Keziah Coffin Part 7

Keziah stopped short on her way to the door.

"Well, I declare!" she exclaimed. "If I ain't the very worst! Fact is, you dropped in so ahead of time and in such a irregular sort of way, that I never once thought of introducin' anybody; and I'm sure Grace didn't. I'm Keziah Coffin, and Cap'n Elkanah and I signed articles, so to speak, this mornin', and I'm goin' to keep house for you."

She explained the reason upsetting the former arrangement by which Lurania Phelps was to have had the position.

"So I'm to keep house for you," she concluded. Adding: "For a spell, anyhow."

"Why do you say that?" asked the minister.

"Well, you might not like me. You may be particular, you know."

"I think I can run that risk."

"Yes; well, you can't tell. Or I might not like you. You see, I'm pretty particular myself," she added with a laugh.

At the Daniels's door Keziah turned her new charge over to Matilda Snow, the hired girl. It was an indication of the family's social position that they kept "hired help." This was unusual in Trumet in those days, even among the well to do.

"Good night," said the young man, extending his hand. "Good night, Miss--or is it Mrs.--Coffin?"

"Mrs. Good night."

"She's a widow," explained Matilda. "Husband died 'fore she come back here to live. Guess he didn't amount to much; she never mentions his name."

"There was one thing I meant to tell her," mused the minister, hesitating on the threshold. "I meant to tell her not to attempt any cleaning up at the parsonage to-night. To-morrow will do just as well."

"Heavens to Betsy!" sniffed the "hired help," speaking from the depths of personal conviction, "n.o.body but a born fool would clean house in the night, 'specially after the cleanin' she's been doin' at her own place.

I guess you needn't worry."

So Mr. Ellery did not worry. And yet, until three o'clock of the following morning, the dull light of a whale-oil lantern illuminated the rooms of the parsonage as Keziah scrubbed and swept and washed, giving to the musty place the "lick and promise" she had prophesied. If the spiders had prepared those ascension robes, they could have used them that night.

After breakfast the wagons belonging to the Wellmouth furniture dealer drove in at the gate of the little house opposite Captain Elkanah's, and Keziah saw, with a feeling of homesickness which she hid beneath smiles and a rattle of conversation, the worn household treasures which had been hers, and her brother's before her, carried away out of her life.

Then her trunks were loaded on the tailboards of the wagons, to be left at the parsonage, and with a sigh and a quick brush of her hand across her eyes, she locked the door for the last time and walked briskly down the road. Soon afterwards John Ellery, under the eminently respectable escort of Captain Elkanah and Miss Annabel, emerged from the Daniels's gate and followed her. Mrs. Didama Rogers, thankful for a clear atmosphere and an un.o.bstructed view, saw them pa.s.s and recognized the stranger. And, within a quarter of an hour, she, arrayed in a hurried calling costume, was spreading the news along the main road. The "Trumet Daily Advertiser" had, so to speak, issued an extra.

Thus the new minister came to Trumet and thus Keziah Coffin became his housekeeper. She entered upon her duties with the whole-hearted energy peculiar to her. She was used to hard work, and, as she would have said, felt lonesome without it. She cleaned that parsonage from top to bottom.

Every blind was thrown open and the spring suns.h.i.+ne poured in upon the braided mats and the rag carpets. Dust flew in clouds for the first day or two, but it flew out of windows and doors and was not allowed to settle within. The old black walnut furniture glistened with oil. The mirrors and the crockery sparkled from baths of hot water and soap. Even St. Stephen, in the engravings on the dining-room wall, was forced to a martyrdom of the fullest publicity, because the spots and smears on the gla.s.s covering his sufferings were violently removed. In the sleeping rooms upstairs the feather beds were beaten and aired, the sheets and blankets and patchwork comforters exposed to the light, and the window curtains dragged down and left to flap on the clothesline. The smell of musty dampness disappeared from the dining room and the wholesome odors of outdoors and of good things cooking took its place.

Keziah, in the midst of her labors, found time to coach her employer and companion in Trumet ways, and particularly in the ways which Trumet expected its clergymen to travel. On the morning following his first night in the parsonage, he expressed himself as feeling the need of exercise. He thought he should take a walk.

"Well," said his housekeeper from her station opposite him at the breakfast table, "if I was you I wouldn't take too long a one. You'd better be back here by ten, anyhow. Where was you thinkin' of goin'?"

Mr. Ellery had no particular destination in mind. He would like to see something of the village and, perhaps, if she could give him the names of a few of his paris.h.i.+oners, he might make a few calls. Keziah shook her head.

"Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed. "I wouldn't advise you to do that.

You ain't been here long enough to make forenoon calls. If you should catch some of the women in this town with ap.r.o.ns and calico on, they'd never forgive you in this world. Wait till afternoon; they'll be expectin' you then and they'll be rigged out in their best bibs and tuckers. S'pose you found Annabel Daniels with her hair done up in curl papers; what do you think would happen? Mornin's are no time for ministers' calls. Even old Mr. Langley never made calls in the forenoon--and he'd been here thirty-odd years."

"All right, you know best. Much obliged for the advice. Then I'll simply take my walk and leave the calls until later."

"I'd be back by ten, though. Folks'll begin callin' on you by that time."

"They will? Doesn't the rule work both ways?"

"Not with new ministers it don't. Cat's foot! You don't s'pose Didama Rogers and Laviny Pepper and their kind'll wait any longer'n they can help afore they come to see what you look like, do you?"

"Well, they must have seen me when I preached here before. I remember--"

"Mercy on us! that was in meetin'. Meetin's diff'rent. All they could say to you then was how much they liked your sermon. They say that to every minister that comes, no matter how they may pick him to pieces afterwards. But here they can ask you questions; about how you came to come here and what you think of it far's you've got, and what your views are on certain points in the creed. Likewise, who your folks were and whether they was well off, and a few things like that. Then they'll want to see what kind of clothes you wear and--"

"Whew!" Ellery whistled. "You're unfolding a pleasant prospect for me, I must say. Am I supposed to be catechized on all of my private affairs?"

"Of course! A minister hasn't got any private affairs; he's a public character. There!" she laughed, as she poured the coffee, "I mustn't discourage you. But don't you see that every mother's son--and, for that matter, every daughter and children's child unto the third and fourth generation--feel that, so long as they pay pew rent or put a cent in the collection, they own a share in you. And we always keep a watch on our investments down this way. That's the Yankee shrewdness you read so much about, I guess."

The minister absently played with his spoon.

"I'm afraid you're a cynic," he said.

"No, no, I ain't. Though sometimes, considerin' everything, I feel as though I had excuse enough if I wanted to belong to that tribe. But you're young. You mustn't mind my sayin' that; if you was old, of course, I wouldn't talk about ages. But you are young and this is your first church. So you must start right. I'm no cynic, bless you. I've got trust in human nature left--most kinds of human nature. If I hadn't, I'd have more money, I s'pose. Perhaps you've noticed that those who trust a good deal are usually poor. It's all right, Mr. Ellery; you go and take your walk. And I'll walk into that pantry closet. It'll be a good deal like walkin' into the Slough of Despond, but Christian came out on the other side and I guess likely I will, if the supply of soapsuds holds out."

When, promptly at ten o'clock, the minister returned from his walk, he found Mrs. Rogers waiting in the sitting room. It is a prime qualification of an alert reporter to be first on the scene of sensation. Didama was seldom beaten. Mr. Ellery's catechism began.

Before it was over Keziah opened the door to admit Miss Pepper and her brother. "Kyan" was nervous and embarra.s.sed in the housekeeper's presence. Lavinia was a glacier, moving majestically and freezing as it moved. Keziah, however, was not even touched by the frost; she greeted the pair cordially, and begged them to "take off their things."

It was dinner time before the catechizers departed. The catechized came to the table with an impaired appet.i.te. He looked troubled.

"Don't let it worry you, Mr. Ellery," observed Keziah calmly. "I think I can satisfy you. Honest and true, I ain't half as bad as you might think."

The minister looked more troubled than before; also surprised.

"Why, Mrs. Coffin!" he cried. "Could you hear--"

"No, no! I couldn't hear nothin' in that closet except my own opinion on dirt and dust. But if I was as deaf as the man that set on the powder keg and dropped his pipe ashes into it, it wouldn't have made any difference. The man said after they picked him up that they needn't have been so rough, he'd have moved without bein' pushed if they'd have made signs they wanted to use the keg. And if I was out in the next lot I'd have known what you was listenin' to in that sittin' room. They hinted that they were real sorry for you, but 'twasn't any of THEIR doin's. The parish committee, bein' just men, was apt to make mistakes in certain matters. Of course everything MIGHT be well enough, and if you wa'n't TOO particular about cookin' and so on, why--Anyhow, you mustn't think that THEY were criticisin'. 'Twas only that they took an interest and--That was about it, wasn't it?"

"Mrs. Coffin, I--I hope you don't think I paid any attention to their remarks--of that kind, I mean. Honestly, I did my best to stop them. I said--"

"Man alive! I'm not worried. Why should you be? We were talkin' about trust just now--or I was. Well, you and I'll have to take each other on trust for a while, until we see whether we're goin' to suit. If you see anything that I'm goin' wrong in, I wish you'd tell me. And I'll do the same by you, if that's agreeable. You'll hear a lot of things said about me, but if they're very bad I give you my word they ain't true. And, to be real frank, I'll probably hear some about you, which I'll take for what they're worth and considerin' who said 'em. That's a good wholesome agreement, I think, for both of us. What do you think?"

John Ellery said, with emphasis, that he thought well of it. He began to realize that this woman, with her blunt common sense, was likely to be a pilot worth having in the difficult waters which he must navigate as skipper of the Regular church in Trumet. Also, he began to realize that, as such a skipper, he was most inexperienced. And Captain Daniels had spoken highly--condescendingly but highly--of his housekeeper's qualifications and personality. So the agreement was ratified, with relief on his part.

The first Sunday came and with it the first sermon. He read that sermon to Keziah on Sat.u.r.day evening and she approved of it as a whole, though she criticised some of its details.

"Don't be afraid to put in plenty of salt," she said. "Where you've got the Christian life and spirit written down as bein' like a quiet, peaceful home, free from all distrust, and like that, why don't you change it to a good safe anchorage, where the soul can ride forever without fear of breakers or no'theasters or the dangers besettin' the mariner on a lee sh.o.r.e. They'll understand that; it gets right home to 'em. There's scarcely a man or a woman in your congregation that ain't been out of sight of land for weeks on a stretch."

The breakfast hour on Sunday would be at nine o'clock, instead of seven, as on week days, she told him.

"Trumet lays to bed Sunday mornin's," she explained. "It's almost a part of its religion, as you might say, and lived up to more conscientious than some other parts, I'm afraid. Six days shalt thou labor and wear comfort'ble clothes; and on the seventh you must be lazy and dress up.

Likewise you must have baked beans Sat.u.r.day for supper, as we're havin'

'em, and more beans with fish b.a.l.l.s next mornin'. That is, if you want to be orthodox."

The service began at eleven o'clock. At half past ten the s.e.xton, old Mr. Jubal Knowles, rang the "first bell," a clanging five-minute reminder. Twenty minutes later he began on the second and final call.

Mr. Ellery was ready--and nervous--before the first bell had finished ringing. But Keziah, entering the sitting room dressed in black alpaca and carrying the hymn book with her name in gilt letters on the cover, forbade his leaving the parsonage thus early.