Men, Women, and Ghosts Part 32

"Oh!"

"What were you crying about, Sharley!"

"Because my grandmother's dead," said Sharley, after some reflection.

"Ah, yes, I remember! about '36, I think, her tombstone gives as the date of that sad event?"

"I think it's wicked in people to laugh at people's dead grandmothers,"

said Sharley, severely. "You ought to be at church."

"So I was."

"I wasn't; mother wouldn't--" But her lip quivered, and she stopped. The memory of the new hat and Sunday dress, of the golden church-bells, and hush of happy Sabbath-morning thoughts came up. That he should see her now, in this plight, with her swollen eyes and pouting lips, and her heart full of wicked discontent!

"Wouldn't what, Sharley?"

"_Don't!_" she pleaded, with a sob; "I'm cross; I can't talk. Besides, I shall cry again, and I _won't_ cry again. You may let me alone, or you may go away. If you don't go away you may just tell me what you have been doing with yourself this whole long summer. Working hard, of course. I don't see but that everybody has to work hard in this world! I hate this world! I suppose you're a rich man by this time?"

The young man looked at the chocolate dress, the yellow leaves, the falling hair, and answered gravely,--a little coldly, Sharley thought,--that his prospects were not encouraging just now. Perhaps they never had been encouraging; only that he in his young ardor had thought so. He was older now, and wiser. He understood what a hard pull was before young architects in America,--any young architect, the best of young architects,--and whether there was a place for him remained to be proved. He was willing to work hard, and to hope long; but he grew a little tired of it sometimes, and so--He checked himself suddenly. "As if," thought Sharley, "he were tired of talking so long to me! He thought my question impertinent." She hid her face in her drooping hair, and wished herself a mile away.

"There was something you once told me about some sort of buildings?" she ventured, timidly, in a pause.

"The Crumpet Buildings. Yes, I sent my proposals, but have not heard from them yet; I don't know that I ever shall. That is a large affair, rather. The name of the thing would be worth a good deal to me if I succeeded. It would give me a start, and--"

"Ough!" exclaimed Sharley. She had been sitting at his feet, with her face raised, and red eyes forgotten, when, splas.h.!.+ an icy stream of water came into her eyes, into her mouth, down her neck, up her sleeves.

She gasped, and stood drenched.

"O, it's only a rain-storm," said Moppet, appearing on the scene with his empty dipper. "I got tired of sleeping. I dreamed about three giants. I didn't like it. I wanted something to do. It's only _my_ rain-storm, and you needn't mind it, you know."

Dripping Sharley's poor little temper, never of the strongest, quivered to its foundations. She took hold of Moppet without any observation, and shook him just about as hard as she could shake. When she came to her senses her mother was coming in at the gate, and Halcombe Dike was gone.

"I s'pose I've got to 'tend to that hollering to-night," said Moppet, with a gentle sigh.

This was at a quarter past seven. Nate and Methuselah were in bed. The baby was asleep. Moppet had thrown his shoes into the water-pitcher but twice, and run down stairs in his nightgown only four times that evening; and Sharley felt encouraged. Perhaps, after all, he would be still by half past seven; and by half past seven--If Halcombe Dike did not come to-night, something was the matter. Sharley decided this with a sharp little nod.

She had devoted herself to Moppet with politic punctiliousness. Would he lie at his lazy length, with his feet on her clean petticoat, while she bent and puzzled over his knotted shoestrings? Very well. Did he signify a desire to pull her hair down and tickle her till she gasped? She was at his service. Should he insist upon being lulled to slumber by the recounted adventures of Old Mother Hubbard, Red Riding-Hood, and Tommy Tucker? Not those exactly, it being thought proper to keep him in a theologic mood of mind till after sundown, but he should have David and Goliath and Moses in the bulrushes with pleasure; then Moses and Goliath and David again; after that, David and Goliath and Moses, by way of variety. She conducted every Scriptural dog and horse of her acquaintance entirely round the globe in a series of somewhat apocryphal adventures. She ransacked her memory for biblical boys, but these met with small favor. "Pooh! _they_ weren't any good! They couldn't play stick-knife and pitch-in. Besides, they all died. Besides, they weren't any great shakes. Jack the Giant-Killer was worth a dozen of 'em, sir!

Now tell it all over again, or else I won't say my prayers till next winter!"

After some delicate plotting, Sharley manoeuvred him through "Now I lay me," and tucked him up, and undertook a little Sunday-night catechizing, conscientiously enough.

"Has Moppet been a good boy to-day?"

"Well, that's a pretty question! Course I have!"

"But have you had any good thoughts, dear, you know?"

"O yes, lots of 'em! been thinking about Blessingham."

"Who? O, Absalom!"

"O yes, I've been thinking about Blessingham, you know; how he must have looked dreadful funny hanging up there onto his hair, with all the darts 'n things stickin' into him! _Would_n't you like to seen him! No, you needn't go off, 'cause I ain't begun to be asleep yet."

Time and twilight were creeping on together. Sharley was sure that she had heard the gate shut, and that some one sat talking with her mother upon the front doorsteps.

"O Moppet! _Could_n't you go to sleep without me this one night,--not this one night?" and the hot, impatient tears came in the dark.

"O no," said immovable Moppet, "of course I can't; and I 'spect I'm going to lie awake all night too. You'd ought to be glad to stay with your little brothers. The girl in my library-book, she was glad, anyhow."

Sharley threw herself back in the rocking-chair and let her eyes brim over. She could hear the voices on the doorsteps plainly; her mother's wiry tones and the visitor's; it was a man's voice, low and less frequent. Why did not her mother call her? Had not he asked to see her?

Had he not? Would n.o.body ever come up to take her place? Would Moppet never go to sleep? There he was peering at her over the top of the sheet, with two great, mischievous, wide-awake eyes. And time and twilight were wearing on.

Let us talk about "affliction" with our superior, reproving smile!

Graves may close and hearts may break, fortunes, hopes, and souls be ruined, but Moppet wouldn't go to sleep; and Sharley in her rocking-chair doubted her mother's love, the use of life, and the benevolence of G.o.d.

"I'm lying awake to think about Buriah," observed Moppet, pleasantly.

"David wanted to marry Buriah's wife. She was a very nice woman."

Silence followed this announcement.

"Sharley? you needn't think I'm asleep,--any such thing. Besides, if you go down you'd better believe I'll holler! See here: s'pose I'd slung my dipper at Hal Dike, jest as David slung the stone at Go-li--"

Another silence. Encouraged, Sharley dried her tears and crept half-way across the floor. Then a board creaked.

"O Sharley! Why don't people shut their eyes when they die? Why, Jim Snow's dorg, he didn't. I punched a frog yesterday. I want a drink of water."

Sharley resigned herself in despair to her fate. Moppet lay broad and bright awake till half past eight. The voices by the door grew silent.

Steps sounded on the walk. The gate shut.

"That child has kept me up with him the whole evening long," said Sharley, coming sullenly down. "You didn't even come and speak to him, mother. I suppose Halcombe Dike never asked for me?"

"Halcombe Dike! Law! that wasn't Halcombe Dike. It was Deacon Snow,--the old Deacon,--come in to talk over the revival. Halcombe Dike was at meeting, your father says, with his cousin Sue. Great interest up his way, the Deacon says. There's ten had convictions since Conference night. I wish you were one of the interested, Sharley."

But Sharley had fled. Fled away into the windy, moonless night, down through the garden, out into the sloping field. She ran back and forth through the gra.s.s with great leaps, like a wounded thing. All her worry and waiting and disappointment, and he had not come! All the thrill and hope of her happy Sunday over and gone, and he had not come! All the winter to live without one look at him,--and he knew it, and he would not come!

"I don't care!" sobbed Sharley, like a defiant child, but threw up her hands with the worlds and wailed. It frightened her to hear the sound of her own voice--such a pitiful, shrill voice--in the lonely place. She broke into her great leaps again, and so ran up and down the slope, and felt the wind in her face. It drank her breath away from her after a while; it was a keen, chilly wind. She sat down on a stone in the middle of the field, and it came over her that it was a cold, dark place to be in alone; and just then she heard her father calling her from the yard.

So she stood up very slowly and walked back.

"You'll catch your death!" fretted her mother, "running round bareheaded in all this damp. You know how much trouble you are when you are sick, too, and I think you ought to have more consideration for me, with all my care. Going to bed? Be sure and not forget to put the baby's gingham ap.r.o.n in the wash."

Sharley lighted her kerosene lamp without reply. It was the little kerosene with the crack in the handle. Some vague notion that everything in the world had cracked came to her as she crept upstairs. She put her lamp out as soon as she was in her room, and locked her door hard. She sat down on the side of the bed and crossed her hands, and waited for her father and mother to come upstairs. They came up by and by and went to bed. The light that shone in through the c.h.i.n.k under the door went out. The house was still.

She went over to the window then, threw it wide open, and sat down crouched upon the broad sill. She did not sob now nor wail out. She did not feel like sobbing or wailing. She only wanted to think; she must think, she had need to think. That this neglect of Halcombe Dike's meant something she did not try to conceal from her bitter thoughts. He had not neglected her in all his life before. It was not the habit, either, of this grave young man with the earnest eyes to do or not to do without a meaning. He would put silence and the winter between them. That was what he meant. Sharley, looking out upon the windy dark with straight-lidded eyes, knew that beneath and beyond the silence of the winter lay the silence of a life.

The silence of a life! The wind hushed into a moment's calm while the words turned over in her heart. The branches of a cherry-tree, close under her sight, dropped lifelessly; a homesick bird gave a little, still, mournful chirp in the dark. Sharley gasped.

"It's all because I shook Moppet! That's it. Because I shook Moppet this morning. He used to like me,--yes, he did. He didn't know how cross and ugly I am. No wonder he thought such a cross and ugly thing could never be--could never be--"