Mrs. Tree's Will Part 6

"A jacket for your little Beauty Darlin', to be sure! She bought a pattern, too, I remember, a sh.e.l.l border, and then--don't you believe p'r'aps it was skeins she said, Mr. Bliss, instead of pounds? I presume most likely it was." Her voice was tender now, as if addressing a little child.

"You are probably right, Miss Penelope," said the minister, dejectedly.

"I seem to have singularly little faculty for these matters. Two skeins--ah, yes! I perceive it is so written here on the envelope. I beg your pardon, Miss Penelope!"

"You've no need to, Mr. Bliss, not a mite!" cried Miss Penny. "We all make mistakes, and, if you never done anything worse than this, you'd be sure of the Kingdom. Not but what you are anyways, I expect. Gentlemen don't have any call to know about fancy work as a rule, especially a pastor, whose mind on higher things is set; you remember the hymn. There is those, though, that finds comfort in it, same as a woman doos. I knew a gentleman once who used to come and get his worsted of me just as regular! _He_ crocheted for his nerves; helped him to sleep, so he thought, and it _is_ real soothin', but he's dead and buried now. I often think, times when I hear of a man bein' nervous and crotchety about the house, there! I think, if he'd only set down and crochet a spell, or knit, one of the two, what a comfort it would be to him and his folks. We're made as we are, though; that's right. Was there anything more, Mr. Bliss? Twenty cents; thank _you_, sir. Real pleased you came in; call again, won't you? _Good_ morning!"

Miss Penny looked anxiously after the minister as he walked away. "I do hope he'll get that home safe!" she said. "I set out to ask him if he didn't think he'd better put it in his pocket, but I was afraid he might think me forth-puttin'. Like as not he'll forget every single thing about it, and drop it right in the street. There! I don't see _why_ men-folks is so forgetful, do you, Sister? Not that they are all alike, of course."

"Some ways they are," said Miss Prudence.

Miss Prudence was invisible, but the door between the shop and her sanctum was always ajar, for she liked to hear what was going on.

"I never see the man yet that I'd trust to carry a parcel home; not a small parcel, that is. If it's a whole dress, he'll take it all right, if he takes it at all; but give him a small parcel that wants to be carried careful, and he'll drop it, or else scrunch it up in his pocket and forget it. I've got to run up these brea'ths now; Miss Wax is comin'

at eleven to try on."

There was a silence, broken only by the cheerful whir of the sewing-machine, and the still more cheerful voice of Miss Penny cooing to her birds. She hopped from one cage to another, feeding, stroking, caressing.

"You're lookin' dumpy to-day, darlin'," she said, addressing a rather battered-looking mino bird. "There! the fact is, you ain't so young as once you was. You're like the rest of us, only you don't know it, and we do--some of us! Here's a nice bit of egg for you, Beauty; that'll s.h.i.+ne you up some, though I do expect you've seen your best days. Luella Sloc.u.m told me she expected me to make this bird over as good as new, Sister. I told her I guessed what ailed him was the same as did the rest of us. Stop the clock tickin', I told her, and she'd stop his trouble and hers as well. She was none too well pleased. She'd just got her a new front from Miss Wax, and not a sc.r.a.p of gray in it. She'd ought to sing 'Backward, turn backward,' if anybody ought. There!" The exclamation had a note of dismay in it.

"What's the matter?" asked Miss Prudence; the machine had stopped, and her mouth was apparently full of pins.

"Why, I never thought to ask Mr. Bliss how Mr. Homer was, and he just the one to tell us. Now did you ever! Fact is, when he come in, I hadn't got my face straight after that woman askin' for mesmerized petticoats.

I was shakin' still when I see Mr. Bliss comin', and my wits flew every which way like a scairt hen. But speakin' of petticoats reminds me, Tommy Candy was in this mornin' while you was to market, and _he_ said Mr. Homer was re'l slim. 'Pestered with petticoats' was what he said, and I said, 'What do you mean, Tommy Candy?' and he said, 'Just what I say, Miss Penny,' he said. 'I guess you and Miss Prudence are the only single or widder women in Quahaug that ain't settin' their caps for Mr.

Homer,' he said. And I said, 'Tommy Candy, that's no way for you to talk, if you _have_ had money left you!' I said. He said he knew it wasn't, but yet he couldn't help it, and you and I had always ben good to him sence his mother died. He has a good heart, Tommy has, only he doos speak up so queer, and love mischief. But he says it's a fact, they do pester Mr. Homer, Sister. There! it made me feel fairly ashamed.

'Don't tell me Miss Bethia Wax is one of 'em,' I said, 'because I shouldn't believe you if you did,' I said. 'Well, I won't,' he said, 'for she ain't; she's a lady.' But some, he said, was awful, and he means to stand between; he don't intend Mr. Homer should marry anybody except he wants to, and it's the right one. Seemed to have re'l good _i_deas, and he thinks the world of Mr. Homer. I like Tommy; he has a re'l pleasant way with him."

"You'd make cream cheese out of 'most any skim-milk, Sister," said Miss Prudence, kindly. "Not but what Tommy has improved a vast deal to what he was. It's his lameness, I expect."

"That's right!" cried little Miss Penny, the tears starting to her round brown eyes. "That's it, Sister, and that's what turns my heart to the boy, I expect. So young, and to be lame for life; it is pitiful."

"He did what he had a mind to do," said Miss Prudence, grimly. "He had no call to climb that steeple, as I know of."

"Oh, Sister, there's so many that has no call to do _as_ they do, and yet many times they don't seem to get their come-uppance, far as we can see; I expect they do, though, come to take it in the yard _or_ the piece. But, howsoever, Mis' Tree has done handsome by Tommy, and he has a grateful heart, and means to do his part by Mr. Homer and the _Mu_seum, I feel sure of that. Sister, do you suppose Pindar Hollopeter is alive? Seem's though if he was, he'd come home now, at least for a spell: Homer in affliction, as you may say, and left with means and all.

How long is it since he went away?"

"Thirty years," said Miss Prudence. "I always thought it was a good riddance to bad rubbidge when Pindar went away."

"Why, Sister, he was an elegant man, flighty, but re'l elegant; at least, so he appeared to me; I was a child then. Why did he go, Sister?

I never rightly understood about it."

"He went from flightiness," said Miss Prudence. "Him and Homer was both crazy about Mary Ashton, and Pindar asked her to have him. She'd as soon have had the meetin'-house weatherc.o.c.k, and when she told him so,--I don't mean them words; Mary would have spoke pleasant to the Father of Evil."

"Why, Sister!"

"Well, she would. Anyhow, when she said no, he made sure she was going to have Homer, and off he went, and never come back. So that's _his_ story."

"I want to know!" said Miss Penny. "But she never--"

"She never cast a look at ary one of 'em. She give her heart to George Jaquith to break, and he done it; and now he's dead, and so is she. But Homer is alive, and so is Pindar, for all I know. He never liked here as Homer did; he always wanted to get away, from a boy. Old Mis' Hollopeter run a great resk, I always thought, the way she brought up those two boys, fillin' their heads with poetry and truck. If she had learned 'em a good trade, now, it would be bread in their mouths this day; not that Homer is ever likely to want now. I wish't he'd marry Bethia Wax."

"I don't know, Sister Prudence," said Miss Penny, who was romantic.

"Some is cut out for a single life, and I think's it's real pretty to see a man faithful to the ch'ice of his youth."

"Ch'ice of his grandmother!" retorted Miss Prudence, sharply. "Don't talk foolishness, Penny! A woman can get along single, and oftentimes do better, and it's meant some of 'em should, or there wouldn't be so many extry; but leave a man alone all his life, and either he dries up or else he sploshes out, and either way he don't amount to what he should.

They ain't got enough _to_ 'em, someways. There! this is ready to try on, and Miss Wax ain't here. She said she'd be here by eleven."

"I see her comin' now," cried Miss Penny. "It's just on the stroke; she's 'most always punctual. She has a re'l graceful, pretty walk. _I_ think Miss Wax is a fine-lookin' woman, though a little mite more flesh would set good on her."

"Her clo'es would set better on her if she had it," said Miss Prudence.

"I know that. I don't know but I'd sooner fit a bolster than a bean-pole."

"Hush, Sister, for pity's sake! Good mornin', Miss Wax. You're right on the dot, ain't you? I was just sayin' to Sister how punctual you always was. Yes'm, we're smart; the same old story, peace and poverty. You can go right in, Miss Wax; Sister's expectin' you."

CHAPTER VI.

THE SORROWS OF MR. HOMER

"Morning, Direxia," said Will Jaquith. "How is Mr. Homer this morning?

Better, I hope, than he was feeling yesterday."

Direxia Hawkes laid down her duster, and turned a troubled face to the visitor. "There!" she said, "I'm glad you've come, w.i.l.l.y. I can't do nothin' with that man. He ain't eat a thing this day, only just a mossel of toast and a sosser of hominy. It's foolishness, I will say. Mis' Tree may have had her ways,--I expect we all do, if all was known,--but I will say she eat her victuals and relished 'em. I don't see why or wherfore I was left if there ain't anybody ever going to eat anythin'

in this house again; there! I don't."

"Oh, Dexy, don't be foolis.h.!.+" said Will. "I'm coming out this minute to get a doughnut. You will have to live till my wife learns to make as good ones as yours, and that will be some time. Just wait till I see Mr.

Homer a minute, and then I'll come out and make love to you, you dear old thing."

Direxia brightened. "Don't she make 'em good?" she asked. "Well, she's young yet. I dono as I had just the hang of 'em when I was her age.

Doughnuts is a thing you've got to have the hang of, I've always said."

She retired, beaming, to heap goodies on fine china dishes for her darling, and Jaquith turned his steps toward "the Captain's room." This was a small room looking out over the harbor, and had been Captain Tree's special sanctum. It was fitted like a s.h.i.+p's cabin, with lockers and swinging shelves, all in teak-wood and bra.s.s. On the walls were ranged telescopes, spygla.s.ses, and speaking-trumpets of all sizes and varieties, and over the desk hung a picture of the good s.h.i.+p _Marcia D._ of Quahaug, Ethan Tree, master. This picture was a triumph of j.a.panese embroidery, having been done in colored silks while the s.h.i.+p lay in the harbor of Nagasaki, and, next to his wife's miniature, it was the Captain's most precious possession. The year after it was made, the _Marcia D._ had gone down in a typhoon in the South Seas: all hands were saved, to be tossed about for three days on a life-raft, and then tossed ash.o.r.e on a wild island. The bright sh.e.l.ls which framed the picture had been picked up by his wife on the sh.o.r.e, where she watched all day for a coming sail, while master and mariners caught fish and turtles, and gathered strange fruits for her, their lady and their queen. Ethan Tree used to say that that week on the island was one of the best in his life, even though he had lost his s.h.i.+p.

"True blue!" he would murmur, looking up at the picture. "She showed her colors that time. She never flinched, little Marcia. Her baby coming, and not a woman or a doctor within a thousand miles; but she never flinched. Only her cheeks flew the flag and her eyes signalled, when I sung out, 'Sail ho!' True blue, little wife!"

Now, instead of the stalwart figure of Captain Tree, the slender form of Mr. Homer Hollopeter occupied, but did not fill, the chair beneath the picture. The little gentleman sat huddled disconsolately over some papers, and it was a melancholy face that he lifted in response to Will Jaquith's cheery "How are you, Mr. Homer? pretty well this morning?"

Mr. Homer sighed. "I thank you, William, I thank you!" he said. "My corporal envelope is, I am obliged to you, robust;--a--vigorous;--a--exempt for the moment from the ills that flesh is heir to--Shakespeare; we perceive that even our greatest did not disdain upon occasion to conclude a phrase with a preposition, though the practice is one generally reprehended;--a--condemned;--a--denied the sanction of the critics of our own day. I trust you find yourself in health and spirits, William?"

"Capital!" said Will. "Lily and I and the boy, all as well as can be. I have brought the mail, Mr. Homer. I thought you might not feel like coming down this morning, as you were not well yesterday."

As he spoke, he laid the mail-bag on the table, and, seating himself, proceeded to unlock it. Mr. Homer's eyes brightened in spite of himself; his face grew animated. "That was kind of you, William!" he said. "That was--a--considerate; that was--a--benevolent. I am greatly obliged to you; greatly obliged to you."

He opened the bag with trembling fingers, and began to sort the letters it contained.

"The occupation of twenty years," he continued, plaintively, "is not to be relinquished lightly. If I did not feel that I was leaving it in worthy hands, I--ah! here is a letter for Susan Jennings, from her son.

There is an enclosure, William. Probably Jacob is doing better, and is sending his mother a little money. She is a worthy woman, a worthy woman; I rejoice for Susan. A dutiful son, sir, is an oasis in the desert; a--fountain in a sandy place; a--a number of gratifying things which I cannot at this moment name. You were a dutiful son, William.