Meadow Grass: Tales of New England Life Part 15

"O Aunt Melissa!" gasped Amanda, "you wouldn't do that!"

"Yes, I would, too!" a.s.serted Aunt Melissa, setting her firm lips. "You see if I don't, an' afore another night goes over my head!"

But while Amanda was looking at her, paralyzed with the certainty that no mortal aid could save her from this dire extremity, there came an unexpected diversion. Old Lady Green spoke out clearly and decidedly from her corner, in so rational a voice that it seemed like one calling from the dead.

"'Mandy, what be you cryin' for? You come here an' tell me what 'tis, an' I'll see to't. You'll spile your eyes, 'Mandy, if you take on so."

"There, there, ma'am! 'tain't anything," said Amanda, hurrying over to her chair and patting her on the shoulder. "We was just havin' a little spat,--Aunt Melissa an' me; but we've got all over it. Don't you want to knit on your garter a little while now?"

But the old lady kept her glazed eyes fixed on Amanda's face.

"Be you well to-day, 'Mandy?" she said, wistfully. "If you ain't well, you must take suthin'."

"There, there! don't you make a to-do, an' she'll come round all right," said Aunt Melissa, moving her chair about so that it faced the old lady. "I'll tell her suthin' to take up her mind a little." And she continued, in the loud voice which was her concession to Mrs. Green's feebleness of intellect, "They've got a boarder over to the Blaisdells'."

Mrs. Green sat up straight in her chair, smoothed her ap.r.o.n, and looked at her sister with grateful appreciation.

"Do tell!" she said, primly.

"Yes, they have. Name's Chapman. They thought he was a book agent fust.

But he's buyin' up old dishes an' all matter o' truck. He wanted my andirons, an' I told him if I hadn't got a son in a Boston store, he might ha' come round me, but I know the vally o' things now. You don't want to sell them blue coverlids o' yourn, do ye?"

Aunt Melissa sometimes asked the old lady questions from a sense of the requirements of conversation, and she was invariably startled when they elicited an answer.

"Them coverlids I wove myself, fifty-five years ago come next spring,"

said Mrs. Green, firmly. "Sally Ann Mason an' me used to set up till the clock struck twelve that year, spinnin' an' weavin'. Then we had a cup or two o' green tea, an' went to bed."

"Well, you wove 'em, an' you don't want to sell 'em," said Aunt Melissa, her eyes on her work. "If you do, 'Lijah he'll take 'em right up to Boston for you, an' I warrant he'll git you a new white spread for every one on 'em."

"That was the year afore I was married," continued Old Lady Green. "I had a set o' white chiny with lavender sprigs, an' my dress was changeable. He had a flowered weskit. 'Mandy, you go into the clo'es-press in my bedroom an' git out that weskit, an' some o' them quilts, an' my M's an' O's table-cloths."

Amanda rose and hurried into the bedroom, in spite of Aunt Melissa's whispered comment: "What makes you go to overhaulin' things? She'll forgit it in a minute."

While she was absent, a smart wagon drove up to the gate, and a young man alighted from it, hitched his horse, and knocked at the front door.

Aunt Melissa saw him coming, and peered at him over her gla.s.ses with an unrecognizing stare.

"'Mandy!" she called, "'Mandy, here's a pedler or suthin'! If he's got any essences, you ask him for a little bottle o' pep'mint."

Amanda dropped the pile of coverlets on the sofa, and went to the front door. Presently she reappeared, and with her, smoothly talking her down, came the young man. His eyes lighted first on the coverlets, with a look of cheerful satisfaction.

"Got all ready for me, didn't you?" he asked, briskly. "Heard I was coming, I guess."

He was a man of an alert Yankee type, with waxed blond mustache and eye-gla.s.ses; he was evidently to be cla.s.sed among those who have exchanged their country honesty for a veneer of city knowingness.

"For the land's sake!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Aunt Melissa, as soon as she had him at short range, "you're the one down to Blaisdell's that's buyin' up all the old truck in the neighborhood. Well, you won't git my andirons!"

He had begun to unfold the blue coverlets and examine them with a practised eye, while Amanda stood by, painfully conscious that some decisive action might be required of her; and her mother sat watching the triumph of her quilts in pleased importance.

"They ain't worth much," he said, dropping them, with a conclusive air.

"Fact is, they ain't worth anything, unless any body's got a fancy for such old stuff. I'll tell you what, I'll give you fifty cents apiece for the lot! How many are there here--four? Two dollars, then."

Amanda took a hasty step forward.

"But we don't want to sell our coverlids!" she said, indignantly, casting an appealing glance at Aunt Melissa.

"I guess they don't want to git rid on 'em," said that lady, "'specially at such a price. They're wuth more 'n that to cover up the squashes when the frost comes."

"Mother wove 'em herself," exclaimed Amanda, irrelevantly. It began to seem to her as if the invader might pack up her mother's treasures and walk off with them.

"Well, then, I s'pose they're hers to do as she likes with?" he said, pleasantly, tipping back, in his chair, and beginning to pare his nails with an air of nicety that fascinated Amanda into watching him.

"They're hers, I s'pose?" he continued, looking suddenly and keenly up at her.

"Why, yes," she answered, "they're mother's, but she don't want to sell. She sets by 'em."

"Just like me, for all the world," owned the stranger, "Now there's plenty of folks that wouldn't care a Hannah Cook about such old truck, but it just hits me in the right spot. Mother's doughnuts, mother's mince-pies, I say! Can't improve on _them_! And when my wife and I bought our little place, I said to her, 'We'll have it all furnished with old-fas.h.i.+oned goods.' And here I am, taking, time away from my business, riding round the country, and paying good money for what's no use to anybody but me."

"What is your business?" interrupted Aunt Melissa.

"Oh, insurance--a little of everything--Jack-of-all-trades!" Then he turned to Old Mrs. Green, and asked, abruptly, "What'll you take for that clock?"

The old lady followed his alert forefinger until her eyes rested on the tall eight-day clock in the corner. She straightened herself in her chair, and spoke with pride:--

"That was Jonathan's gre't-uncle Samwell's. He wound it every Sunday night, reg'lar as the day come round. I've rubbed that case up till I sweat like rain. 'Mandy she rubs it now."

"Well, what'll you take?" persisted he, while Amanda, in wordless protest, stepped in front of the clock. "Five dollars?"

"Five dollars," repeated the old lady, lapsing into senseless iteration. "Yes, five dollars."

But Aunt Melissa came to the rescue.

"Five dollars for that clock?" she repeated, winding her ball, and running the needles into it with a conclusive stab. "Well, I guess there ain't any eight-day clocks goin' out o' _this_ house for five dollars, if they go at all! 'Mandy, why don't you speak up, an' not stand there like a chicken with the pip?"

"Oh, all right, all right!" said the visitor, shutting his knife with a snap, and getting briskly on his feet. "I don't care much about buying.

That ain't a particularly good style of clock, anyway. But I like old things. I may drop in again, just to take a look at 'em. I suppose you're always at home?" he said to Amanda, with his hand on the door.

"Yes; but sometimes I go to Sudleigh with b.u.t.ter. I go Monday afternoons most always, after was.h.i.+n'."

With a cheerful good-day he was gone, and Amanda drew a long breath of relief.

"Well, some folks have got enough bra.s.s to line a kittle," said Aunt Melissa, carefully folding her knitting-work in a large silk handkerchief. "'Mandy, you'll have to git supper a little earlier'n common for me. I told Hiram to come by half arter six. Do you s'pose Kelup'll be round by that time? I'll wait all night afore I'll give up seein' him."

"I don't know, Aunt Melissa," said Amanda, nervously clearing the table of its pile of snowy cloth, and taking a flying glance from the window.

She looked like a hara.s.sed animal, hunted beyond its endurance; but suddenly a strange light of determination flashed into her face.

"Should you just as lieves set the table," she asked, in a tone of guilty consciousness, "while I start the kitchen fire? You know where things are." Hardly waiting for an a.s.sent, she fled from the room, and once in the kitchen, laid the fire in haste, with a glance from the window to accompany every movement. Presently, by a little path through the field, came a stocky man in blue overalls and the upper garment known as a jumper. He was bound for the pigpen in the rear of the barn; and there Amanda flew to meet him, stopping only to throw an ap.r.o.n over her head. They met at the door. He was a fresh-colored man, with honest brown eyes and a ring of whiskers under the chin. He had a way of blus.h.i.+ng, and when Amanda came upon him thus unannounced, he colored to the eyes.

"Why, you're all out o' breath!" he said, in slow alarms.

"O Caleb!" she cried, looking at him with imploring eyes. "I'll feed the pigs to-night."