Old Lady Number 31 Part 2

Aunt Nancy Smith, who never believed in wearing her heart on her sleeve, sniffed and thumped her cane on the floor.

"Yew young folks," she affirmed, herself having seen ninety-nine winters, while Abigail had known but a paltry sixty-five, "yew allers go an' cut yer pity on the skew-gee. I don't see nothin' ter bawl an'

beller erbout. I say that a'ny man what can't take kere o' himself, not ter mention his wife, should orter go ter the poorhouse."

But the matriarch's voice quavered even more than usual, and as she finished she hastily bent down and felt in her deep skirt-pocket for her snuff-box.

Now the Amazonian Mrs. Homan, a widow for the third time, made st.u.r.dy retort:

"That's jest like yew old maids--always a-blamin' the men. Yew kin jest bet I never would have let one of my husbands go ter the poorhouse. It would have mortified me dretful. It must be a purty poor sort of a woman what can't take care of one man and keep a roof over his head.

Why, my second, Oliver G., used ter say--"

"Oh!" Miss Ellie wrung her hands, "can't we do somethin'?"

"I could do a-plenty," mourned Miss Abigail, "ef I only had been savin'.

Here I git a salary o' four dollars a month, an' not one penny laid away."

"Yew fergit," spoke some one gently, "that it takes consid'able ter dress a matron proper."

Aunt Nancy, who had been sneezing furiously at her own impotence, now found her speech again.

"We're a nice set ter talk erbout dewin' somethin'--a pa.s.sel o' poor ole critters like us!" Her cackle of embittered laughter was interrupted by the low, cultivated voice of the belle of the Home, "b.u.t.terfly Blossy."

"We've _got_ to do something," said Blossy firmly.

When Blossy spoke with such decision, every one of the sisters p.r.i.c.ked up her ears. Blossy might be "a shaller-pate"; she might arrange the golden-white hair of her head as befitted the crowning glory of a young girl, with puffs and rolls and little curls, and--more than one sister suspected--with the aid of "rats"; she might gown herself elaborately in the mended finery of the long ago, the better years; she might dress her lovely big room--the only double bedchamber in the house, for which she had paid a double entrance fee--in all sorts of gewgaws, little ornaments, hand-painted plaques of her own producing, lace bedspreads, embroidered splashers and pillow-shams; she might even permit herself a suitor who came twice a year more punctually than the line-storms, to ask her withered little hand in marriage--but her heart was in the right place, and on occasion she had proved herself a master hand at "fixin'

things."

"Yes," said she, rising to her feet and flinging out her arms with an eloquent gesture, "we've got to do something, and there's just one thing to do, girls: take the captain right here--here"--she brought her hands to the laces on her bosom--"to our hearts!"

At first there was silence, with the ladies staring blankly at Blossy and then at one another. Had they heard aright? Then there came murmurs and exclamations, with Miss Abigail's voice gasping above the others:

"What would the directors say?"

"What do they always say when we ask a favor?" demanded Blossy. "'How much will it cost?' It won't cost a cent."

"Won't, eh?" snapped Aunt Nancy. "How on arth be yew goin' ter vittle him? I hain't had a second dish o' peas this year."

"Some men eat more an' some less," remarked Sarah Jane, as ill-favored a spinster as ever the sun shone on; "generally it means so much grub ter so much weight."

Miss Abigail glanced up at the ceiling, while Lazy Daisy, who had refused to tip the beam for ten years, surrept.i.tiously hid an apple into which she had been biting.

"Le' 's have 'em weighed," suggested a widow, Ruby Lee, with a pretty, well-preserved little face and figure, "an' ef tergether they don't come up to the heartiest one of us--"

Miss Abigail made hasty interruption:

"Gals, hain't yew never noticed that the more yew need the more yew git?

Before Jenny Bell went to live with her darter I didn't know what I should dew, for the taters was gittin' pooty low. Yew know she used ter eat twenty ter a meal an' then look hungry at the platter. An' then ef old Square Ely didn't come a-drivin' up one mornin' with ten bushel in the farm wagon! He'd been savin' 'em fer us all winter fer fear we might run short in the spring. Gals, thar's one thing yew kin depend on, the foresightedness of the Lord. I hain't afraid ter risk a-stretchin'

the board an' keep o' thirty ter pervide ample fer thirty-one. Naow, haow many of yew is willin' ter try it?"

Every head nodded, "I am"; every eye was wet with the dew of merciful kindness; and Mrs. Homan and Sarah Jane, who had flung plates at each other only that morning, were observed to be holding hands.

"But haow on arth be we a-goin' ter sleep him?" proceeded the matron uneasily. "Thar hain't a extry corner in the hull place. Puttin' tew people in No. 30 is out of the question--it's jest erbout the size of a Cinderella s...o...b..x, anyhow, an' the garret leaks--"

She paused, for Blossy was pulling at her sleeve, the real Blossy, warmhearted, generous, self-deprecating.

"I think No. 30 is just the coziest little place for one! Do let me take it, Miss Abigail, and give the couple my great big barn of a room."

Aunt Nancy eyed her suspiciously. "Yew ain't a-gwine ter make a fool o'

yerself, an' jump over the broomstick ag'in?" For Blossy's old suitor, Samuel Darby, had made one of his semiannual visits only that morning.

The belle burst into hysterical and self-conscious laughter, as she found every glance bent upon her.

"Oh, no, no; not that. But I confess that I am tired to death of this perpetual dove-party. I just simply can't live another minute without a man in the house.

"Now, Miss Abigail," she added imperiously, "you run across lots and fetch him home."

IV

ONE OF THEM

Ah! but Abraham slept that night as if he had been drawn to rest under the compelling shelter of the wings of all that flock which in happier days he had dubbed contemptuously "them air old hens." Never afterward could the dazed old gentleman remember how he had been persuaded to come into the house and up the stairs with Angeline. He only knew that in the midst of that heart-breaking farewell at the gate, Miss Abigail, all out of breath with running, red in the face, but exceedingly hearty of manner, had suddenly appeared.

"Shoo, shoo, shoo!" this stout angel had gasped. "Naow, Cap'n Abe, yew needn't git narvous. We 're as harmless as doves. Run right erlong. Yew won't see anybody ter-night. Don't say a word. It's all right. Sssh!

Shoo!" And then, lo! he was not in the County Almshouse, but in a beautiful bright bedchamber with a wreath of immortelles over the mantel, alone with Angy.

Afterward, it all seemed the blur of a dream to him, a dream which ended when he had found his head upon a cool, white pillow, and had felt glad, glad--dear G.o.d, how glad!--to know that Angy was still within reach of his outstretched hand; and so he had fallen asleep. But when he awoke in the morning, there stood Angeline in front of the gla.s.s taking her hair out of curl papers; and then he slowly began to realize the tremendous change that had come into their lives, when his wife committed the unprecedented act of taking her crimps out _before_ breakfast. He realized' that they were to eat among strangers. He had become the guest of thirty "women-folks." No doubt he should be called "Old Gal Thirty-one." He got up and dressed very, very slowly. The bewildered grat.i.tude, the incredulous thanksgiving of last night, were as far away as yesterday's sunset. A great seriousness settled upon Abe's lean face.

At last he burst forth:

"One to thirty! Hy-guy, I'm in fer it!" How had it happened, he wondered. They had given him no time to think. They had swooped down upon him when his brain was dulled with anguish. Virtually, they had kidnapped him. Why had they brought him here to accept charity of a women's inst.i.tution? Why need they thus intensify his sense of shame at his life's failure, and, above all, at his failure to provide for Angeline? In the poorhouse he would have been only one more derelict; but here he stood alone to be stared at and pitied and thrown a sickly-satisfying crumb. With a sigh from the very cellar of his being, he muttered:

"Aye, Mother, why didn't yew let me go on ter the County House? That air's the place fer a worn-out old hull like me. Hy-guy!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, "I'd ruther lay deown an'

die th'n face them air women."

"Thar, thar!" soothingly spoke Angy, laying her hand on his arm. "Thar, thar, Father! Jest think haow dretful I'd feel a-goin' deown without yer."

"So you would!" strangely comforted. "So you would, my dear!" For her sake he tried to brighten up. He joked clumsily as they stood on the threshold of the chamber, whispering, blinking his eyes to make up for the lack of their usually ready twinkle.

"Hol' on a minute; supposin' I fergit whether I be a man er a woman?"

Her love gave inspiration to her answer: "I'll lean on yer, Abe."

Just then there came the loud, imperative clanging of the breakfast-bell; and she urged him to hurry, as "it wouldn't dew" for them to be late the first morning of all times. But he only answered by going back into the room to make an anxious survey of his reflection in the gla.s.s. He shook his head reprovingly at the bearded countenance, as if to say: "You need not pride yourself any longer on looking like Abraham Lincoln, for you have been turned into a miserable old woman."

Picking up the hair-brush, he held it out at arm's length to Angy.