Keziah Coffin Part 4

"I can hardly make it seem possible," she said. "Is it really settled--your salary and everything? And what will you do about your position in Boston?"

"Oh, I'll write Cousin Abner and tell him. Lord love you, HE won't care.

He'll feel that he did his duty in gettin' me the Boston chance and if I don't take it 'tain't his fault. HIS conscience'll be clear. Land sakes!

if I could clean house as easy as some folks clear their consciences I wouldn't have a backache this minute. Yes, the wages are agreed on, too.

And totin' them around won't make my back ache any worse, either," she added drily.

Grace extended her hand.

"Well, Aunt Keziah," she said, "I'm ever and ever so glad for you.

I know you didn't want to leave Trumet and I'm sure everyone will be delighted when they learn that you're going to stay."

"Humph! that includes Laviny Pepper, of course. I cal'late Laviny's delight won't keep her up nights. But I guess I can stand it if she can.

Now, Grace, what is it? You AIN'T real pleased? Why not?"

The girl hesitated.

"Auntie," she said, "I'm selfish, I guess. I'm glad for your sake; you mustn't think I'm not. But I almost wish you were going to do something else. You are going to live in the Regular parsonage and keep house for, of all persons, a Regular minister. Why, so far as my seeing you is concerned, you might as well be in China. You know Uncle Eben."

Keziah nodded understandingly.

"Yes," she said, "I know him. Eben Hammond thinks that parsonage is the presence chamber of the Evil One, I presume likely. But, Grace, you mustn't blame me, and if you don't call I'll know why and I shan't blame you. We'll see each other once in a while; I'll take care of that. And, deary, I HAD to do it--I just had to. If you knew what a load had been took off my mind by this, you'd sympathize with me and understand. I've been happier in Trumet than I ever was anywhere else, though I've seen some dark times here, too. I was born here; my folks used to live here.

My brother Sol lived and died here. His death was a heavy trouble to me, but the heaviest came to me when I was somewheres else and--well, somehow I've had a feelin' that, if there was any real joys ever planned out for me while I'm on this earth, they'd come to me here. I don't know when they'll come. There's times when I can't believe they ever will come, but--There! there! everybody has to bear burdens in this life, I cal'late. It's a vale of tears, 'cordin' to you Come-Outer folks, though I've never seen much good in wearin' a long face and a c.r.a.pe bathin'

suit on that account. Hey? What are you listenin' to?"

"I thought I heard a carriage stop, that was all."

Mrs. Coffin went to the window and peered into the fog.

"Can't see anything," she said. "'Tain't anybody for here, that's sure.

I guess likely 'twas Cap'n Elkanah. He and Annabel were goin' to drive over to Denboro this afternoon. She had some trimmin' to buy. Takes more than fog to separate Annabel Daniels from dressmakin'. Well, there's a little more packin' to do; then I thought I'd go down to that parsonage and take a whack at the cobwebs. I never saw so many in my born days.

You'd think all the spiders from here to Ostable had been holdin' camp meetin' in that shut-up house."

The packing took about an hour. When it was finished, the carpet rolled up, and the last piece of linen placed in the old trunk, Keziah turned to her guest.

"Now, Gracie," she said, "I feel as though I ought to go to the parsonage. I can't do much more'n look at the cobwebs to-night, but to-morrow those spiders had better put on their ascension robes. The end of the world's comin' for them, even though it missed fire for the Millerites when they had their doin's a few years ago. You can stay here and wait, if 'twon't be too lonesome. We'll have supper when I get back."

Grace looked tempted.

"I've a good mind to go with you," she said. "I want to be with you as much as I can, and HE isn't there yet. I'm afraid uncle might not like it, but--"

"Sho! Come along. Eben Hammond may be a chronic sufferer from acute Come-Outiveness, but he ain't a ninny. n.o.body'll see you, anyway. This fog's like charity, it'll cover a heap of sins. Do come right along.

Wait till I get on my things."

She threw a shawl over her shoulders, draped a white knitted "cloud"

over her head, and took from a nail a key, attached by a strong cord to a block of wood eight inches long.

"Elkanah left the key with me," she observed. "No danger of losin' it, is there. Might as well lose a lumber yard. Old Parson Langley tied it up this way, so he wouldn't miss his moorin's, I presume likely. The poor old thing was so nearsighted and absent-minded along toward the last that they say he used to hire Noah Myrick's boy to come in and look him over every Sunday mornin' before church, so's to be sure he hadn't got his wig on stern foremost. That's the way Zeb Mayo tells the yarn, anyhow."

They left the house and came out into the wet mist. Then, turning to the right, in the direction which Trumet, with unconscious irony, calls "downtown," they climbed the long slope where the main road mounts the outlying ridge of Cannon Hill, pa.s.sed Captain Mayo's big house--the finest in Trumet, with the exception of the Daniels mansion--and descended into the hollow beyond. Here, at the corner where the "Lighthouse Lane" begins its winding way over the rolling knolls and dunes to the light and the fish shanties on the "ocean side," stood the plain, straight-up-and-down meeting house of the Regular society.

Directly opposite was the little parsonage, also very straight up and down. Both were painted white with green blinds. This statement is superfluous to those who remember Cape architecture at this period; practically every building from Sandwich to Provincetown was white and green.

They entered the yard, through the gap in the white fence, and went around the house, past the dripping evergreens and the bare, wet lilac bushes, to the side door, the lock of which Keziah's key fitted. There was a lock on the front door, of course, but no one thought of meddling with that. That door had been opened but once during the late pastor's thirty-year tenantry. On the occasion of his funeral the mourners came and went, as was proper, by that solemn portal.

Mrs. Coffin thrust the key into the keyhole of the side door and essayed to turn it.

"Humph!" she muttered, twisting to no purpose; "I don't see why--This must be the right key, because--Well, I declare, if it ain't unlocked already! That's some of Cap'n Elkanah's doin's. For a critter as fussy and particular about some things, he's careless enough about others.

Mercy we ain't had any tramps around here lately. Come in."

She led the way into the dining room of the parsonage. Two of the blinds shading the windows of that apartment had been opened when she and Captain Daniels made their visit, and the dim gray light made the room more lonesome and forsaken in appearance than a deeper gloom could possibly have done. The black walnut extension table in the center, closed to its smallest dimensions because Parson Langley had eaten alone for so many years; the black walnut chairs set back against the wall at regular intervals; the rag carpet and braided mats--homemade donations from the ladies of the parish--on the green painted floor; the dolorous pictures on the walls; "Death of Washington," "Stoning of Stephen," and a still more deadly "fruit piece" committed in oils years ago by a now deceased boat painter; a black walnut sideboard with some blue-and-white crockery upon it; a gilt-framed mirror with another outrage in oils emphasizing its upper half; dust over everything and the cobwebs mentioned by Keziah draping the corners of the ceiling; this was the dining room of the Regular parsonage as Grace saw it upon this, her first visit. The dust and cobwebs were, in her eyes, the only novelties, however. Otherwise, the room was like many others in Trumet, and, if there had been one or two paintings of ships, would have been typical of the better cla.s.s.

"Phew!" exclaimed Keziah, sniffing disgustedly. "Musty and shut up enough, ain't it? Down here in the dampness, and 'specially in the spring, it don't take any time for a house to get musty if it ain't aired out regular. Mr. Langley died only three months ago, but we've been candidatin' ever since and the candidates have been boarded round.

There's been enough of 'em, too; we're awful hard to suit, I guess.

That's it. Do open some more blinds and a window. Fresh air don't hurt anybody--unless it's spiders," with a glare at the loathed cobwebs.

The blinds and a window being opened, more light entered the room. Grace glanced about it curiously.

"So this is going to be your new home now, Aunt Keziah," she observed.

"How queer that seems."

"Um--h'm. Does seem queer, don't it? Must seem queer to you to be so near the headquarters of everything your uncle thinks is wicked. Smell of brimstone any, does it?" she asked with a smile.

"No, I haven't noticed it. You've got a lot of cleaning to do. I wish I could help. Look at the mud on the floor."

Keziah looked.

"Mud?" she exclaimed. "Why, so 'tis! How in the world did that come here? Wet feet, sure's you're born. Man's foot, too. Cap'n Elkanah's, I guess likely; though the prints don't look hardly big enough for his.

Elkanah's convinced that he's a great man and his boots bear him out in it, don't they? Those marks don't look broad enough for his understandin', but I guess he made 'em; n.o.body else could. Here's the settin' room."

She threw open another door. A room gloomy with black walnut and fragrant with camphor was dimly visible.

"Cheerful's a tomb, ain't it?" was Mrs. Coffin's comment. "Well, we'll get some light and air in here pretty soon. Here's the front hall and there's the front stairs. The parlor's off to the left. We won't bother with that yet a while. This little place in here is what Mr. Langley used to call his 'study.' Halloa! how this door sticks!"

The door did stick, and no amount of tugging could get it open, though Grace added her efforts to those of Keziah.

"'Tain't locked," commented Mrs. Coffin, "cause there ain't any lock on it. I guess it's just swelled and stuck from the damp. Though it's odd, I don't remember--Oh, well! never mind. Let's sweeten up this settin'

room a little. Open a window or two in here. We'll have to hurry if we want to do anything before it gets dark. I'm goin' into the kitchen to get a broom."

She hurried out, returning in a moment or two with a broom and a most disgusted expression.

"How's a body goin' to sweep with that?" she demanded, exhibiting the frayed utensil, the business end of which was worn to a stub. "More like a shovel, enough sight. Well, there's pretty nigh dust enough for a shovel, so maybe this'll take off the top layers. S'pose I'll ever get this house fit for Mr. Ellery to live in before he comes? I wonder if he's a particular man?"

Grace, who was struggling with a refractory window, paused for breath.

"I'm sure I don't know," she replied. "I've never seen him."

"Nor I either. Sol was so bad the Sunday he preached that I couldn't go to meetin'. They say his sermon was fine; all about those who go down to the sea in ships. That's what got the parish committee, I guess; they're all old salts. I wonder if he's as fine-lookin' as they say?"

Miss Van Horne tossed her head. She was resting, prior to making another a.s.sault on the window.