li:
Hon
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THE PEOPLE OF OUR
NEIGHBORHOOD
LADIES' HOME JOURNAL
LIBRARY OF FICTION
Vol. I. The Spirit of Sweet-
water. By Hamlin Gar-
land.
Vol. II. A Minister of the
World. By Caroline A.
Mason.
Vol. III. The People of
Our Neighborhood. By
Mary E. Wilkins.
Cloth, fifty cents each.
LADIES' HOME JOURNAL
LIBRARY OF FICTION
THE PEOPLE OF OUR
NEIGHBORHOOD
BY
MARY E: WILKINS
AUTHOR OF
A HUMBLE ROMANCE
A NEW ENGLAND NUN
PEMBROKE, ETC., ETC.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ALICE BARBER STEPHENS
PHILADELPHIA
CURTIS PUBLISHING
COMPANY
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY &
McCLURE CO.
599101
Copyright, 1895, '96, '97 and '98, by
Clrtis Publishing Co.
11
McClure Press
New York City
Contents
PAGE
Timothy Sampson :
The Wise Man 1
Little Margaret Snell :
The Village Runaway . . .23
Cyrus Emmett :
The Unlucky Man . . . .41
Phebe Ann Little :
The Neat Woman . . . .59
Amanda Todd :
The Friend of Cats . . . 75
Lydia Wheelock :
The Good Woman . . . .91
A Quilting Bee in Our Village . .111
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee . 129
The Christmas Sing in Our Village . 149
Illustrations
BY ALICE BARBER STEPHENS
Portrait of Miss Wilkins . Frontispiece
PAGE
" The childrbn run out their tongues
for Timothy to inspect " . . .7
" He is one of the deacons " . . .15
"If Timothy gives the word that it
well. be fair" 19
' ' Her mother is one of the most intel-
lectual PERSONS " .... 27
' ' Marg'ret Snell, you come right in
HERE ! " 33
" In walks Marg'ret in her soiled pin-
afore" 39
" his back bent with years " . . .49
" He is said to purchase a dozen lumps
OF SUGAR " 55
" Her husband often has to hold the
lamp" 63
vii
Illustrations
PAOE
" There we stand and carefully scrape
and scrape " 71
*' as pretty as a picture, sitting in the
PEW " 81
" She suddenly got married " . .99
" Lydia has never had any chlldren,
but always a large family " . . 107
via
Timothy Samson : The
Wise Man
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.
3
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
4
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
G
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 wintergreen, 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
9
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
yet he is not an imperious or unpleasantly
self-assertive man. Still, great self-con-
fidence he 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
10
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 bills 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
11
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 tbat 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
12
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 blue eyes,
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? "
And 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 sermon.
13
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
much 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-
14
1 He is one of the deacons
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
17
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
18
If Timothy gives the word that it will be fair"
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? We dare not contemplate that.
21
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 he putting on airs in a par-
ticularly foolish fashion, and her attempts
are frustrated so far as may he.
For instance, when Mrs. White named
her second hoy 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 he in this village until the
25
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 week 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,"
26
"Her molher is one of the most inte'lectual peisons"
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'ret, 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 they 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. Snell's superfluous reading, they
most assuredly were about her lack of gov-
29
Little Margaret Snell
ernment. 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 eats 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 baby, 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
30
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.
31
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 Lurinda 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 solitary 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
32
" Marg'ret Snell, you come r.ght in here
Little Margaret Snell
roguish cock of her head toward the
window, the call comes again, " Marg'ret
Snell, you stop! You come right in
here ! "
But Marg'ret seldom comes to order.
She goes where she wills, and nowhere
else. 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-
35
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.
None 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
ver}' 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 authority, 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 say, " Marg'ret, you
36
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 thins- in our dull little
village. There are other children, but she
is that one all-pervading spirit of child-
37
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.
38
Cyrus Emmett : The
Unlucky Man
Cyrus Emmett : The
Unlucky Man
It is not probable that Cyrus Emmett's
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 the
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. Not one of the other
villagers but at some time or other has
had his own little triumph of success,
43
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
taken 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
44
Cyrus Emmett : Tlie 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.
45
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
he 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
kick again, and fall, until his neighbors
seem never to have seen him in any atti-
tudes but those of futile attack and de-
feat. Had he sat stolidly down on his
46
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
47
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' ham 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.
48
7 ^/
His back bent with yeais
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 Nehemiah 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
had a quarter in his pocket and he bought
a ticket and drew the prize. It went around
51
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
52
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man
village. " 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 un-
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, but she would not have him.
She married Edward Bassett afterward.
It was all over town one morning that
Mary 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
53
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
54
"He is said to purchase a doztn lumps of sugar'
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 appealingly, "I'm 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; but if poor Cyrus Em-
mett's luck does turn in his lifetime there
will be great rejoicing in this village.
57
Phebe Ann Little : The
Neat Woman
Phebe Ann Little : The
Neat Woman
Let an} r body 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
61
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 t lie 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 midnighl 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
Henry, can you remember whether 1 have
washed this side of the table or the oth-
er ? ' ; There are even stories current that
62
a.
E
I a
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-
65
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
66
Phebe Ann Little
feared that she would not make a good
housekeeper, hut 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 eonfi-
67
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
68
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 Phebe 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 off 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.
Not a neighbor goes in to spend a friend-
ly hour with Phebe Ann, who does not see,
69
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 pi)
frantically broom and duster, and she
wonders uneasily how much dirt and dusl
she could possibly have tracked into Phebe
Ann's.
But the neighbors have double cause foi
solicitude so far as an imputation upor
their own neatness is concerned, for Phebt
Ann never herself returns from a neigh-
borly call, that she does not, it is vouchee
for by competent witnesses, hang all tin
garments which accompanied her upoi
the clothes-line to air. Miss Lurinda Snel
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, thai
Phebe Ann Little is a notable housekeep
er. Her window-panes flash like diamonds
in the setting sun. There is no dust or
her window-blinds; one could sit in one's
70
MklKMSUBSBBBKSBBBBBBMt
"There we stand and carefully scrape and scrape"
Phebe Ann Little
best 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 Phebe Ann's
house, nor upon her person, nor upon any-
thing which belongs 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 possible that one such credit is suffi-
cient. If there were another like her the
village might become so clean that we
should all have to take to the fields and
survey its beautiful tidiness over pasture-
bars.
73
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
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
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 " 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.
78
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. Nathan 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, hut right after that, Mandy,
she had a hunnit, 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-
79
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 wa'n't 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
80
'As pretty as a picture, sittin' in the pew"
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
consider ble 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
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
84
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
85
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
man}* - 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.
Amanda 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
86
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cacs
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
87
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats
her 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 best 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 rather 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.
88
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 other.
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
Wilson, who has a gun, will shoot some,
the rest will become aliens and wanderers,
but we all hope Amanda Todd will never
know it.
89
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.
00
Lydia Wheelock : The
Good Woman
Lydia Wheelock : The
Good Woman
We all agree that Lydia Wheelock is
very 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,
93
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-
94
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 an'
smilin'." 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
95
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
96
Lydia Wheelock
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-
er's comfort.
Her mother was never without her three
meals a clay 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. Nobody 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-
97
Lydia Wheelock
mother, as Mrs. Harrison White said. She
married a man who had paid some atten-
tion to Mrs. Harrison White when she was
a girl, and she was popularly supposed to
favor him, but 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-
98
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
watched 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
101
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 Wheeloeks 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
102
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,
but 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-su'ffer-
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
103
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
104
Lydia 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
Elisha did not do so much for other peo-
ple she could have a tapestry carpet in her
sitting-room, and a black silk dress every
year. She sees to it, however, that Elisha
is not stinted to his discomfort. He has
105
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.
106
Lydia has never had any children, but always a large family
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.
109
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-
113
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 nourish
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
114
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. Stockwell 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.
Stockwell is one of the fastest quilters who
ever lived, but it was no especial depriva-
tion to Mrs. Stockwell. 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
115
A Quilting 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-
ny.
The women Avent early to the quilting;
116
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
117
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
baking cake. The Avhole 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.
118
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
" I don't believe but what this quilt has
been pieced ever since Brama Lincoln was
sixteen 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. " Used 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
119
A Ouilting 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
120
A Quilting 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. Wheelock's husband, and Mr.
Lucius Downey, whose wife had died the
year 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-
cius Downey coming, and screamed out
and ran, and all the girls after her. They
had brought silk bags with extra finery,
such 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
121
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
silk 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-
100
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
Green's 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
123
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
she thought there were many worse things
to be ashamed of than love.
Lurinda Snell played the games with
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
124
A Quilting Bee in Our Village
objected to that. She said the room was
so 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
sing, as she always is in company, she has
such 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.
125
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
126
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
vard was li^ht 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,
out 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
127
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 solved
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 Lvdia Wheelock's hus-
%j
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.
128
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. ISTehe-
miah Stockwell 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 " off year," that Nehemiah. Stock-
well's trees should have been bent to the
ground and even had some of their
branches broken beneath the great weight
131
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. They cannot under-
stand why, when every other garden in
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. Stock well's
good fortune: "It does seem as if every-
body else's ' off year ' was his ' on ) r ear,' "
and " he always gets double what any-
thing is worth, because nobody else has
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
132
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
disposition not to slight the good things
of others, because of rancor at having
none of their own.
The bee was held in the barn instead of
the kitchen, since it would accommodate
a greater number of people. The Stock-
well barn is a very large one on the oppo-
site side of the road from the house. It
was as clean as a parlor, and well lighted
with rows of lanterns hung from the
beams 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 and strings. Bushel-
baskets 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-
133
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
134
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
be 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 is
135
The Stockwells' 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
186
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 Eice,
cut her finger, for she was paring, and said
she would not work at all; she would
go home if she could not string. Then
137
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
sat down beside her that she looked al-
most pretty. Maria Rice looked non-
1:58
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
plussed, 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. Pew
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,
139
The Stockwells' 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, then
a wild flash of fire, and Zepheretta Stock-
well was flying to the nearest horse-stall
and dragging off the bay mare's blanket
before anybody could think. Maria's apron
was blazing, and if it had not been
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. Then
Jim Paine sprung, but Zejuieretta cried to
him fiercely to keep off, and crouched so
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 coats
to smother the flames; they formed a line
to the well and passed buckets of water.
In fifteen minutes the fire was completely
140
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
tinder 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 everybody was
too nervous to settle down to work again
under any circumstances.
Maria Rice 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 Ne-
hemiah Stockwell had his barn been de-
stroyed, for he carried only a very small
insurance on it.
141
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. Stockwell's 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 castanels.
We placed ourselves as best Ave could
around the table. There was not quite
142
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
143
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
that Lucius Downey had a piece of the
one pumpkin pie. We all discussed the
lire and tried to eat as if we enjoyed the
supper, hut 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 Kice 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
144
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
Stockwell's voice, and after her Mrs. Ne-
hemiah Stockwell'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 Hannah.
"And plum pudding," declared Mrs.
Stockwell.
" Pumpkin pie and cranberry pie, and
doughnuts."
" And cheese "
" 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 ! "
145
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee
" There was pound cake, and fruit cake,
and sponge cake," Hannah Stockwell said.
:< 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 Stockwell's voice again:
" There were fried apple turnovers and
currant jelly tarts," and Mrs. Stockwell's,
feebly, but insistently, "And peach pre-
serves and tomato ketchup."
14G
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.
147
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.
151
The Christmas Sing in Our 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 hall. 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
152
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. Dowell from East
Langham, a village about eight miles from
ours. He is a very fine 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 verv attractive. Lottie Green sat next
him at the supper-table, and he 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, he might have felt slighted.
153
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
heauty. 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 Rice 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 fine air
154
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-
priately 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
155
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, Miss Elmira Crane, played
that. There was old Mr. Joseph Nelson,
with his bass 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
156
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 meek-
ly that she was singing.
" No, you are not singing," returned
Mr. Sage. " I was riding past 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
to cry. She opened her mouth, as if to
speak, but did not. Then, suddenly, Lu-
rinda Snell, who sat on her right, spoke
157
The Christmas Sing in Our Village
for her. " I can tell 3^011 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 Eice 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 Eice, 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.
158
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 Eice, 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
159
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. Cassius 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 was bright moonlight he is
fond of carrying one because his eyes are
poor. The lantern light shone full on
Lurincla'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
160
The Christmas 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 backs.
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 neighbors
all say, and Lydia Wheelock, 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.
161
PS Freeman, Mary Eleanor
1712 (Wilkins)
P4-5 The people of our
189S neighborhood
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