Timothy's Quest Part 13

"I've heerd that story afore, 'n' I won't go 'long tell I hear you step foot on the floor."

"Scoot! I tell yer I'll be out in a jiffy."

"Yes, I think I see yer. Your jiffies are consid'able like golden opportunities, there ain't more 'n one of 'em in a lifetime!" and having shot this Parthian arrow Samantha departed, as one having done her duty in that humble sphere of action to which it had pleased Providence to call her.

These were beautiful autumn days at the White Farm. The orchards were gleaming, the grapes hung purple on the vines, and the odor of ripening fruit was in the hazy air. The pink spirea had cast its feathery petals by the gray stone walls, but the welcome golden-rod bloomed in royal profusion along the brown waysides, and a crimson leaf hung here and there in the treetops, just to give a hint of the fall styles in color.

Heaps of yellow pumpkins and squashes lay in the corners of the fields; cornstalks bowed their heads beneath the weight of ripened ears; beans threatened to burst through their yellow pods; the sound of the thres.h.i.+ng machine was heard in the land; and the "hull univa.r.s.e wanted to be waited on to once," according to Jabe Sloc.u.m; for, as he affirmed, "Yer couldn't ketch up with your work nohow, for if yer set up nights 'n' worked Sundays, the c.r.a.ps 'd ripen 'n' go to seed on yer 'fore yer could git 'em harvested!"

And if there was peace and plenty without there was quite as much within doors.

"I can't hardly tell what's the matter with me these days," said Samantha Ann to Miss Vilda, as they sat peeling and slicing apples for drying. "My heart has felt like a stun these last years, and now all to once it's so soft I'm ashamed of it. Seems to me there never was such a summer! The hay never smelt so sweet, the birds never sang so well, the currants never jelled so hard! Why I can't kick the cat, though she's more everlastin'ly under foot 'n ever, 'n' pretty soon I sha'n't even have sprawl enough to jaw Jabe Sloc.u.m. I b'lieve it's nothin' in the world but them children! They keep a runnin' after me, 'n' it's dear Samanthy here, 'n' dear Samanthy there, jest as if I warn't a hombly old maid; 'n' they take holt o' my hands on both sides o' me, 'n' won't stir a step tell I go to see the chickens with 'em, 'n' the pig, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother, 'n' clappin' their hands when I make 'em gingerbread men! And that reminds me, I see the school-teacher goin' down along this mornin', 'n' I run out to see how Timothy was gittin' along in his studies. She says he's the most ex-tra-ordi-nary scholar in this deestrick. She says he takes holt of every book she gives him jest as if 't was reviewin' 'stid o' the first time over. She says when he speaks pieces, Friday afternoons, all the rest o' the young ones set there with their jaws hanging 'n' some of 'em laughin' 'n' cryin' 't the same time.

She says we'd oughter see some of his comp'sitions, 'n' she'll show us some as soon as she gits 'em back from her beau that works at the Waterbury Watch Factory, and they're goin' to be married 's quick as she gits money enough saved up to buy her weddin' close; 'n' I told her not to put it off too long or she'd hev her close on her hands, 'stid of her back. She says Timothy's at the head of the hull cla.s.s, but, land! there ain't a boy in it that knows enough to git his close on right sid' out.

She's a splendid teacher, Miss Boothby is! She tells me the seeleck men hev raised her pay to four dollars a week 'n' she to board herself, 'n'

she's wuth every cent of it. I like to see folks well paid that's got the patience to set in doors 'n' cram information inter young ones that don't care no more 'bout learn in' 'n' a skunk-blackbird. She give me Timothy's writin' book, for you to see what he writ in it yesterday, 'n'

she hed to keep him in 't recess 'cause he didn't copy 'Go to the ant thou sluggard and be wise,' as he'd oughter. Now let's see what 't is.

My grief! it's poetry sure 's you're born. I can tell it in a minute 'cause it don't come out to the aidge o' the book one side or the other.

Read it out loud, Vildy."

"'Oh! the White Farm and the White Farm!

I love it with all my heart; And I'm to live at the White Farm, Till death it do us part.'"

Miss Vilda lifted her head, intoxicated with the melody she had evoked.

"Did you ever hear anything like that," she exclaimed proudly.

"'Oh! the White Farm and the White Farm!

I love it with all my heart; And I'm to live at the White Farm, Till death it do us part.'"

"Just hear the sent'ment of it, and the way it sings along like a tune.

I'm goin' to show that to the minister this very night, and that boy's got to have the best education there is to be had if we have to mortgage the farm."

Samantha Ann was right. The old homestead wore a new aspect these days, and a love of all things seemed to have crept into the hearts of its inmates, as if some beneficent fairy of a spider were spinning a web of tenderness all about the house, or as if a soft light had dawned in the midst of great darkness and was gradually brightening into the perfect day.

In the midst of this new-found gladness and the sweet cares that grew and multiplied as the busy days went on, Samantha's appet.i.te for happiness grew by what it fed upon, so that before long she was a little unhappy that other people (some more than others) were not as happy as she; and Aunt Hitty was heard to say at the sewing-circle (which had facilities for gathering and disseminating news infinitely superior to those of the a.s.sociated Press), that Samantha Ann Ripley looked so peart and young this summer, Dave Milliken had better s.p.u.n.k up and try again.

But, alas! the younger and fresher and happier Samantha looked, the older and sadder and meeker David appeared, till all hopes of his "s.p.u.n.king up" died out of the village heart; and, it might as well be stated, out of Samantha's also. She always thought about it at sun-down, for it was at sun-down that all their quarrels and reconciliations had taken place, inasmuch as it was the only leisure time for week-day courting at Pleasant River.

It was sun-down now; Miss Vilda and Jabez Sloc.u.m had gone to Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, and Samantha was looking for Timothy to go to the store with her on some household errands. She had seen the children go into the garden a half hour before, Timothy walking gravely, with his book before him, Gay blowing over the gra.s.s like a feather, and so she walked towards the summer-house.

Timothy was not there, but little Lady Gay was having a party all to herself, and the scene was such a pretty one that Samantha stooped behind the lattice and listened.

There was a table spread for four, with bits of broken china and sh.e.l.ls for dishes, and pieces of apple and gingerbread for the feast. There were several dolls present (notably one without any head, who was not likely to s.h.i.+ne at a dinner party), but Gay's first-born sat in her lap; and only a mother could have gazed upon such a battered thing and loved it. For Gay took her pleasures madly, and this faithful creature had shared them all; but not having inherited her mother's somewhat rare recuperative powers, she was now fit only for a free bed in a hospital,--a state of mind and body which she did not in the least endeavor to conceal. One of her shoe-b.u.t.ton eyes dangled by a linen thread in a blood-curdling sort of way; her nose, which had been a pink gla.s.s bead, was now a mere spot, ambiguously located. Her red worsted lips were sadly raveled, but that she did not regret, "for it was kissin' as done it." Her yarn hair was attached to her head with safety-pins, and her internal organs intruded themselves on the public through a gaping wound in the side. Never mind! if you have any curiosity to measure the strength of the ideal, watch a child with her oldest doll. Rags sat at the head of the dinner-table, and had taken the precaution to get the headless doll on his right, with a view to eating her gingerbread as well as his own,--doing no violence to the proprieties in this way, but rather concealing her defects from a carping public.

"I tell you sompfin' ittle Mit Vildy Tummins," Gay was saying to her battered offspring. "You 's doin' to have a new ittle sit-ter to-mowowday, if you 's a dood ittle dirl an does to seep nite an kick, you _ser-weet_ ittle Vildy Tummins!" (All this punctuated with ardent squeezes fraught with delicious agony to one who had a wound in her side!) "Vay fink you 's worn out, 'weety, but we know you isn't, don'

we, 'weety? An I'll tell you nite ittle tory to-night, tause you isn't seepy. Wunt there was a ittle day hen 'at tole a net an' laid fir-teen waw edds in it, an bime bye erleven or seventeen ittle chits f'ew out of 'em, an Mit Vildy 'dopted 'em all! In 't that a nite tory, you _ser-weet_ ittle Mit Vildy Tummins?"

Samantha hardly knew why the tears should spring to her eyes as she watched the dinner party,--unless it was because we can scarcely look at little children in their unconscious play without a sort of sadness, partly of pity and partly of envy, and of longing too, as for something lost and gone. And Samantha could look back to the time when she had sat at little tables set with bits of broken china, yes, in this very summer-house, and little Martha was always so gay, and David used to laugh so! "But there was no use in tryin' to make folks any dif'rent, 'specially if they was such nat'ral born fools they couldn't see a hole in a grindstun 'thout hevin' it hung on their noses!" and with these large and charitable views of human nature, Samantha walked back to the gate, and met Timothy as he came out of the orchard. She knew then what he had been doing. The boy had certain quaint thoughts and ways that were at once a revelation and an inspiration to these two plain women, and one of them was this. To step softly into the side orchard on pleasant evenings, and without a word, before or afterwards, to lay a nosegay on Martha's little white doorplate. And if Miss Vilda chanced to be at the window he would give her a quiet little smile, as much as to say, "We have no need of words, we two!" And Vilda, like one of old, hid all these doings in her heart of hearts, and loved the boy with a love pa.s.sing knowledge.

Samantha and Timothy walked down the hill to the store. Yes, David Milliken was sitting all alone on the loafer's bench at the door, and why wasn't he at prayer-meetin' where he ought to be? She was glad she chanced to have on her clean purple calico, and that Timothy had insisted on putting a pink Ma'thy Was.h.i.+ngton geranium in her collar, for it was just as well to make folks' mouth water whether they had sense enough to eat or not.

"Who is that sorry-looking man that always sits on the bench at the store, Samanthy?"

"That's David Milliken."

"Why does he look so sorry, Samanthy?"

"Oh, he's all right. He likes it fust-rate, wearin' out that hard bench settin' on it night in 'n' night out, like a b.u.mp on a log! But, there, Timothy, I've gone 'n' forgot the whole pepper, 'n' we're goin' to pickle seed cowc.u.mbers to-morrer. You take the lard home 'n' put it in the cold room, 'n' ondress Gay 'n' git her to bed, for I've got to call int' Mis' Mayhew's goin' along back."

It was very vexatious to be obliged to pa.s.s David Milliken a second time; "though there warn't no sign that he cared anything about it one way or 'nother, bein' blind as a bat, 'n' deef as an adder, 'n' dumb as a fish, 'n' settin' stockstill there with no coat on, 'n' the wind blowin' up for rain, 'n' four o' the Millikens layin' in the churchyard with gallopin' consumption." It was in this frame of mind that she purchased the whole pepper, which she could have eaten at that moment as calmly as if it had been marrow-fat peas; and in this frame of mind she might have continued to the end of time had it not been for one of those unconsidered trifles that move the world when the great forces have given up trying. As she came out of the store and pa.s.sed David, her eye fell on a patch in the flannel s.h.i.+rt that covered his bent shoulders.

The s.h.i.+rt was gray and (oh, the pity of it!) the patch was red; and it was laid forlornly on outside, and held by straggling st.i.tches of carpet thread put on by patient, clumsy fingers. That patch had an irresistible pathos for a woman!

Samantha Ann Ripley never exactly knew what happened. Even the wisest of down-East virgins has emotional lapses once in a while, and she confessed afterwards that her heart riz right up inside of her like a yeast cake. Mr. Berry, the postmaster, was in the back of the store reading postal cards. Not a soul was in sight. She managed to get down over the steps, though something with the strength of tarred s.h.i.+p-ropes was drawing her back; and then, looking over her shoulder with her whole brave, womanly heart in her swimming eyes, she put out her hand and said, "Come along, Dave!"

And David straightway gat him up from the loafer's bench and went unto Samantha gladly.

And they remembered not past unhappiness because of present joy; nor that the chill of coming winter was in the air, because it was summer in their hearts: and this is the eternal magic of love.