Old Lady Number 31 Part 5

"Housewifery," remarked Blossy sagely, as she began to gather her missives together, "is an accomplishment to be scorned in a young husband, but not in an old one. They say there hasn't been a woman inside Samuel's house since he built it, but it's as clean as soap and sand can make it."

"I bet yer," agreed Abe. "Hain't never been no fly inside it, neither, I warrant yer. Fly can't light arter Sam'l's cleanin' up nohaow; he's got ter skate."

"He says he built that little house for me," said the old lady, as she closed down the lid of the trunk. There was a wistful note in Blossy's voice, which made Abraham declare with a burst of sympathy:

"'T ain't no disgrace ter git married at no time of life. Sam'l's a good pervider; why don't yew snap him up ter-day? We'll miss yew a lot; but--"

"Here's the apple-picker right over your head," interrupted Blossy tartly, and Abe felt himself peremptorily dismissed.

Scarcely had he left the attic, however, than she too hastened down the steep, narrow stairs. She spent the remaining hours before train-time in donning her beautiful lace gown, and in making the woman within it as young and ravishing as possible. And lovely, indeed, Blossy looked this day, with a natural flush of excitement on her cheek, a new sparkle in her bright, dark eyes, and with her white hair arranged in a fashion which might have excited a young girl's envy.

The hour for the train came and went, and, lo! for the first time in the history of twenty years Captain Darby did not appear.

Blossy pretended to be relieved, protesting that she was delighted to find that she would now have an extra hour in which to ponder the question. But the second train came and went, and still no Captain Darby.

All the afternoon long Blossy wore her lace gown, thinking although there were no more trains from the eastward that day, that Samuel would still find his way to her. He might drive, as he usually did in June, or he might even walk from his home at Twin Coves, she said.

At night, however, she was obliged to admit that he could not be coming; and then, quivering with honest anxiety for her old friend, Blossy dipped into her emergency fund, which she kept in the heart of a little pink china pig on a shelf in her room,--a pink china pig with a lid made of stiff black hair standing on edge in the middle of his back,--and sent a telegram to Captain Darby, asking if he were sick.

The answer came back slowly by mail, to find Blossy on the verge of a nervous collapse, under the care of all the women in the house.

That letter Blossy never showed to Brother Abe, nor to any one else.

Neither did she treasure it in the sentimental trunk beneath the attic eaves. The letter ran:

DEAR BETSY ANN: I never felt better in my life. Ain't been sick a minute. Just made up my mind I was a old fool, and was going to quit. If you change your intentions at any time, just drop me a postal. As ever,

SAM'L DARBY, ESQ.

"This, Captain Darby, makes your rejection final," vowed Blossy to herself, as she tore the note into fragments and drowned them in the spirits of lavender with which the sisters had been seeking to soothe her distracted nerves.

VIII

THE ANNIVERSARY

About this time Blossy developed a tendency to draw Brother Abraham aside at every opportunity, convenient or inconvenient, in order to put such questions as these to him:

"Did you say it is fully thirty-five years since you and Captain Darby were on the beach together? Do you think he has grown much older? Had he lost his hair then? Did he care for the opposite s.e.x? Was he very brave--or would you say more brave than stubborn and contrary? Isn't it a blessing that I never married him?"

Fearful of the ridicule of the sisters, Blossy was always careful to conduct these inquiries in whispers, or at least in undertones with a great observance of secrecy, sometimes stopping Abe on the stairs, sometimes beckoning him to her side when she was busy about her household tasks on the pretense of requiring his a.s.sistance. On one occasion she even went so far as to inveigle him into holding a skein of wool about his clumsy hands, while she wound the violet worsted into a ball, and delicately inquired if he believed Samuel spoke the truth when he had protested that he had never paid court to any other woman.

Alas, Blossy's frequent tete-a-tetes with the amused but sometimes impatient Abraham started an exceedingly foolish suspicion. When, asked the sisters of one another, did Abe ever help any one, save Blossy, sh.e.l.l dried beans or pick over prunes? When had he ever been known to hold wool for Angy's winding? Not once since wooing-time, I warrant you.

What could this continual hobn.o.bbing and going off into corners mean, except--flirtation?

Ruby Lee whispered it first into Aunt Nancy's good ear. Aunt Nancy indulged in four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, sneezed an amazing number of times, and then acridly informed Ruby Lee that she was a "jealous cat" and always had been one.

However, Aunt Nancy could not refrain from carrying the gossip to Miss Ellie, adding that she herself had been suspicious of Abe's behavior from the start.

"Oh, no, no!" cried the shocked and shrinking spinster. "And Angy so cheerful all the time? I don't believe it."

But whisper, whisper, buzz, buzz, went the gossip, until finally it reached the pink little ears at the side of Miss Abigail's generously proportioned head. The pink ears turned crimson, likewise the adjoining cheeks, and Miss Abigail panted with righteous indignation.

"It all comes of this plagued old winter-time," she declared, sharply biting her thread, for she was mending a table-cloth. "Shet the winders on summer, an' yew ketch the tail of slander in the latch every time.

Naow, ef I hear one word about this 'tarnal foolishness comin' to Angy's ears, or Brother Abe's, or Blossy's either, fer that matter, we'll all have to eat off'n oil-cloth Sundays, the same as weekdays, until I see a more Christian sperit in the house."

She gave the Sunday damask across her lap a pat which showed she was in earnest; and the rebuked sisters glanced at one another, as if to say:

"Suppose the minister should walk in some Sabbath afternoon and find oil-cloth on the table, and ask the reason why?"

They one and all determined to take Aunt Nancy's advice and "sew a b.u.t.ton on their lips."

Fortunately, too, the February thaws had already set in, and the remainder of the winter pa.s.sed without any severe strain on the "b.u.t.tonholes." And at length the welcome spring began to peep forth, calling to the old folks, "Come out, and grow young with the young year!"

With the bursting forth of the new springtide the winter's talk seemed to drop as a withered and dead oak-leaf falls from its winter-bound branches; and Abe stood once more alive to the blessings of renewed approval.

Angy went out of doors with Miss Abigail, and puttered around among the flowers as if they were her own, thanking G.o.d for Abe's increasing popularity in the same breath that she gave thanks for the new buds of the spring.

The anniversary of the Roses' entrance into the Home drew nearer, and Blossy suggested that the best way to celebrate the event would be by means of a "pink tea."

Neither Angy nor Abe, nor in fact half the sisters, had any clear conception of what a tinted function might be; but they one and all seized upon Blossy's idea as if it were a veritable inspiration, and for the time jealousies were forgotten, misunderstandings erased.

Such preparations as were made for that tea! The deaf-and-dumb gardener was sent with a detachment of small boys to fetch from the wayside and meadows armfuls of wild roses for the decorations. Miss Abigail made pink icing for the cake. Ruby Lee hung bleeding-hearts over the dining-room door. Aunt Nancy resurrected from the bottom of her trunk a white lace cap with a rakish-looking pink bow for an adornment, and fastened it to her scant gray hairs in honor of the occasion. Blossy turned her pink china pig, his lid left up-stairs, into a sugar-bowl.

Pink, pink, pink, everywhere; even in Angy's proud cheeks! Pink, and pink, and pink! Abe used to grow dizzy, afterward, trying to recall the various pink articles which graced that tea.

But most delightful surprise of all was his anniversary gift, which was slyly slipped to his place after the discussion of the rose-colored strawberry gelatin. It was a square, five-pound parcel wrapped in pink tissue-paper, tied with pink string, and found to contain so much Virginia tobacco, which Blossy had inveigled an old Southern admirer into sending her for "charitable purposes."

After the presentation of this valuable gift, Abraham felt that the time had come for him to make a speech--practically his maiden speech.

He said at the beginning, more suavely at his ease than he would have believed possible, secure of sympathy and approbation, with Angy's glowing old eyes upon her prodigy, that all the while he had been at the Home, he had never before felt the power to express his grat.i.tude for the welcome which had been accorded him--the welcome which seemed to wear and wear, as if it were all wool and a yard wide, and could never wear out.

The old ladies nodded their heads in approval of this, every face beaming; but as the speech went on the others perceived that Abe had singled out Blossy for special mention,--blind, blind Abraham!--Blossy, who had first proposed admitting him into this paradise; Blossy, who had given up her sunny south chamber to his comfort and Angy's; Blossy, who had been as a "guardeen angel" to him; Blossy, who as a fitting climax to all her sisterly attentions had given him to-day this wonderful, wonderful pink tea, and "this five hull pound o' Virginny terbaccer."

He held the parcel close to his bosom, and went on, still praising Blossy,--this innocent old gentleman,--heedless of Angy's gentle tug at his coat-tail; while Blossy buried her absurdly lovely old face in the pink flush of a wild-rose spray, and the other old ladies stared from him to her, their faces growing hard and cold.

When Abraham sat down, aglow with pride over his oratorical triumphs, his chest expanded, his countenance wrinkled into a thousand guileless, grateful smiles, there was absolute silence.

Then Blossy, her head still bowed as if in shy confusion, began to clap her hands daintily together, whereat a few of the others joined her half-heartedly. A sense of chill crept over Abraham. Accustomed as a rule to deferential attention, did he but say good-morning, by no means aware that his throne had toppled during the winter, he was still forced to perceive that something had gone amiss.

As always when aught troubled his mind, "Father" turned to Angy; but instead of his composed and resourceful little wife he found a scared-faced and trembling woman. Angy had suddenly become conscious of the shadow of the green-eyed monster. Angy's loyal heart was crying out to her mate: "Don't git the sisters daown on yer, Abe, 'cuz then, mebbe, yew'll lose yer hum!" But poor Angeline's lips were so stiff with terror over the prospect of the County House for her husband, that she could not persuade them to speech.

Abraham, completely at sea, turned next to her whom he had called his guardian angel; but Blossy was rising from her seat, a baffling smile of expectancy on her face, the rose spray swinging in her delicate hand as if to the measure of some music too far back in youth for any one else to hear. Blossy had worn that expectant look all day. She might have been delightedly hugging to herself a secret which she had not shared even with the trusted Abraham. She was gowned in her yellow lace, the beauty and grace of which had defied the changing fashions as Blossy's remarkable elegance of appearance had defied the pa.s.sing of the years.

"Brother Abe,"--in her heedlessness of the mischief she had wrought, Blossy seemed almost to sing,--"I never shall forget your speech as long as I live. Will you excuse me now?"