were preventing the women
of this village from improving them-
selves."
" Well, we can wait until next summer,
and let Mrs. Jameson take the responsi-
bility. I don't want to be the means of
breaking up the society, for one," said I.
However, when Mrs. Jameson finally
arrived in June, she seemed to be on a
slightly different tack, so to speak, of
improvement. She was not so active in
our literary society and our sewing circle
as she had been the summer before, but
now, her own sphere having possibly en-
larged, she had designs upon the village
in the abstract.
Hannah Bell came over from the West
Corners to open the house for them, and
at five o'clock we saw the Grover stage
246
The Jamesons
rattle past with their trunks on top, and
Grandma Cobb and the girls and Cobb
looking out of the windows. Mrs. Jame-
son, being delicate, was, of course, leaning
back, exhausted with her journey. Jonas
Martin, who had been planting the gar-
den, was out at the gate of the Wray
house to help the driver carry in the
trunks, and Hannah Bell was there too.
Louisa and I had said that it seemed
almost too bad not to have some one of
the village women go there and welcome
them, but we did not know how Mrs. H.
Boardman Jameson might take it, and
nobody dared go. Mrs. White said that
she would have been glad to make some
of her cream biscuits and send them over,
but she knew that Mrs. Jameson would
not eat them, of course, and she did not
know whether she would like any of the
others to, and might think it a liberty.
So nobody did anything but watch. It
was not an hour after the stage coach ar-
rived before we saw Grandma Cobb com*
247
Their Second Summer
ing up the road. We did not know
whether she was going to Amelia Powers',
or Mrs. Jones', or to our house; but she
turned in at our gate.
We went to the door to meet her, and
I must say she did seem glad to see us,
and we were glad to see her. In a very
short time we knew all that had happened
in the Jameson family since they had left
Linnville, and with no urging, and with
even some reluctance on our part. It did
not seem quite right for us to know how
much Mrs. Jameson had paid her dress-
maker for making her purple satin, and
still less so for us to know that she had
not paid for the making of her black lace
net and the girls' organdy muslins, though
she had been dunned three times. The
knowledge was also forced upon us that
all these fine new clothes were left in New
York, since the shabby old ones must be
worn out in the country, and that Harriet
had cried because she could not bring
some of her pretty gowns with her.
8 248
The Jamesons
* Her mother does not think that there
is any chance of her making a match here,
and she had better save them up till next
winter. Dress does make so much differ-
ence in a girl's prospects, you know," said
Grandma Cobb shrewdly.
I thought of poor Harry Liscom, and
how sorry his little sweetheart must have
felt not to be able to show herself in her
pretty dresses to him. However, I was
exceedingly glad to hear that she had
cried, because it argued well for Harry,
and looked as if she had not found another
lover more to her mind in New York.
Indeed, Grandma Cobb informed us pre-
sently as to that. " Harriet does not seem
to find anybody," said she. " I suppose it
is because H. Boardman lost his money ;
young men are so careful nowadays."
Grandma Cobb stayed to tea with us
that night ; our supper hour came, and of
course we asked her.
Grandma Cobb owned with the greatest
frankness that she should like to stay.
249
Their Second Summer
u There isn't a thing to eat at our house
but hygienic biscuits and eggs/ said she.
" My daughter wrote Hannah not to cook
anything until we came; Hannah would
have made some cake and pie, otherwise.
I tell my daughter I have got so far along
in life without living on hygienic food,
and I am not going to begin. I want to
get a little comfort out of the taste of my
victuals, and my digestion is as good as
hers, in spite of all her fussing. For my
part," continued Grandma Cobb, who had
at times an almost coarsely humorous
method of expressing herself, " I believe
in not having your mind on your inwards
any more than you can possibly help. I
believe the best way to get along with
them is to act as if they weren't there."
After Grandma Cobb went home, as late
as nine o'clock, I saw a clinging, shadowy
couple stroll past our house, and knew it
was Harriet Jameson and Harry, as did
Louisa, and our consciences began to trou-
ble us again.
250
The Jamesons
* I feel like a traitor to Caroline and to
Mrs. Jameson sometimes, " said I.
" Well, maybe that is better than to be
traitor to true love," said Louisa, which
did sound rather sentimental.
The next morning about eleven o'clock
Mrs. Jameson came in, and we knew at
once that she was, so to speak, fairly
rampant in the field of improvement for
our good, or rather the good of the village,
for, as I said before, she was now resolved
upon the welfare of the village at large,
and not that of individuals or even socie-
ties.
"I consider that my own sphere has
been widened this winter," said Mrs.
Jameson, and Louisa and I regarded her
with something like terror. Flora Clark
said, when she heard that remark of Mrs.
Jameson's, that she felt, for her part, as if
a kicking horse had got out of the pasture,
and there was no knowing where he would
stop.
We supposed that it must be an evi-
25i
Their Second Summer
dence of Mrs. Jameson's own advance in
improvement that she had adopted such
a singular costume, according to our ideas.
She was dressed no longer in the rich
fabrics which had always aroused our ad-
miration, but, instead, wore a gown of
brown cloth cut short enough to expose
her ankles, which were, however, covered
with brown gaiters made of cloth like her
dress. She wore a shirt-waist of brown
silk, and a little cutaway jacket. Mrs.
Jameson looked as if she were attired for
riding the wheel, but that was a form of
exercise to which she was by no means
partial either for herself or for her daugh-
ters. I could never understand just why
she was not partial to wheeling. Wheels
were not as fashionable then as now, but
Mrs. Jameson was always quite up with,
if not in advance of, her age.
Neither of us admired her in this cos-
tume. Mrs. Jameson was very stout, and
the short skirt was not, to our way of.'
thinking, becoming.
252
The Jamesons
* Don't you think that I have adopted
a very sensible and becoming dress for
country wear? " said she, and Louisa and
I did not know what to say. We did
not wish to be untruthful and we disliked
to be impolite. Finally, Louisa said
faintly that she thought it must be very
convenient for wear in muddy weather,
and I echoed her.
" Of course, you don't have to hold it
up at all," said I.
" It is the only costume for wear in the
country," said Mrs. Jameson, "and I hope
to have all the women in Linnville wear-
ing it before the summer is over."
Louisa and I glanced at each other in
dismay. I think that we both had men-
tal pictures of some of the women whom
we knew in that costume. Some of our
good, motherly, village faces, with their
expressions of homely dignity and Chris-
tian decorousness, looking at us from un-
der that jaunty English walking-hat, in
lieu of their sober bonnets, presented them-
253
Their Second Summer
selves to our imaginations, and filled us
with amusement and consternation.
" Only think how Mrs. Sim White would
look," Louisa said after Mrs. Jameson had
gone, and we both saw Mrs. White going
down the street in that costume indicative
of youthful tramps over long stretches of
road, and mad spins on wheels, instead of
her nice, softly falling black cashmere
skirts covering decently her snowy stock-
ings and her cloth congress boots ; and we
shuddered.
"Of course, she would have to wear
gaiters like Mrs. Jameson," said Louisa,
"but it would be dreadful."
"Well, there's one comfort," said I;
" Mrs. White will never wear it. "
"Nor anybody else," said Louisa.
Still we did feel a little nervous about
it; there is never any estimating the in-
fluence of a reformer. However, we were
sure of ourselves. Louisa and I agreed
that we never would be seen out in any
such costume. Not very many in the
254
The Jamesons
village were. There were a few women,
who were under the influence of Mrs.
Jameson, who did cut off some of their
old dresses and make themselves some
leggings with hers for a pattern. After
their housework was done they started off
for long tramps with strides of indepen-
dence and defiance, but they did not keep
it up very long ; none of them after Mrs.
Jameson went away. To tell the truth,
most of the women in our village had so
much work to do, since they kept no ser-
vants, that they could not take many ten-
mile walks, no matter what length skirts
they wore. However, many wore the
short ones while doing housework, which
was very sensible.
During that morning call, Mrs. Jame-
son, besides the reformed costume, advo-
cated another innovation which fairly took
our breaths away. She was going to beau-
tify the village. We had always consid-
ered the village beautiful as it was, and
we bridled a little at that.
255
Their Second Summer
" There is scarcely a house in this vil-
lage which is overgrown with vines," said
she. "I am going to introduce vines."
Louisa ventured to say that she thought
vines very pretty, but she knew some peo-
ple objected to them on the score of spi-
ders, and also thought that they were bad
for the paint. We poor, frugal village
folk have always to consider whether
beauty will trespass on utility, and con-
sequently dollars and cents. There are
many innocent slaves to Mammon in our
midst.
Mrs. Jameson sniffed in her intensely
scornful way. " Spiders and paint ! " said
she. " I am going to have the houses of
this village vine-clad. It is time that
the people were educated in beauty."
"People won't like it if she does go to
planting vines around their houses with-
out their permission, even if she does
mean well," said Louisa after she had
gone.
" She never will dare to without their
256
The Jamesons
permission," said I ; but I wondered while
I spoke, and Louisa laughed.
"Don't you be too sure of that," said
she — and she was right.
Permission in a few cases Mrs. Jame-
son asked, and in the rest she assumed.
Old Jonas Martin ransacked the woods
for vines — clematis and woodbine — then
he, with Mrs. Jameson to superintend,
set them out around our village houses.
The calm insolence of benevolence with
which Mrs. Jameson did this was inim-
itable. People actually did not know
whether to be furious or amused at this
liberty taken with their property. They
saw with wonder Mrs. Jameson, with old
Jonas following laden with vines and
shovel, also the girls and Cobb, who had
been pressed, however unwillingly, into
service, tagging behind trailing with wood-
bine and clematis ; they stood by and saw
their house-banks dug up and the vines set,
and in most cases said never a word. If
they did expostulate, Mrs. Jameson only
257
Their Second Summer
directed Jonas where to put the next vine,
and assured the bewildered owner of the
premises that he would in time thank her.
However, old Jonas often took the irate
individual aside for a consolatory word.
" Lord a-massy, don't ye worry," old Jonas
would say, with a sly grin; "ye know
well enough that there won't a blamed
one of the things take root without no
sun an' manure ; might as well humor her
long as she's sot on 't."
Then old Jonas would wink slowly
with a wink of ineffable humor. There
was no mistaking the fact that old Jonas
was getting a deal of solid enjoyment out
of the situation. He had had a steady,
hard grind of existence, and was for the
first time seeing the point of some of
those jokes of life for which his natural
temperament had given him a relish. He
acquired in those days a quizzical cock to
his right eyebrow, and a comically confi-
dential quirk to his mouth, which were
in themselves enough to provoke a laugh *
258
The Jamesons
Mrs. Jameson, however, did not confine
herself, in her efforts for the wholesale
decoration of our village, to the planting
of vines around our house -walls; and
there were, in one or two cases, serious
consequences.
When, thinking that corn-cockles and
ox-eyed daisies would be a charming com-
bination at the sides of the country road,
she caused them to be sowed, and thereby
introduced them into Jonas Green's wheat-
field, he expostulated in forcible terms,
and threatened a suit for damages; and
when she caused a small grove of promis-
ing young hemlocks to be removed from
Eben Betas' woodland and set out in the
sandy lot in which the schoolhouse stands,
without leave or license, it was generally
conceded that she had exceeded her priv-
ileges as a public benefactress.
I said at once there would be trouble,
when Louisa came home and told me
about it.
" The schoolhouse looks as if it were set
259
Their Second Summer
in a shady grove," said she, "and is ever
so pretty. The worst of it is, of course,
the trees won't grow in that sand-hill."
" The worst of it is, if she has taken
those trees without leave or license, as I
suspect, Eben Belts will not take it as a
joke," said I; and I was right.
Mr. IT. Boardman Jameson had to pay
a goodly sum to Eben Betts to hush the
matter up; and the trees soon withered,
and were cut up for firewood for the
schoolhouse. People blamed old Jonas
Martin somewhat for his share of this
transaction, arguing that he ought not to
have yielded to Mrs. Jameson in such a
dishonest transaction, even in the name
of philanthropy; but he defended himself,
saying: "It's easy 'nough to talk, but
I'd like to see any of ye stand up agin
that woman. When she gits headed, it's
either git out from under foot or git
knocked over."
Mrs. Jameson not only strove to estab-
lish improvements in our mids^, but she
260
The Jamesons
attacked some of our time-honored insti-
tutions, one against which she directed
all the force of her benevolent will being
our front doors. Louisa and I had always
made free with our front door, as had some
others ; but, generally speaking, people in
our village used their front doors only for
weddings, funerals, and parties. The side
doors were thought to be good enough for
ordinary occasions, and we never dreamed,
when dropping in for a neighborly call,
of approaching any other. Mrs. H.
Boardman Jameson resolved to do away
with this state of things, and also with
our sacred estimate of the best parlors,
which were scarcely opened from one
year's end to the other, and seemed redo-
lent of past grief and joy, with no dilu-
tion by the every-day occurrences of life.
Mrs. Jameson completely ignored the side
door, marched boldly upon the front one,
and compelled the mistress to open it to
her resolute knocks. Once inside, she
advanced straight upon the sacred pre-
261
Their Second Summer
cincts of the best parlor, and seated her-
self in the chilly, best rocking-chair with
the air of one who usurps a throne, asking
with her manner of sweet authority it' the
blinds could not be opened and the sun
let in, as it felt damp to her, and she was
very susceptible to dampness. It was
told, on good authority, that in some
cases she even threw open the blinds and
windows herself while the person who
admitted her was calling other members
of the family.
It was also reported that she had on
several occasions marched straight up W
a house which she had no design of enter
ing, thrown open the parlor blinds, and
admitted the sunlight, with its fading in-
fluence, on the best carpet, and then pro-
ceeded down the street with the bearing
of triumphant virtue. It was related that
in a number of instances the indignant
housewife, on entering her best parlor,
found that the sun had been streaming in
there all day, right on the carpet.
262
The Jamesons
Mrs. Jameson also waged fierce war on
another custom dear to the average village
heart, and held sacred, as everything
should be which is innocently dear to
one's kind, by all who did not exactly
approve of it.
In many of our village parlors, some-
times in the guest-chambers, when there
had been many deaths in the family, hung
the framed coffin-plates and faded funeral
wreaths of departed dear ones. Now and
then there was a wreath of wool flowers,
a triumph of domestic art, which encircled
the coffin-plate instead of the original
funeral garland. Mrs. Jameson set her-
self to work to abolish this grimly pathetic
New England custom with all her might.
She did everything but actually tear them
from our walls. That, even in her fiery
zeal of improvement, she did not quite
dare attempt. She made them a constant
theme of conversation at sewing circle
and during her neighborly calls. She
spoke of the custom quite openly as grew-
263
Their Second Summer
some and barbarous, but I must say with-
out much effect. Mrs. Jameson found
certain strongholds of long-established
customs among us which were impregna-
ble to open rancor or ridicule — and that
was one of them. The coffin-plates and
the funeral wreaths continued to hang in
the parlors and chambers.
Once Flora Clark told Mrs. Jameson to
her face, in the sewing circle, when she
had been talking for a good hour about
the coffin-plates, declaring them to be
grewsome and shocking, that, for her part,
she did not care for them, did not have
one in her house — though every one of
her relations were dead, and she might
have her walls covered with them — but
she believed in respecting those who did ;
and it seemed to her that, however much
anybody felt called upon to interfere with
the ways of the living, the relics of the
dead should be left alone. Flora con-
cluded by saying that it seemed to her
that if the Linnville folks let Mrs. Jame-
9 264
The Jamesons
son's bean-pots alone, she might keep her
hands off their coffin-plates.
Mrs. Jameson was quite unmoved even
by that. She said that Miss Clark did
not realize, as she would do were her
sphere wider, the incalculable harm that
such a false standard of art might do in a
community: that it might even pervert
the morals.
" I guess if we don't have anything to
hurt our morals any worse than our coffin-
plates, we shall do," returned Flora. She
said afterward that she felt just like dig-
ging up some of her own coffin-plates, and
having them framed and hung up, and
asking Mrs. Jameson to tea.
All through June and a part of July
Louisa and I had seen the clandestine
courtship between Harry Liscom and Har-
riet Jameson going on. We could scarcely
help it. "We kept wondering why neither
Caroline Liscom nor Mrs. Jameson seemed
aware of it. Of course, Mrs. Jameson
was so occupied with the village welfare
265
Their Second Summer
that it might account for it in her case,
but we were surprised that Caroline was
so blinded. We both of us thought that
she would be very much averse to the
match, from her well-known opinion of
the Jamesons ; and it proved that she was.
Everybody talked so much about Harry
and his courtship of Harriet that it seemed
incredible that Caroline should not hear
of it, even if she did not see anything her-
self to awaken suspicion. We did not
take into consideration the fact that a
strong-minded woman like Caroline Lis-
com has difficulty in believing anything
which she does not wish to be true, and
that her will stands in her own way.
However, on Wednesday of the second
week of July both she and Mrs. Jameson
had their eyes opened perforce. It was a
beautiful moonlight evening, and Louisa
and I were sitting at the windows looking
out and chatting peacefully. Little Alice
had gone to bed, and we had not lit the
lamp, it was so pleasant in the moonlight.
266
The Jamesons
Presently, about half-past eight o'clock,
two figures strolled by, and we knew who
they were.
M It is strange to me that Grandma Cobb
does not find it out, if Mrs. Jameson is
too wrapped up in her own affairs and
with grafting ours into them," said Louisa
thoughtfully.
I remarked that I should not be sur-
prised if she did know ; and it turned out
afterward that it was so. Grandma Cobb
had known all the time, and Harriet had
gone through her room to get to the back
stairs, down which she stole to meet
Harry.
The young couple had not been long
past when a stout, tall figure went hur-
riedly by with an angry flirt of skirts —
short ones.
" Oh, dear, that is Mrs. Jameson S " cried
Louisa.
We waited breathless. Harry and Har-
riet could have gone no farther than the
grove, for in a very short time back they
267
Their Second Summer
all came, Mrs. Jameson leading — almost
pulling — along her daughter, and Harry
pressing close at her side, with his arm
half extended as if to protect his sweet-
heart. Mrs. Jameson kept turning and
addressing him ; we could hear the angry
clearness of her voice, though we could
not distinguish many words; and finally,
when they were almost past we saw poor
Harriet also turn to him, and we judged
that she, as well as her mother, was beg-
ging him to go, for he directly caught
her hand, gave it a kiss, said something
which we almost caught, to the effect
that she must not be afraid — he would
take care that all came out right — and
was gone.
" Oh, dear," sighed Louisa, and I echoed
her. I did pity the poor young things.
To our surprise, and also to our dis-
may, it was not long before we saw Mrs.
Jameson hurrying back, and she turned
in at our gate.
Louisa jumped and lighted the lamp,
268
The Jamesons
and I set the rocking-chair for Mrs.
Jameson.
"No, I can't sit down," said she, wav-
ing her hand. " I am too much disturbed
to sit down," but even as she said that
she did drop into the rocking - chair.
Louisa said afterward that Mrs. Jameson
was one who always would sit down dur-
ing all the vicissitudes of life, no matter
how hard she took them.
Mrs. Jameson was very much dis-
turbed; we had never seen her calm su-
periority so shaken; it actually seemed
as if she realized for once that she was
not quite the peer of circumstances, as
Louisa said.
" I wish to inquire if you have known
long of this shameful clandestine love
affair of my daughter's?" said she, and
Louisa and I were nonplussed. We did
not know what to say. Luckily, Mrs.
Jameson did not wait for an answer;
she went on to pour her grievance into
our ears, without even stopping to be sure
269
Their Second Summer
whether they were sympathizing ones or
not.
"My daughter cannot marry into one
of these village families," said she, with-
out apparently the slightest consideration
of the fact that we were a village family.
" My (laughter has been very differently
brought up. I have other views for her;
it is impossible; it must be understood at
once that I will not have it."
Mrs. Jameson was still talking, and
Louisa and I listening with more of dis-
may than sympathy, when who should
walk in but Caroline Liscom herself.
She did not knock — she never does ;
she opened the door with no warning
whatsoever, and stood there.
Louisa turned pale, and I know I must
have. I could not command my voice,
though I tried hard to keep calm.
I said "Good-morning," when it should
have been "Good-evening," and placed
Alice's little chair, in which she could
Bot by any possibility sit, for Caroline.
270
The Jamesons
"No, I don't want to sit down," said
Caroline, and she kept her word better
than Mrs. Jameson. She turned directly
to the latter. " I have just been over to
your house," said she, "and they told me
that you had come over here. I want to
say something to you, and that is, I don't
want my son to marry your daughter, and
I will never give my consent to it, never,
never I "
Mrs. Jameson's face was a study. For
a minute she had not a word to say ; she
only gasped. Finally she spoke. " You
can be no more unwilling to have your
son marry my daughter than I am to have
my daughter marry your son," said she.
Then Caroline said something unex-
pected. "I would like to know what
you have against my son, as fine a young
man as there is anywhere about, I don't
care who he is," said she.
And Mrs. Jameson said something
unexpected. "I should like to inquire
271
Their Second Summer
what you have against my daughter?"
said she.
" Well, I'll tell you one thing," returned
Caroline; "she doesn't know enough to
keep a doll-baby's house, and she ain't
neat."
Mrs. Jameson choked; it did not seem
as if she could reply in her usual manner
to such a plain statement of objections.
She and Caroline glared at each other a
minute; then to our great relief, for no
one wants her house turned into the seat
of war, Caroline simply repeated, " I shall
never give my consent to have my son
marry your daughter," and went out.
Mrs. Jameson did not stay long after
that. She rose, saying that her nerves
were very much shaken, and that she felt
it sad that all her efforts for the welfare
and improvement of the village should
have ended in this, and bade us a mourn-
ful good-evening and left.
Louisa and I had an impression that
she held us in some way responsible, and
272
The Jamesons
we could not see why, though I did re-
flect guiltily how I had asked the lovers
into my house that October night.
Louisa and I agreed that, take it alto-
gether, we had never seen so much
mutual love and mutual scorn in 'wo
families.
273
VI
THE CENTENNIAL
The older one grows, the less one won-
ders at the sudden, inconsequent turns
which an apparently reasonable person
will make in a line of conduct. Still I
must say that I was not prepared for
what Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson did in
about a week after she had declared that
her daughter should never marry Harry
Liscom : capitulated entirely, and gave her
consent.
It was Grandma Cobb who brought us
the news, coming in one morning before
we had our breakfast dishes washed.
"My daughter told Harriet last night
that she had written to her father and he
had no objections, and that she would
withdraw hers on further consideration, "
274
The Jamesons
said Grandma Cobb, with a curious, un.
conscious imitation of Mrs. Jameson's
calm state of manner. Then she at once
relapsed into her own. "My daughter
says that she is convinced that the young
man is worthy, though he is not socially
quite what she might desire, and she does
not feel it right to part them if they have
a true affection for each other," said
Grandma Cobb. Then she added, with a
shake of her head and a gleam of mali-
cious truth in her blue eyes : " That is not
the whole of it; Eobert Browning was
the means of bringing it about."
" Robert Browning ! " I repeated. I
was bewildered, and Louisa stared at me
in a frightened way. She said afterward
that she thought for a minute that Grand-
ma Cobb was out of her head.
But Grandma Cobb went on to explain.
"Yes, my daughter seems to look upon
Eobert Browning as if everything he said
was written on tables of stone," said she;
" and last night she had a letter from Mrs.
275
The Centennial
Addison Sears, who feels just the same
way. My daughter had written hei
about Harriet's love affair, and this was
in answer. Mrs. Sears dwelt a good dea)
upon Mr. Browning's own happy marriage ;
and then she quoted passages; and my
daughter became convinced that Robert
Browning would have been in favor of
the match, — and that settled it. My
daughter proves things by Browning al-
most the same way as people do by Scrip-
ture, it seems to me sometimes. I am
thankful that it has turned out so,"
Grandma Cobb went on to say, "for I
like the young man myself; and as for
Harriet, her mind is set on him, and
she's something like me: once get her
mind set on anybody, that's the end of
it. My daughter has got the same trait,
but it works the contrary way : when she
once gets her mind set against anybody,
that's the end of it unless Robert Brown-
ing steps in to turn her."
Louisa and I were heartily glad to heat
276
The Jamesons
of Mr. Browning's unconscious interces-
sion and its effect upon Mrs. Jameson,
but we wondered what Caroline Liscom
would say.
"It will take more than passages of
poetry to move her," said Louisa when
Grandma Cobb had gone.
All we could do was to wait for devel-
opments concerning Caroline. Then one
day she came in and completely opened
her heart to us with that almost alarm-
ing frankness which a reserved woman
often displays if she does lose her self-
restraint.
" I can't have it anyhow," said Caroline
Liscom ; and I must say I did pity her,
though I had a weakness for little Har-
riet. " I feel as if it would kill me if
Harry marries that girl — and I am afraid
he will; but it shall never be with my
consent, and he shall never bring her to
my house while I am in it."
Then Caroline went on to make revela-
tions about Harriet which were actually
277
The Centennial
dire accusations from a New England
housewife like her.
" It was perfectly awful the way hei
room looked while she was at my house,"
said Caroline ; " and she doesn't know how
to do one thing ahout a house. She can't
make a loaf of hread to save her life, and
she has no more idea how to sweep a room
and dust it than a baby. I had it straight
from Hannah Bell that she dusted her
room and swept it afterward. Think of
my boy, brought up the way he has been,
everything as neat as wax, if I do say it,
and his victuals always cooked nice, and
ready when he wanted them, marrying a
girl like that. I can't and I won't have
it. It's all very well now, he's capti-
vated by a pretty face; but wait a little,
and he'll find out there's something else.
He'll find out there's comfort to be con-
sidered as well as love. And she don't
even know how to do plain sewing.
Only look at the bottoms of her dress-
es, with the braid hanging ; and I kno"W
The Jamesons
she never mends her stockings — I had
it from the woman who washes them.
Only think of my son, who has always
had his stockings mended as smooth as
satin, either going with holes in them, or
else having them gathered up in hard
bunches and getting corns. I can't and
I won't have it! "
Caroline finished all her remarks with
that, setting her mouth hard. It was
evident that she was firm in her decision.
I suggested mildly that the girl had never
been taught, and had always had so much
money that she was excusable for not
knowing how to do all these little things
which the Linnville girls had been forced
to do.
■ I know all that," said Caroline ; " I am
not blaming her so much as I am her
mother. She had better have stopped
reading Browning and improving her own
mind and the village, and improved her
own daughter, so she could walk in the
way Providence has set for a woman
279
The Centennial
without disgracing herself. But I am
looking at her as she is, without any
question of blame, for the sake of my
son. He shall not marry a girl who
don't know how to make his home com-
fortable any better than she does — not if
his mother can save him from it."
Louisa asked timidly — we were both
of us rather timid, Caroline was so fierce
■ — if she did not think she could teach
Harriet.
" I don't know whether I can or not! "
said Caroline. " Anyway, I am not going
to try. What kind of a plan would it be
for me to have her in the house teaching
her, where Harry could see her every
day, and perhaps after all find out that
it would not amount to anything. I'd
rather try to cure drink than make a
good housewife of a girl who hasn't been
brought up to it. How do I know it's in
her? And there I would have her right
under Harry's nose. She shall never
marry him; I can't and I won't have it."
10 280
The Jamesons
Louisa and I speculated as to whether
Caroline would be able to help it, when
she had taken her leave after what
seemed to us must have been a most un-
satisfactory call, with not enough sym-
pathy from us to cheer her.
" Harry Liscom has a will, as well as
his mother, and he is a man grown, and
running the woollen factory on shares
with his father, and able to support a
wife. I don't believe he is going to
stop, now the girl's mother has consented,
because his mother tells him to," said
Louisa; and I thought she was right.
That very evening Harry went past to
the Jamesons, in his best suit, carrying
a cane, which he swung with the assured
air of a young man going courting where
he is plainly welcome.
"I am glad for one thing," said I, "and
that is there is no more secret strolling
in my grove, but open sitting up in her
mother's parlor."
Louisa looked at me a little uncertain-
281
The Centennial
ly, and I saw that there was something
which she wanted to say and did not
quite dare.
"What is it? w said I.
"Well," said Louisa, hesitatingly, "I
was thinking that I supposed — I don't
know that it would work at all — maybe
her mother wouldn't be willing, and
maybe she wouldn't be willing herself —
but I was thinking that you were as good
a housekeeper as Caroline Liscom, and —
you might have the girl in here once in a
while and teach her."
" I will do it," said I at once, — " if I can,
that is."
I found out that I could. The poor
child was only too glad to come to my
house and take a few lessons in house-
keeping. I waylaid her when she was
going past one day, and broached the
subject delicately. I said it was a good
idea for a young girl to learn as much as
she could about keeping a house nice be-
fore she had one of her own, and Harriet
282
The Jamesons
blushed as red as a rose and thanked me,
and arranged to come for her first lesson
the very next morning. I got a large
gingham apron for her, and we began. I
gave her a lesson in bread-making that
very day, and found her an apt pupil.
I told her that she would make a very
good housekeeper — I should not wonder
if as good as Mrs. Liscom, who was, I
considered, the best in the village; and
she blushed again and kissed me.
Louisa and I had been a little worried
as to what Mrs. Jameson would say;
but we need not have been. Mrs. Jame-
son was strenuously engaged in uprooting
poison-ivy vines, which grew thickly
along the walls everywhere in the vil-
lage. I must say it seemed Scriptural to
me, and made me think better in one
way of Mrs. Jameson, since it did require
considerable heroism.
Luckily, old Martin was one of the
few who are exempt from the noxious in-
fluence of poison -ivy, and he pulled up
2S3
The Centennial
the roots with impunity, but I must say-
without the best success. Poison-ivy is
a staunch and persistent thing, and more
than a match for Mrs. Jameson. She
suffered herself somewhat in the conflict,
and went about for some time with her
face and hands done up in castor-oil,
which we consider a sovereign remedy
for poison-ivy. Cobb, too, was more or
less a victim to his mother's zeal for up-
rooting noxious weeds.
It was directly after the poison-ivy
that Mrs. Jameson made what may be
considered her grand attempt of the sea-
son. All at once she discovered what
none of the rest of us had thought of — I
suppose we must have been lacking in
public feeling not to have done so — that
our village had been settled exactly one
hundred years ago that very August.
Mrs. Jameson came into our house
with the news on the twenty-seventh
day of July. She had just foimd it out
in an old book which had been left be-
284
The Jamesons
hind and forgotten in the garret of the
Wray house.
""We must have a centennial, of
course," said she magisterially.
Louisa and I stared at her. " A cen-
tennial ! " said I feebly. I think visions
of Philadelphia, and exhibits of the prod-
ucts of the whole world in our fields and
cow-pastures, floated through my mind.
Centennial had a stupendous sound to
me, and Louisa said afterward it had to
her.
" How would you make it ? " asked
Louisa vaguely of Mrs. Jameson, as if a
centennial were a loaf of gingerbread.
Mrs. Jameson had formed her plans
with the rapidity of a great general on
the eve of a forced battle. "We will
take the oldest house in town," said she
promptly. " I think that it is nearly as
old as the village, and we will fit it up as
nearly as possible like a house of one
hundred years ago, and we will hold oui
>celebratk>n there."
The Centennial
"Let me see, the oldest house is the
Shaw house," said I.
"Why, Emily Shaw is living there,"
said Louisa in wonder.
"We shall make arrangements with
her," returned Mrs. Jameson, with confi-
dence. She looked around our sitting-
room, and eyed our old-fashioned high-
boy, of which we are very proud, and
an old-fashioned table which becomes
a chair when properly manipulated.
" Those will be just the things to go in
one of the rooms," said she, without so
much as asking our leave.
"Emily Shaw's furniture will have to
be put somewhere if so many other
things are to be moved in," suggested
Louisa timidly; but Mrs. Jameson dis-
missed that consideration with merely a
wave of her hand.
" I think that Mrs. Simeon White has
a swell-front bureau and an old looking-
glass which will do very well for one of
the chambers," she went on to say, "and
286
The Jamesons
Miss Clark has a mahogany table." Mrs.
Jameson went on calmly enumerating
articles of old-fashioned furniture which
she had seen in our village houses which
she considered suitable to be used in the
Shaw house for the centennial.
" I don't see how Emily Shaw is going
to live there while all this is going on,"
remarked Louisa in her usual deprecatory
tone when addressing Mrs. Jameson.
" I think we may be able to leave her
one room," said Mrs. Jameson; and Lou-
isa and I fairly gasped when we reflected
that Emily Shaw had not yet heard a
word of the plan.
"I don't know but Emily Shaw will
put up with it, for she is pretty meek,"
said Louisa when Mrs. Jameson had gone
hurrying down the street to impart her
scheme to others; "but it is lucky for
Mrs. Jameson that Flora Clark hasn't
the oldest house in town."
I said I doubted if Flora would even
consent to let her furniture be displayed
287
The Centennial
in the centennial; but she did. Every-
body consented to everything. I don't
know whether Mrs. H. Boardman Jame-
son had really any hypnotic influence
over us, or whether we had a desire for
the celebration, but the whole village
marshalled and marched to her orders
with the greatest docility. All our cher-
ished pieces of old furniture were loaded
into carts and conveyed to the old Shaw
house.
The centennial was to be held the
tenth day of August, and there was nec-
essarily quick work. The whole village
was in an uproar; none of us who had
old - fashioned possessions fairly knew
where we were living, so many of them
were in the Shaw house; we were short
of dishes and bureau drawers, and coun-
terpanes and curtains. Mrs. Jameson
never asked for any of these things ; she
simply took them as by right of war,
and nobody gainsaid her, not even Flora
Clark. However, poor Emily Shaw was
288
The Jamesons
the one who displayed the greatest meek-
ness under provocation. The whole affair
must have seemed revolutionary to her.
She was a quiet, delicate little woman,
no longer young. She did not go out
much, not even to the sewing circle or
the literary society, and seemed as fond
of her home as an animal of its shell —
as if it were a part of her. Old as her
house was, she had it fitted up in a mod-
ern, and, to our village ideas, a very pret-
ty fashion. Emily was quite well-to-do.
There were nice tapestry carpets on all
the downstairs floors, lace curtains at the
windows, and furniture covered with red
velvet in the parlor. She had also had the
old fireplaces covered up and marble slabs
set. There was handsome carved black
walnut furniture in the chambers; and
taken altogether, the old Shaw house was
regarded as one of the best furnished in the
village. Mrs. Sim White said she didn't
know as she wondered that Emily didn't
like to go away from such nice things.
289
The Centennial
Now every one of these nice things
was hustled out of sight to make room
for the pieces of old-fashioned furniture.
The tapestry carpets were taken up and
stowed away in the garrets, the lace cur-
tains were pulled down. In their stead
were the old sanded bare floors and cur-
tains of homespun linen trimmed with
hand-knitted lace. Emily's nice Mar-
seilles counterpanes were laid aside for
the old blue-and-white ones which our
grandmothers spun and wove, and her
fine oil paintings gave way to old en-
gravings of Webster death-bed scenes and
portraits of the Presidents, and samplers.
Emily was left one room to herself — a
little back chamber over the kitchen —
and she took her meals at Flora Clark's,
next door. She was obliged to do that, for
her kitchen range had been taken down,
and there was only the old fireplace fur-
nished with kettles and crane to cook in.
" I suppose my forefathers used to get
all their meals there," said poor Emily
290
The Jamesons
Shaw, who has at all times a gentle, sad
way of speaking, and then seemed on the
verge of uncomplaining tears, " but I don't
quite feel competent to undertake it now.
It looks to me as if the kettles might
be hard to lift." Emily glanced at her
hands and wrists as she spoke. Emily's
hands and arms are very small and bony,
as she is in her general construction,
though she is tall.
The little chamber which she inhab-
ited during the preparation for the cen-
tennial was very hot in those midsummer
days, and her face was always suffused
with a damp pink when she came out of it ;
but she uttered no word of complaint, not
even when they took down her marble
slabs and exposed the yawning mouths of
the old fireplaces again. All she said was
once in a deprecatory whisper to me, to
the effect that she was a little sorry to
have strangers see her house looking so,
but she supposed it was interesting.
We expected a number of strangers.
291
The Centennial
Mrs. Sim White's brother, who had gone
to Boston when he was a young man and
turned out so smart, being the head of a
large dry7 -goods firm, was coming, and was
to make a speech; and Mr. Elijah M.
Mills, whose mother's people came from
Linnville, was to be there, as having a
hereditary interest in the village. Of
course, everybody knows Elijah M. Mills.
He was to make a speech. Mrs. Lucy
Beers Wright, whose aunt on her father's
side, Miss Jane Beers, used to live in
Linnville before she died, was to come
and read some selections from her own
works. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright writes
quite celebrated stories, and reads them
almost better than she writes them. She
has enormous prices, too, but she prom-
ised to come to the centennial and read
for nothing ; she used to visit her aunt in
linnville when she was a girl, and wrote
that she had a sincere love for the dear
old place. Mrs. Jameson said that we
were very fortunate to get her.
292 0
The Jamesons
Mrs. Jameson did not stop, however,
at celebrities of local traditions ; she flew
higher still. She wrote the Governor of
the State, inviting him to be present, and
some of us were never quite certain that
she did not invite the President of thd
United States. However, if she had done
so, it seemed incredible that since he was
bidden by Mrs. II. Boardman Jameson he
neither came nor wrote a letter. The
Governor of the State did not come, but
he wrote a very handsome letter, express-
ing the most heartfelt disappointment
that he was unable to be present on such
an occasion ; and we all felt very sorry for
him when we heard it read. Mrs. Sim
White said that a governor's life must
be a hard one, he must have to deny
himself many pleasures. Our minister,
the Eev. Henry P. Jacobs, wrote a long
poem to be read on the occasion ; it was
in blank verse like Young's "Night
Thoughts," and some thought he had
imitated it; but it was generally consid-
293
The Centennial
ered rery fine, though we had not the
pleasure of hearing it at the centennial —
why, I will explain later.
There was to be a grand procession, of
•ourse, illustrative of the arts, trades,
and professions in our village a hundred
years ago and at the present time, and
Mrs. Jameson engineered that. I never
Raw a woman work as she did. Louisa
and I agreed that she could not be so
very delicate after all. She had a finger
in everything except the cooking; that
she left mostly to the rest of us, though
she did break over in one instance to our
sorrow. We made pound-cake, and cup-
cake, and Indian puddings, and pies, and
we baked beans enough for a standing
army. Of course, the dinner was to be
after the fashion of one of a hundred years
ago. The old oven in the Shaw kitchen
was to be heated, and Indian puddings
and pies baked in it; but that would not
hold enough for such a multitude as we ex-
pected, so we all baked at home — that is,
294
The Jamesons
all except Caroline Liscom. She would
not bake a thing because Mrs. Jameson
got up the centennial, and she declared
that she would not go. However, she
changed her mind, which was fortunate
enough as matters afterward transpired.
The tenth of August, which was the
one hundredth anniversary of the settle-
ment of our village, dawned bright and
clear, for which we were thankful,
though it was very hot. The exercises
were to begin at eleven o'clock in the
morning with the procession. We were
to assemble at the old Shaw house at
half -past twelve; the dinner was to be
at half -past one, after an hour of social
intercourse which would afford people an
opportunity of viewing the house, and a
few of us an opportunity of preparing the
dinner. After dinner were to be the
speeches and readings, which must be
concluded in season for the out-of-town
celebrities to take the Grover stage-coach
to connect with the railroad train.
295
The Centennial
By eight o'clock people began to arrive
from other villages, and to gather on the
street corners to view the procession. It
was the very first procession ever organ-
ized in our village, and we were very
proud of it. For the first time Mrs.
Jameson began to be regarded with real
gratitude and veneration as a local bene-
factress. We told all the visitors that
Mrs. II. Boardman Jameson got up the
centennial, and we were proud that she
was one of us when we saw her driving
past in the procession. We thought it
exceedingly appropriate that the Jame-
sons— Mr. Jameson had come on from
New York for the occasion — should ride
in the procession with the minister and
the lawyer in a barouche from Grover.
Barouches seemed that day to be illustra-
tive of extremest progress in carriages,
in contrast with the old Linnville and
Wardville stage-coaches, and the old
chaise and doctor's sulky, all of which
had needed to be repaired with infinite
11 296
The Jamesons
care, and were driven with gingerly fore-
sight, lest they fall to pieces on the line
of march. We really pitied the village
doctor in the aged sulky, for it seemed as
if he might have to set a bone for himself
by reason of the sudden and total col-
lapse of his vehicle. Mrs. Jameson had
decreed that he should ride in it, how-
ever, and there was no evading her man-
date.
Mrs. Jameson looked very imposing in
her barouche, and we were glad that she
wore one of her handsome black silks
instead of her sensible short costume.
There was a good deal of jet about the
waist, and her bonnet was all made of jet,
with a beautiful tuft of pink roses on the
front, and she glittered resplendently as
she rode past, sitting up very straight, aa
befitted the dignity of the occasion.
"That is Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson/
said we, and we mentioned incidentally
that the gentleman beside her was Mr.
Jameson. We were not as proud of
297
The Centennial N
Mm, since all that he had done which
we knew of was to lose all his money and
have his friends get him a place in the
custom-house; he was merely a satellite
of his wife, who had gotten up our cen-
tennial.
Words could not express the admira-
tion which we all felt for the procession.
It was really accomplished in a masterly
manner, especially taking into considera-
tion the shortness of the time for prepar-
ation ; but that paled beside the wonders
of the old Shaw house. I was obliged
to be in the kitchen all during that hour
of inspection and social intercourse, but I
could hear the loud bursts of admiration.
The house seemed full of exclamation-
points. Flora Clark said for her part she
could not see why folks could not look at
a thing and think it was pretty without
screaming; but she was tired, and proba-
bly a little vexed at herself for working
so hard when Mrs. Jameson had gotten
up the centennial. It was very warm in
298
The Jamesons
the kitchen, too, for Mrs. Jameson had
herself started the hearth fire in order to
exemplify to the utmost the old custom.
The kettles on the crane were all steam-
ing. Flora Clark said it was nonsense
to have a hearth -fire on such a hot day
because our grandmothers were obliged
to, but she was in the minority. Most
of the ladies were inclined to follow Mrs.
Jameson's lead unquestionably on that
occasion. They even exclaimed admir-
ingly over two chicken pies which she
brought, and which I must say had a
singular appearance. The pastry looked
very hard and of a curious leaden color.
Mrs. Jameson said that she made them
herself out of whole wheat, without
shortening, and she evidently regarded
them as triumphs of wholesomeness and
culinary skill. She furthermore stated
that she had remained up all night to
bake them, which we did not doubt, as
Hannah Bell, her help, had been em-
ployed steadily in the old Shaw house.
299
The Centennial
Mrs. Jameson had cut the pies before
bringing them, which Flora Clark whis-
pered was necessary. " I know that she
had to cut them with a hatchet and a
hammer/ whispered she ; and really when
we came to try them later it did not seem
so unlikely. I never saw such pastry,
anything like the toughness and cohe-
siveness of it ; the chicken was not sea-
soned well, either. We could eat very
little; with a few exceptions, we could
do no more than taste of it, which was
fortunate.
I may as well mention here that the
few greedy individuals, who I fancy fre-
quent all social functions with an under-
current of gastronomical desire for their
chief incentive, came to grief by reason
of Mrs. Jameson's chicken pies. She
baked them without that opening in the
upper crust which, as every good house-
wife knows, is essential, and there were
dire reports of sufferings in consequence.
The village doctor, after his precarious
300
The Jameson,*
drive in the ancient sulky, had a night of
toil. Caleb — commonly called Kellup —
Bates, and his son Thomas, were the
principal sufferers, they being notorious
eaters and the terrors of sewing- circle
suppers. Flora Clark confessed to me
that she was relieved when she saw them
out again, since she had passed the pies to
them three times, thinking that such de-
vourers would stop at nothing and she
might as well save the delicacies for the
more temperate.
We were so thankful that none of the
out-of-town celebrities ate Mrs. Jame-
son's chicken pies, since they had a
rather unfortunate experience as it was.
The dinner was a very great success, and
Flora Clark said to me that if people a
hundred years ago ate those hearty, nour-
ishing victuals as these people did, she
didn't wonder that the men had strength
to found a Eepublic, but she did wonder
how the women folks who had to cook
for them had time and strength to live,
301
The Centennial
After dinner the speechifying began.
The Rev. Henry P. Jacobs made the
opening address ; we had agreed that he
should be invited to do so, since he was
the minister. He asked the blessing be-
fore we began to eat, and made the open-
ing address afterward. Mr. Jacobs is
considered a fine speaker, and he is never
at a loss for ideas. We all felt proud of
him as he stood up and began to speak of
the state of the Linnville church a hun-
dred years ago, and contrasted those days
of fireless meeting-houses with the com-
forts of the sanctuary at the present time.
He also had a long list of statistics. I
began at last to feel a little uneasy lest
he might read his poem, and so rob the
guests who were to speak of their quotas
of time. Louisa said she thought he was
intending to, but she saw Mrs. Jameson
whisper to her husband, who immediately
tiptoed around to him with a scared and
important look, and said something in a
low voice. Then the minister, with a
302
The Jamesons
somewhat crestfallen air, curtailed his
remarks, saying something about his
hoping to read a poem a little later on
that auspicious occasion, but that he
would now introduce Mrs. H. Boardman
Jameson, to whom they were all so much
indebted.
Mrs. Jameson arose and bowed to the
company, and adjusted her eyeglasses.
Her jets glittered, her eyes shone with a
commanding brightness, and she really
looked very imposing. After a few
words, which even Flora Clark acknowl-
edged were very well chosen, she read
the Governor's letter with great impres-
siveness. Then she went on to read other
letters from people who were noteworthy
in some way and had some association
with the village. Flora Clark said that
she believed that Mrs. Jameson had writ-
ten to every celebrity whose grandfather
ever drove through Linnville. She did
have a great many letters from people
who we were surprised to hear had ever
303
The Centennial
heard of us, and they were very interest-
ing. Still it did take time to read them ;
and after she had finished them all, Mrs.
Jameson commenced to speak on her own
account. She had some notes which she
consulted unobtrusively from time to
time. She dwelt mainly upon the vast
improvement for the better in our condi-
tion during the last hundred years. She
mentioned in this connection Robert
Browning, the benefit of whose teaching
was denied our ancestors of a hundred
years ago. She also mentioned hygienic
bread as a contrast to the heavy, indiges-
tible masses of corn-meal concoctions and
the hurtful richness of pound-cake. Mrs.
Jameson galloped with mild state all her
little hobbies for our delectation, and the
time went on. AVe had sat very long at
dinner ; it was later than we had planned
when the speechifying began. Mrs.
Jameson did not seem to be in the least
aware of the flight of time as she peace-
fully proceeded ; nor did she see how we
3°4
The Jamesons
were all fidgeting. Still, nobody spoke to
her; nobody quite dared, and then we
thought every sentence would be her last.
The upshot of it was that the Grover
stage-coach arrived, and Mrs. Sim White's
brother, Elijah M. Mills, and Mrs. Lucy
Beers Wright, besides a number of others
of lesser fame, were obliged to leave
without raising their voices, or lose their
trains, which for such busy people was
not to be thought of. There was much
subdued indignation and discomfiture
among us, and I dare say among the
guests themselves. Mrs. Lucy Beers
Wright was particularly haughty, even to
Mrs. Sim White, who did her best to ex-
press her regret without blaming Mrs.
Jameson. As for Elijah M. Mills, Louisa
said she heard him say something which
she would not repeat, when he was put-
ting on his hat. He is a fine speaker,
and noted for the witty stories which he
tells ; we felt that we had missed a great
deal. I must say, to do her justice, that
3°5
The Centennial
Mrs. Jameson seemed somewhat per-
turbed, and disposed to be conciliating
when she bade the guests good-by; she
was even apologetic in her calmly supe-
rior way.
However, the guests had not been
gone long before something happened to
put it all out of our minds for the time.
The Rev. Henry P. Jacobs had just stood
up again, writh a somewhat crestfallen
air, to read his poem — I suppose he was
disappointed to lose the more important
part of his audience — when there was a
little scream, and poor Harriet Jameson
was all in a blaze. She wore a white
muslin dress, and somehow it had caught
— I suppose from a spark ; she had been
sitting near the hearth, though we had
thought the fire was out. Harry Lis com
made one spring for her when he saw
what had happened ; but he had not been
very near her, and a woman was before
him. She caught up the braided rug
from the floor, and in a second Harriet
306
The Jamesons
was bome down under it, and then Harry
was there with his coat, and Sim White,
and the fire was out. Poor Harriet
was not much hurt, only a few trifling
burns; but if it had not been for the
woman she might easily have gotten her
death, and our centennial ended in a
tragedy.
It had all been done so quickly that
we had not fairly seen who the woman
who snatched up the rug was, but when
the fire was out we knew : Caroline Lis-
com. She was somewhat burned herself,
too, but she did not seem to mind that at
all. She was, to our utter surprise — for
we all knew how she had felt about Har-
ry's marrying Harriet — cuddling the girl
in her motherly arms, the sleeves of her
best black grenadine being all scorched,
too, and telling her that she must not be
frightened, the fire was all out, and call-
ing her my dear child, and kissing her.
I, for one, never knew that Caroline Lis-
com could display so much warmth of
307
The Centennial
love and pity, and that toward a girl
whom she was determined her son should
not marry, and before so many. I sup-
pose when she saw the poor child all in a
blaze, and thought she would be burned
to death, her heart smote her, and she
felt that she would do anything in the
world if she only lived.
Harry Liscom was as white as a sheet.
Once or twice he tried to push his moth-
er away, as if he wished to do the com-
forting and cuddling himself; but she
would not have it. " Poor child ! poor
child ! " she kept repeating; " it's all over,
don't be frightened," as if Harriet had
been a baby.
Then Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson
came close to Caroline Liscom, and tears
were running down her cheeks quite
openly. She did not even have out her
handkerchief, and she threw her arms
right around the other woman who had
saved her daughter. "God bless you!
Oh, God bless you ! " she said ; then her
308
The Jamesons
voice broke and she sobbed out loud. I
think a good many of us joined her. As
for Caroline Lis com, she sort of pushed
Harriet toward her son, and then she
threw her poor, scorched arms around
Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson and kissed
her. "Oh, let us both thank God!"
sobbed Caroline.
As soon as we got calm enough we
took Harriet upstairs ; her pretty muslin
was fluttering around her in yellow rags,
and the slight burns needed attention;
she was also exhausted with the nervous
shock, and was trembling like a leaf, her
cheeks white and her eyes big with ter-
ror. Caroline Lis com and her mother
came too, and Caroline concealed her
burns until Harriet's were dressed.
Luckily, the doctor was there. Then
Harriet was induced to lie down on the
north chamber bed on the old blue-and-
white counterpane that Mrs. Sim White's
mother spun and wove.
Rev. Henry P. Jacobs did not read his
3°9
The Centennial
poem; we were too much perturbed to
listen to it, and nobody mentioned it to
him. Flora Clark whispered to me that
if he began she should go home ; for her
part, she felt as if she had gone through
enough that day without poetry. The
poem was delivered by special request at
our next sewing circle, but I think the
minister was always disappointed, though
he strove to bear it with Christian grace.
However, within three months he had to
console him a larger wedding fee than
often falls to a minister in Linnville.
The centennial dissolved soon after the
burning accident. There was nothing
more to do but to put the Shaw house to
rights again and restore the various arti-
cles to their owners, which, of course,
could not be done that day, nor for many
days to come. I think I never worked
harder in my life than I did setting things
to rights after our centennial ; but I had
one consolation through it, and that was
the happiness of the two young things,
310
The Jamesons
who had had indirectly their love tangle
smoothed out by it.
Caroline Lis com and Mrs. Jameson
were on the very best of terms, and Har-
riet was running over to Caroline's house
to take lessons in housekeeping, instead
of to mine, before the week was out.
There was a beautiful wedding the last
of October, and young Mrs. Harry Lis-
com has lived in our midst ever since,
being considered one of the most notable
housekeepers in the village for her age.
She and her husband live with Caroline
Liscom, and Louisa says sometimes that
she believes Caroline loves the girl better
than she does her own son, and that she
fairly took her into her heart when she
saved her life.
"Some women can't love anybody ex-
cept their own very much unless they can
do something for them, " says Louisa ; and
I don't know but she is right.
The Jamesons are still with us every
summer — even Grandma Cobb, who does
3"
The Centennial
not seem to grow feeble at all. Sarah is
growing to be quite a pretty girl, and
there is a rumor that Charlie White is
attentive to her, though they are both
almost too young to think of such things.
Cobb is a very nice boy, and people say
they had as soon have him come in and
sit a while and talk, as a girl. As for
Mrs. Jameson, she still tries to improve
us at times, not always with our full con-
currence, and her ways are still not alto-
gether our ways, provoking mirth, or
calling for charity. Yet I must say we
have nowadays a better understanding of
her good motives, having had possibly
our spheres enlarged a little by her, after
all, and having gained broader views
from the points of view of people outside
our narrow lives. I think .we most of us
are really fond of Mrs. H. Boardman
Jameson, and are very glad that the
Jamesons came to our village.
THB END
12 312
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