Old Lady Number 31 Part 4

In truth, there had been no drought in the garden that summer, but almost a double yield of corn and beans; no drought in the gifts sent to the Home, but showers of plenty. Some of these came in the form of fresh fish and clams left at the back door; some in luscious fruits; some in barrels of clothing. And the barrels of clothing solved another problem; for no longer did their contents consist solely of articles of feminine attire. "Biled shirts" poured out of them; socks and breeches, derby hats, coats and negligees; until Aunt Nancy with a humorous twist to her thin lips inquired if there were thirty men in this establishment and one woman.

"I never thought I'd come to wearin' a quilted silk basque with tossels on it," Abe remarked one day on being urged to try on a handsome smoking-jacket. "Dew I look like one of them sissy-boys, er jest a dude?"

"It's dretful becoming," insisted Angy, "bewtiful! Ain't it, gals?"

Every old lady nodded her head with an air of proud proprietorship, as if to say, "Nothing could fail to become _our_ brother." And Angy nodded her head, too, in delighted approval of their appreciation of "our brother" and "my husband."

Beautiful, joy-steeped, pleasure-filled days these were for the couple, who had been cramped for life's smallest necessities so many meager years. Angy felt that she had been made miraculously young by the birth of this new Abraham--almost as if at last she had been given the son for whom in her youth she had prayed with impa.s.sioned appeal. Her old-wife love became rejuvenated into a curious mixture of proud mother-love and young-wife leaning, as she saw Abe win every heart and become the center of the community.

"Why, the sisters all think the sun rises an' sets in him," Angy would whisper to herself sometimes, awed by the glorious wonder of it all.

The sisters fairly vied with one another to see how much each could do for the one man among them. Their own preferences and prejudices were magnanimously thrust aside. In a body they besought their guest to smoke as freely in the house as out of doors. Miss Abigail even traded some of her garden produce for tobacco, while Miss Ellie made the old gentleman a tobacco-pouch of red flannel so generous in its proportions that on a pinch it could be used as a chest-protector.

Then Ruby Lee, not to be outdone by anybody, produced, from no one ever discovered where, a mother-of-pearl manicure set for the delight and mystification of the hero; and even Lazy Daisy went so far as to cut some red and yellow tissue-paper into squares under the delusion that some time, somehow, she would find the energy to roll these into spills for the lighting of Abe's pipe. And each and every sister from time to time contributed some gift or suggestion to her "brother's" comfort.

It "plagued" the others, however, to see that none of them could get ahead of Blossy in their n.o.ble endeavors to make Abraham feel himself a light and welcome burden. She it was who discovered that Abe's contentment could not be absolute without griddle-cakes for breakfast three hundred and sixty-five times a year; she it was who first baked him little saucer-cakes and pies because he was partial to edges; and Blossy it was who made out a list of "Don'ts" for the sisters to follow in their treatment of this grown-up, young-old boy.

"Don't scold him when he leaves the doors open. Don't tell him to wipe his feet. Don't ever mention gold-mines or shiftless husbands," etc., etc.

All these triumphs of Blossy's intuition served naturally to spur the others on to do even more for Brother Abe than they had already done, until the old man began to worry for fear that he should "git sp'ilt."

When he lay down for his afternoon nap and the house was dull and quiet without his waking presence, the ladies would gather in groups outside his door as if in a king's antechamber, waiting for him to awaken, saying to one another ever and again, "Sh, sh!" He professed to scoff at the attentions he received, would grunt and growl "Humbug!" yet nevertheless he thrived in this latter-day sunlight. His old bones took on flesh. His aged kindly face, all seamed with care as it had been, filled out, the wrinkles turning into twinkles. Abraham had grown young again. With the return of his youth came the spirit of youth to the Old Ladies' Home. Verily, verily, as Blossy had avowed from the first, they had been in sore need of the masculine presence. The ancient coat and hat which had hung in the hall so long had perhaps served its purpose in keeping the burglars away, but this lifeless subst.i.tute had not prevented the crabbed gnomes of loneliness and discontent from stealing in. Spinster, wife, and widow, they had every one been warped by the testy just-so-ness of the old maid.

Now, instead of fretful discussions of health and food, recriminations and wrangling, there came to be laughter and good-humored chatter all the day long, each sister striving with all her strength to preserve the new-found harmony of the Home. There were musical evenings, when Miss Abigail opened the melodeon and played "Old Hundred," and Abraham was encouraged to pick out with one stiff forefinger "My Grandfather's Clock." "Hymn tunes" were sung in chorus; and then, in answer to Abe's appeal for something livelier, there came time-tried ditties and old, old love-songs. And at last, one night, after leaving the instrument silent, mute in the corner of the parlor for many years, Aunt Nancy Smith dragged out her harp, and, seating herself, reached out her knotted, trembling hands and brought forth what seemed the very echo, so faint and faltering it was, of "Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True."

There was a long silence after she had finished, her head bowed on her chest, her hands dropped to her sides. Abraham spoke first, clearing his throat before he could make the words come.

"_I_ wish I could git a husband fer every one of yer," said he.

And no one was angry, and no one laughed; for they all knew that he was only seeking to express the message conveyed by Nancy's playing--the message of Love, Love triumphant, which cannot age, which over the years and over Death itself always hath the victory.

VII

OLD LETTERS AND NEW

Blossy left the room without a word, and went stealing up the stairs to the little cupboard where she now slept, and where was hung on the wall, in a frame of yellow hollyhocks, painted by her own hand, a photograph of Captain Samuel Darby, the man who had remained obstinately devoted to her since her days of pinafores.

The picture betrayed that Captain Darby wore a wig designed for a larger man, and that the visage beneath was gnarled and weather-beaten, marked with the signs of a stubborn and unreasonable will.

Even now the aged belle could hear him saying: "Here I be, come eround ter pop ag'in. Ready ter hitch?"

Samuel's inelegant English had always been a source of distress to Blossy; yet still she stared long at the picture.

Six months had pa.s.sed since his last visit; to-morrow would be the date of his winter advent.

Should she give the old unvarying answer to his tireless formula?

She glanced around the tiny room. Ashamed though she was to admit it even to herself, she missed that ample and cozy chamber which she had so freely surrendered to Abraham and his wife. She missed it, as she felt they must crave their very own fireside; and the thought that they missed the old homestead made her yearn for the home that she might have had--the home that she still might have.

Again she brought her eyes back to the portrait; and now she saw, not the characteristics which had always made it seem impossible for her and Samuel to jog together down life's road, but the great truth that the face was honest and wholesome, while the eyes looked back into hers with the promise of an unswerving care and affection.

The next morning found Blossy kneeling before a plump, little, leather-bound, time-worn trunk which she kept under the eaves of the kitchen chamber. The trunk was packed hard with bundles of old letters.

Some her younger fingers had tied with violet ribbon; some they had bound with pink; others she had fastened together with white silk cord; and there were more and more bundles, both slim and stout, which Blossy had distinguished by some special hue of ribbon in the long ago, each tint marking a different suitor's missives.

To her still sentimental eye the colors remained unfaded, and each would bring to her mind instantly the picture of the writer as he had been in the golden days. But save to Blossy's eye alone there were no longer any rainbow tints in the little, old trunk; for every ribbon and every cord had faded into that musty, yellow brown which is dyed by the pa.s.sing of many years.

Abraham discovered her there, too engrossed in the perusal of one of the old letters to have heeded his creaking steps upon the stairs.

"Didn't see yer, till I 'most stumbled on yer," he began apologetically.

"I come fer the apple-picker. Thar's a handful of russets in the orchard yit, that's calc'latin' ter spend Christmas up close ter heaven; but--Say, Blossy," he added more loudly, since she did not raise her head, "yew seen anythin' o' that air picker?"

Blossy glanced up from her ragged-edged crackly _billet-doux_ with a start, and dropped the envelop to the floor.

For the moment, so deep in reminiscence was she, she thought Captain Darby himself had surprised her; then, recognizing Abe and recalling that Samuel's winter visits were invariably paid in the afternoon, she broke into a shamefaced laugh.

"Oh, is that you, Brother Abe? Don't tell the others what you found me doing. These," with a wave of her delicate, blue-veined hands over the trunk and its contents, "are all old love-letters of mine. Do you think I'm a silly old goose to keep them cluttering around so long?"

"Wa'al,"--Abe with an equally deprecatory gesture indicated Angy's horsehair trunk in the far corner of the loft,--"yew ain't no more foolisher, I guess, over yer old trash 'n me an' Angy be a-keepin' that air minin' stock of mine. One lot is wuth 'bout as much as t'other."

Recovering the envelop that she had dropped, he squinted at the superscription. "Not meanin' ter be inquisitive or personal, Sister Blossy," a teasing twinkle appearing in his eye, "but this looks dretful familitary, this here handwritin' does. When I run the beach--yew've heard me tell of the time I was on the Life-savin' Crew over ter Bleak Hill fer a spell--my cap'n he had a fist jest like that. Useter make out the spickest, spannest reports. Lemme see," the twinkle deepening, "didn't the gals say yew was a 'spectin' somebody ter-day? Law, I ain't saw Cap'n Sam'l fer ten year or more. I guess on these here poppin'

trips o' his'n he hain't wastin' time on no men-folks. But, Blossy, yew better give me a chance ter talk to him this arternoon, an' mebbe I'll speak a good word fer yer."

Blossy, not always keen to see a joke, and with her vanity now in the ascendant, felt the color rise into her withered cheek.

"Oh, you needn't take the trouble to speak a good word for me. Any man who could ever write a letter like this doesn't need to be coaxed. Just listen:

"The man you take for a mate is the luckiest dog in the whole round world. I'd rather be him than king of all the countries on earth. I'd rather be him than strike a gold-mine reaching from here to China. I'd rather be him than master of the finest vessel that ever sailed blue water. That's what I would. Why, the man who couldn't be happy with you would spill tears all over heaven."

Blossy's cheek was still flushed, but no longer with pique. Her voice quavered, and broke; and finally there fell upon the faded page of the letter two sparkling tears.

Abraham shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other; then, muttering something about the "pesky apple-hook," went scuffing across the floor in the direction of the chimney.

Blossy, however, called him back. "I was crying, Brother Abe, because the man I did take for a mate once was not happy, and--and neither was I. I was utterly wretched; so that I've always felt I never cared to marry again. And--and Samuel's wig is always slipping down over one eye, and I simply cannot endure that trick he has of carrying his head to one side, as if he had a left-handed spell of the mumps. It nearly drives me frantic.

"Brother Abe, now tell me honestly: do you think he would make a good husband?"

Abe cleared his throat. Blossy was in earnest. Blossy could not be laughed at. She was his friend, and Angy's friend; and she had come to him as to a brother for advice. He too had known Samuel as man to man, which was more than any of the sisters could say.

Stroking his beard thoughtfully, therefore, he seated himself upon a convenient wooden chest, while Blossy slipped her old love-letter in and out of the envelop, with that essentially feminine manner of weighing and considering.

"Naow," began Abe at length, "this is somep'n that requires keerful debatin'. Fust off, haowsomever, yew must remember that wigs an' ways never made a man yit. Ez I riccollec' Sam'l, he was pooty good ez men go. I should say he wouldn't be any more of a risk tew yew than I was tew Angy; mebbe less. He's got quite a leetle laid by, I understand, an'

a tidy story-an'-a-half house, an' front stoop, an', by golly, can't he cook! He's a splendid housekeeper."