Running To Waste

CHAPTER III.

MRS. THOMPSON’S CROSS

The captain cantered home in no enviable state of mind. His mission had been successful, in as much as he had gained Mrs. Sleeper’s consent to his plan for “tying up” her children. Otherwise he felt unhappy regarding the events of the day. There were still stinging pains in his ankles and back to remind him of Miss Becky’s exploit, and the shrill, sarcastic voice of Hulda Prime still rang in his ears. That so miserable a creature as he considered her should have dared to criticise his conduct was peculiarly mortifying to his pride. Aunt Hulda had, indeed, spoken boldly. He was, undoubtedly the greatest man in Cleverly. Senior deacon in the church, moderator at town meetings, referee in all disputes, and general adviser of his fellow-townsmen, he was a man to be treated with respect, a man who would brook no interference with his plans, a man whose opinions must not be combatted, and one whom people did not think it safe to thwart. And this poor old hanger-on at people’s firesides had dared to criticise a proceeding which others had not the courage to mention in his presence. And he had not the power to punish her. Poor Aunt Hulda was never thought so much of before by a man as she was by the captain during his homeward ride.

Gloomily he rode into the yard, and consigned Uncle Ned to the care of Phil Hague, his man-of-all-work, who advanced smiling, to meet him, undeterred by the black looks of his master.

“By me sowl, cap’n, dear, it’s a fine lather yez given owld Uncle Ned. Is it fur ye’ve rode?”

“No,” shortly replied the captain.

“Is that so? Thin what’s the matter wid the baste? Shure he’s not looked so wary loike since – since Master Harry – ”

“Shut up, you fool!” thundered the captain. “It’s your business to take care of him, and not to ask impertinent questions.” And he stamped into the house, muttering, “Am I never to hear the last of that boy?”

Phil scratched his head, and looked after the captain.

“Shure there’s an aist wind blowin’, an’ we’ll have to be afther scuddin’ under bare poles, jist.”

Gloomily the captain stalked through the various sections of his establishment, until he reached the front sitting-room, and found himself in the presence of his wife.

Mrs. Thompson was the queen of Cleverly society. The mention of her name in any company was enough to make the most silent tongue suddenly eloquent. She was plump in person and plump in virtues. Her face was just round and full enough to please everybody. No one had such rosy cheeks as Mrs. Thompson, “at her time of life too!” There was the kindliest light in her grey eyes, and the jolliest puckers about her mouth; and the short gray curls that flourished all over her head formed a perfect crown of beauty – nothing else. Cleverly folks were proud of her, and well they might be. She was everybody’s friend. She not only ministered to the wants of the needy, but she sought them out. She was the first at the bedside of the sick, and the last to give them up, for she was as well skilled in domestic medicine as she was in domestic cooking, and superior in both. She was a wondrous helper, for she knew just where to put her hands, and an enchanting talker, for she never spoke ill of anybody. She was a devout sister of the church, promulgating the true religious doctrines of faith, hope, and charity with no sanctimonious face, but purifying and warming with the incense of good deeds and the sunshine of a life cheerful, hopeful, and energetic. She had her cross to bear – who has not? – but she so enveloped it in the luxuriant branches of the tree of usefulness rooted in her own heart, that its burden lay easy on her broad, matronly shoulders.

On the captain’s entrance she was seated in a low rocking-chair, darning one of her husband’s socks. She looked up, with a smile upon her face.

“Ah, father! back early to-day!”

“Father!” snapped the captain, as he flung himself upon a sofa. “Why will you insist on calling me by that name? Haven’t I repeatedly asked you not to?”

“So you have Paul, so you have; and I’ve repeatedly disobeyed you,” cheerfully answered the good woman. “I didn’t mean to; but women are so forgetful! I’ll be more careful in future, fath – Dear me, there it is again!”

“There, there! what’s the use of talking to you? But I won’t have it. I tell you I’m no father. I won’t be a father. When that boy took the reins in his own hands, I cut him out of my heart. I’ll never, never own him!”

Mrs. Thompson bit her lips. Evidently the cross was bearing down hard upon her. Only an instant, and the smile came back.

“You rode up from the bridge. Been over to Delia’s?”

“Yes, I’ve been over to Delia’s. That woman, and that woman’s young ones, will drive me crazy.”

“Then I wouldn’t go over there, if I were you. Let me be your messenger in future.”

“No, marm. I’ve taken this case into my own hands, and I mean to finish it. When Sleeper disappeared, I told you not to go near them, for I knew that you would be just foolish enough to fix them up so comfortably, she would lead an idle life; and I wasn’t going to have anything of the kind going on. She’s got to come to hard work, and she might as well commence first as last. Its a mystery to me how she’s got along so well as she has.”

It was no mystery to Mrs. Thompson. She had been forbidden to go, but not to send; and many and heavy had been the burdens her messengers had carried across the river to the little brown house on the hill.

“But I’ve settled things now,” continued the captain. “Next Monday the young ones go to school.”

“Next Monday! No, no; don’t send them then!” cried Mrs. Thompson, with a shade of alarm in her manner.

“And why not? I’d like to know. Next Monday the term begins.”

“Yes; but – but hadn’t you better wait a few days?”

“Wait? wait? I won’t wait a moment after the doors open. Next Monday they go, bright and early.”

“Just as you say, Paul,” said Mrs. Thompson, with a sigh. “How is Delia? looking well?”

“No; she looks bad. Think she might, with that grumbling old crone fastened on to her.”

“Old crone! Why, Paul, whom do you mean?”

“Hulda Prime. She’s dropped in there to ‘help!’ Help make her miserable; that’s all she’ll do. Plaguy old busybody, meddling in other people’s affairs! I wish the town was well rid of her.”

“She is rather an encumbrance – that’s a fact,” quietly replied Mrs. Thompson. “But we are never troubled with her.”

“She knows better than to come near me,” said the captain, with a wise shake of the head. “Why, she had the impudence to taunt me with having turned my own son out of doors!”

“Indeed!” said his wife, hardly able to conceal a smile.

“Yes, she did; and she’d heard that, spite of me, the boy had gone through college. Plague take her!”

“Indeed! Well, Aunt Hulda never picks her words. She is sometimes very aggravating.”

“Aggravating! She’s insolent. The idea of her daring to talk so to me! O, if there was only a law to shut the mouths of such meddling old tattlers, I’d spend every cent I have but what I’d lock her up where her voice could never be heard!”

The captain, unable longer to keep quiet, here rose, dashed about the room two or three times, then darted out, and his angry tirade died away in the distance as he made his way to the barn.

Mrs Thompson sat quiet a moment, then burst into such a merry peal of laughter that the Canary in the cage above her head was inspired, and burst into a torrent of song. The audacity of Aunt Hulda seemed to affect Mrs. Thompson far less severely than it did her husband, for that was the cause of her mirth.

Had Captain Thompson really been a bad man, his frequent outbursts of passion might have terrified, and his fierce threats have pained her; but a long acquaintance with the defect in his otherwise good disposition had made these stormy passages too familiar to be dreaded. His one defect – Mrs. Thompson’s cross – was obstinacy. Give the man his own way, and he was ready for any good act or work: thwart him in the slightest particular, and he was immovable. And so Mrs. Thompson, like a wise woman, never openly arrayed herself against his wishes or opinions. And yet the captain would have been astonished, had he calmly investigated the matter, to find how seldom he really had his own way. This shrewd woman knowing it was useless to combat his stubborn spirit, was continually setting up safety-rods to attract this destructive fluid where it could do no harm; contriving plans for him to combat, herself triumphing in their downfall, while he exulted in his supposed victory.

Miss Becky’s career was a case in point. She had been pained to see and hear of the girl’s wild, mischievous pranks, and felt it was time she should be sent to school. She took occasion one day when, in sight of the window, Becky had climbed up the lightning-rod on the church, and seated herself in a window over the door, to call her husband’s attention to the fact, with the remark that “such exercise must be excellent for a girl’s constitution.” The captain fired up at once, denounced such tomboy tricks, and declared the girl should go to school, or he’d know the reason why.

And so thanks to Mrs Thompson, and not her husband, Becky was to be turned from the error of her ways. The captain was a liberal man; his purse was always open to the demands of his wife. She might cover every bed in the parish with comforters, clothe the poor, and feed the hungry, to her heart’s content; he would never stop to count the cost. And so she often managed to repair damages his temper had caused, out of his own purse.

But the man’s obstinacy had brought one serious disaster, which she found all her woman’s wit necessary to repair. It had driven their only child from his home, and made a breach between father and son which might never be healed.

Harry Thompson, at the age of fifteen, was a leader among the boys of Cleverly. He was brave, skilful, and mischievous. He was looked upon as a hero by his playfellows, whom he could incite to the performance of wonderful gymnastic feats, or to the perpetration of boyish tricks hardly as creditable. Among his enthusiastic admirers was Becky Sleeper, then ten years of age, whom, being a special favorite of his, he took pains to train in all the sports with which he was familiar. He was then attending the school; no interested student, but very quick and apt to learn, standing fair in his class. The next year he was sent to the academy; and a suddenly-acquired taste for learning so fired his ambitious spirit that at the end of the second year he graduated at the head of his class, with the reputation of being a remarkable scholar. Then, hungry for knowledge, he wanted to go to college. But Captain Thompson had already planned a course for his son. He had book-learning enough; he wanted him to be a practical man. He should go into the yard and learn the trade of a ship-carpenter; in time he could be a builder; and then the son could build, and the father would fit out and send his ships abroad.

The son demurred. The father’s obstinacy asserted itself; he could not be made to listen to reason; and the matter ended by the boy’s proclaiming his determination to go through college, if he had to scrub the floors to get through, and the father’s threat that, if he left home, the doors should be closed against his return.

The boy went. The mention of his name was forbidden in his home by the angry father. He had been gone four years, and the captain seemed as insensible to his welfare as he did when he pronounced his dictum.

But the mother, she had not held her peace for four long years without knowledge of her boy. Snugly tucked away among her treasures were weekly records of her son’s progress, in his own handwriting – tender, loving epistles, such as make a mother’s heart warm and happy, telling of true growth in manhood’s noblest attributes, and showing in every line the blessed power of a mother’s influence.

Despite her cross, Mrs. Thompson was a happy woman, and the championship of her son by Aunt Hulda was a power to make her merry; for she knew how her Harry got through college. He didn’t scrub the floors to get through. O, no! Captain Thompson’s purse paved the way for a more stately march through the halls of learning.

And so, having had her laugh, Mrs. Thompson called, in a loud voice, —

“Silly!”

Silly, somewhere down in the tale of the kite, answered the summons with a shrill “Yes, marm,” and in a few minutes entered the room.

Priscilla York was one of Mrs. Thompson’s charity patients – a tall, ungainly, awkward girl, whom, from pity, the good woman had taken into her house, with a desire to teach her a few of the rudiments of housekeeping.

Silly was by no means a promising pupil, her “breaking in” requiring the breaking up of many dishes and the exercise of much patience.

She was abrupt and jerking in her motion, except when she walked; then she seemed afraid of damaging carpets, not having been accustomed to them, and walked on tiptoe, which peculiar footfall caused the heels of her slip-shod shoes to drop with a “clap-clap-clap,” as she crossed the oil-cloth on the floor of the dining-room. Her clothes hung loosely on her, and as she entered the room her arms were stuck stiff at her side, her mouth wide open, and her eyes staring as though she expected to hear some dreadful news.

“Silly,” said Mrs. Thompson, “get the covered basket.”

“Yes, marm,” said Silly, and darted for the door.

“Stop, stop, child; I’ve not finished.”

Silly darted back again.

“I want you to get the covered basket, and take some things over to Mrs. Sleeper.”

“Yes marm;” and the girl darted for the door a second time.

“Silly, stop this instant! What in the world are you thinking of?”

“The covered basket, marm; it’s in the pantry.”

“Silly, when I have finished what I want to say, I will tell you to go.”

“Then you don’t want the covered basket, marm?”

“Get the covered basket, put in it the ham that was left at dinner, a pair of chickens I cooked this morning, a couple of mince pies, and a loaf of bread. Do you understand?”

“Yes marm. Basket, ham, chickens, mince pie, bread,” said Silly, briskly.

“Very well. Those are for Mrs. Sleeper, with my compliments.”

“Yes marm. Basket and all?”

“Bring back the basket, of course. Now go – ”

“Yes, marm;” and Silly made a third dart doorward.

“Stop, stop, Silly!”

“You told me to go when you said go; and I was a going to go.”

“That was my mistake, Silly. I want you to go to the pantry, get a bottle of currant wine, a jar of damson preserves, and a box of sardines. Can you find them all?”

“O, yes, marm. Currant wine, damson preserves, sardines.”

“Very well. Be careful in handling things. Those are for Aunt Hulda, with my compliments. Make no mistake, and be sure to tell her I sent them. Now, Silly, go.”

Silly started at the word “go” so forcibly that she ran plump against the portly form of the captain, who just then entered.

“Hang it!” roared he; “why don’t you see where you are going, stupid?”

“Stupid” stopped not to tell the reason why, but darted by the captain: and soon a commotion among the dishes in the pantry made it evident that Silly was “handling things” none to carefully.

“Where’s that crazy thing going now?” muttered the captain, as he stalked to the window.

“On one of my errands, Paul; so don’t be inquisitive.”

Had he dreamed that Aunt Hulda’s defence of his boy had turned his wife’s sympathies in her direction, and that there was likely to be a shower of goodies poured into the spinster’s lap, he might have been inquisitive, instead of shouting at that particular moment, —

“Hang it! there’s that boy again! and with my apples, too! He shan’t escape me this time. No, no.” And the captain darted from the room, and out into the road, bare-headed.

Teddy Sleeper had waited two hours, in the woods behind the orchard the return of Becky, supposing that, as she was the leader of the expedition, after decoying the captain to a safe distance, she would return to rescue her follower; for Teddy had not sufficient reliance on his own skill to venture either an attack or a retreat. At last, getting weary, he crept out into the lane, and from there into the main street, and started for home. But as he neared the church he was waylaid by a half a dozen of his cronies, just returning from a game of base ball, and, of course, very hungry. Catching sight of the fruit stowed away in Teddy’s jacket, they set up a roar of delight, and surrounded him.