With the Procession Part 8

"Did you read that paragraph last week," she asked, suddenly, "about my having been a washer-woman once?"

"No. What was it in?"

"One of those miserable society papers. Do you know there's a man in this town who makes his living by sending such things to New York? Something scandalous, if possible; if not scandalous, then libellous; if not actually libellous, then derogatory and offensive."

"I never read such stuff," said Jane; "especially about people I like. I always skip it,"

"Yes, but it's true. I can't deny it. I _was_ a washerwoman for a whole year. I washed all Granger's shirts and starched them and ironed them, and put them away and got them out and washed them again for months and months. Every one went through the mill pretty often, too; there weren't very many of them.

"Those are Granger's shirts out on the line there, now--the big ones.

Those in the other row are Jimmy's--the little ones."

"H'm!" observed Jane, standing beside her at the window; "which _are_ the little ones?"

Mrs. Bates laughed. "Well, perhaps there isn't much difference. Jimmy is eighteen and large for his age, but of course his _seem_ the littlest. I had them made in the house, but he set off to college before I could finish with them. Perhaps they're just as well here, until the Soph.o.m.ores have finished with _him_.

"Yes," she went on, proudly, "I could wash shirts then, and I can make shirts now. A woman, it seems to me, may do anything for herself or for those belonging to her; and I've always tried to be a lady and a woman too. I made all Jimmy's b.u.t.ton-holes and worked all the initials on the tabs." She looked appealingly at Jane. "I know you think I'm a silly old thing...."

"I don't either!" cried Jane, loudly, with a tremble on her lip and a hot tear starting in each eye. "I don't either; you know I don't! You know what I think! You're a dear, good, lovely woman; and I've been just as mean and hateful to you as I could! I don't see," she went on, in a great burst on contrition, "how you could talk to me; I don't see how you could let me stay one minute in your house. If you only knew all the mean, ugly, uncharitable things I have thought about you since that man let me in! How could you stand me? How could you keep from having me turned out?"

"I am used to being misunderstood," said Mrs. Bates, quietly. "I took you at first for your father's sake, and I kept you for your own. It's a long time since I have met a girl like you; I didn't suppose there was one left in the whole town. You are one of _us_--the old settlers, the aborigines. Do you know what I'm going to do some time? I'm going to have a regular aboriginal pow-wow, and all the old-timers shall be invited.

We'll have a reel, and forfeits, and all sorts of things; and off to one side of the wigwam there shall be two or three beautiful young squaws to pour firewater. Will you be one of them?"

"Well," Jane hesitated, "I'm not so very young, you know; nor so very beautiful, either."

"You are to me," responded Mrs. Bates, with a caloric brevity.

"n.o.body shall come," she went on, "who wasn't here before the War. Those who came before the Incorporation--that was in '37, wasn't it?--shall be doubly welcome. And if I can find any one who pa.s.sed through the Ma.s.sacre (as an infant, you understand), he shall have the head place. I mean to ask your father--and your mother," she added, with a firm but delicate emphasis. "I must call on her presently."

She fixed her eyes on the fireplace. "I suppose I was silly--the way I acted when your father married," she went on, carefully. "We were only friends; there was really nothing between us; but I was piqued and--oh, well, you know how it is."

"I!" cried Jane, routed by her alarm from her contrite and tearful mood.

"I? Not the least bit, I a.s.sure you!" She blushed and gulped and ducked her head and half hid her face behind her hand. "Not the least in the world. Why, if I were to die to-morrow n.o.body would care but pa and ma and Roger and Truesdale and Alice; well--and Rosy; yes, perhaps Rosy would care for me--if I was dead. But n.o.body else; oh, dear, no!" She stared at Mrs. Bates with a hard, wide brightness.

Mrs. Bates considerately shifted her gaze to the front of the bureau. She ran her eye down one row of k.n.o.bs: "I wonder who he is?" And up the other: "I hope he is worthy of her."

Doubly considerate, she turned her back, too. She began to rummage among the drawers of her old desk. "There!" she said, presently, "I knew I could put my hands on it."

She set a daguerreotype before Jane. Its oval was bordered with a narrow line of gilded metal and its small square back was covered with embossed brown leather. "There, now! Do you know who that is?"

Jane looked back and forth doubtfully between the picture and its owner.

"Is it--is it--pa?"

Mrs. Bates nodded.

Jane regarded the daguerreotype with a puzzled fascination. "Did my father ever wear his hair all wavy across his forehead that way, and have such a thing tied around his throat, and wear a vest all covered with those little gold sprigs?"

"Precisely. That's just the way he looked the last time we danced together. And what do you suppose the dance was? Guess and guess and guess again! It was this."

Mrs. Bates whisked herself on to the piano-stool and began to play and to sing. Her touch was heavy and spirited, but her voice was easily audible above the instrument.

"'Old Dan Tucker, he got drunk; He jumped in the fire and he kicked up a chunk Of red-hot charcoal with his shoe.

Lordy! how the ashes flew-hoo!'"

Jane dropped the daguerreotype in time to take up the refrain:

"'Clear the road for old Dan Tucker!

You're too late to get your supper.

Clear the road for old Dan--'"

"Aha! you know it!" cried Mrs. Bates, gayly.

"Of course," responded Jane. "My education may be modern, on the whole; but it hasn't neglected the cla.s.sics completely! Gentlemen forward!" she said, with a sudden cry, which sent Mrs. Bates's fingers back to the keyboard; "_gentlemen_ forward to Mister Tucker!" Mrs. Bates pounded loudly, and Jane pirouetted up to her from behind.

"_Ladies_ forward to Mister Tucker!" cried Jane, and Mrs. Bates left the stool and began dancing towards her. Then she danced back and took her seat again; but with the first chord:

"ALL forward to Mister Tucker!" called Jane again; and they met face to face in the middle of the room and burst out laughing. The door opened on a narrow crack, and there appeared Miss Peters's plaintive and inquiring countenance.

Mrs. Bates banished her a.s.sistant by one look of pathetic protest.

"There!" she said, transferring the look to Jane, "you see how it always is when I am trying to have a good time! Even at my own table I can't budge or crack a joke; with those two men behind my chair I feel like my own tombstone. Lock that door," she said to Jane; "I _will_ have a good time, in spite of them! Sit down; I'm going to play the 'Java March' for you."

She struck out several ponderous and vengeful chords. "Why," called Jane, "is _that_ the 'Java March'?"

She spread out her elbows and stalked up and down singing:

"'Oh, the _Dutch_ compa-_nee_ Is the _best_ compa-_nee_!'"

"Right again!" cried Mrs. Bates. "You _are_ one of us--just as I said!"

"Well, if that's the 'Java March,'" said Jane, "it's in an old book we used to have about the house years and years ago. Only, if you bring it up as an example of pa's taste--"

"He liked it because I played it, perhaps," said Mrs. Bates, quietly.

"Besides, why should you put it to those shocking words? It _is_ in that book," she continued, "and I've got one here just like it."

"Is it the one with 'Roll on, Silver Moon,' and 'Wild roved the Indian maid, bright What's-her-name'?"

"Bright Alfarata. Same one, exactly. Bring up another chair, and we'll go through a whole programme of cla.s.sics--pruggrum, I mean."

"Let's see, though," said Jane, looking at her watch. "Mercy me! where has the morning gone? It's after eleven o'clock."

"Supposing it is after eleven; supposing it was after a hundred and eleven? You're going to stay to lunch."