Some Say; Neighbours in Cyrus
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And what was it that happened only the other day, here in the village? A man and his wife had been quarrelling, to the scandal of the whole congregation. They were an elderly couple, and when it came to smashing crockery and emptying pails of water over each other, the minister felt it his duty to interfere. So he called on the wife, intending to reason with her first alone, and then, when she was softened and convinced, to call in the husband and reconcile them, and perhaps pray with them, since both were "members." But before he had spoken a dozen of his well-arranged and logical sentences, he was interrupted by loud and tearful outcries.
The lady never thought it would come to this, no, never! Some thought she had enough to bear without this, but she knew how to submit to the will of Providence, and no one should say she struv nor hollered. She knew what was due to a minister, even if he was only just in pants; she only hoped Mr. Lindsay wouldn't see fit to say anything to her husband. Take Reuben Meecher when he was roused, and tigers was tame by him: and if he should know that his wife was spoke to so, by them as wasn't born or thought of when they was married, and nobody couldn't say but they had lived respectable for forty years, and now to come to this! The lady was well used to ministers, and some of the most aged in the country, and she knew what was due to them; but for her part, she thought 'twas well for ministers, as well as others, to speak of what they'd had exper'ence in, and then there would be no feeling!
The visit was not a success, nor did it cheer the minister to hear the old couple chuckling to each other as he went sadly away, and to feel that they were laughing at him.
But he was very humble, and he laid the spiteful words to heart.
What did he know? What had he to say to his people, when it came to the real, terrible things of life? What had he had in his whole life, save kindness and a sheltered home, and then study, and a little divinity, and a little science? He sat and gazed at the image of himself in his mind's glass, and found it a gibbering phantom, with emptiness where should be eyes, and dry dust where should be living waters.
As he sat thus sadly pondering, the sound of voices struck upon his ear. The window was open, and now that his mind was awake, there was no question of his hearing, when the two next-door neighbours leaned out of their back windows, across Mrs. Mellen's back yard. He had grown to loathe the sound of those two voices, the shrill cackling one, and the fat chuckle that was even more hateful. What were they saying now?
"You don't tell me she wants to git him for herself? speak jest a dite louder! She can't hear ye, and he's so muddled up he never heard the bell for meetin', some say; but there's others think he'd ben drinkin', and Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd jest leagued together with Sophrony Mellen to hide it. He was black in the face when he came home, and reelin' in his walk, for I see him with these eyes."
Charles Lindsay started as if stung by a venomous snake. He put out his hand to the window, but now the sharp voice broke in, anxious to have its turn.
"Well, I shouldn't be a mite surprised if 'twas so, Mis' Bean, and you've had experience, I'm sure, in such matters, after what you suffered with Mr. Bean. But what I was sayin', some do say Phrony Mellen's bound to have the minister for herself, and that's why she sent Rose Ellen off, traipsin' way down to Tupham, when her grandma'am don't need her no more'n a toad needs a tail."
"I want to know if they say that!" replied Mrs. Bean. "But you know, some say Rose Ellen's got a beau down to Tupham, and that's why she went off without askin' leave or license, and her ma deef and all. I see her go myself, and she went off early in the mornin', and if ever I see a person what you may call slink away secret, like she'd done somethin' to be 'shamed of, 'twas that girl. She knew what she was goin' for, well enough. Rose Ellen ain't no fool, for all she's as smooth as baked custard. Now you mark my words, Mis' Peake, – "
At this moment, the back door opened with a loud clang. Mrs. Mellen stood on the doorstep, and her eyes were very bright. She said nothing, but gazed calmly up and down the yard, as if considering the beauty of the night. Then, after a few minutes, she turned and scrutinized her neighbours' windows. Nothing was to be seen, only a white muslin curtain waved gently in the moonlight: nothing was to be heard, only a faint rustle, probably of the same curtain.
"It's an elegant night!" said Mrs. Mellen, aloud. "I thought I heard voices, but my hearin' does play me such tricks, these days."
Her calm, sensible voice fell like balm on the distracted ears of the minister. He was soothed, he knew not why. The horrors that those harpies suggested, – could there be truth in them? Rose Ellen with a – his mind refused to frame the detestable word! Was there anything true in the world? Was it all scandal and hatefulness and untruth?
He rose and paced his study in anguish of mind, but his ears were still awake, – he thought he never should regain the joy of losing himself, – and now another sound came to them, the sound of wheels. Why did his heart stop, and then beat violently? What was there in the sound of wheels? It was the late stage, of course, and Calvin Parks was driving fast, as usual, to get to his home, five miles away, before ten o'clock at night. But that stage came from Tupham, and Tupham meant Rose Ellen. Rose Ellen, who was as smooth as baked custard, and who had a – the wheels were slacking; the steady beat of the horses' feet stopped; the stage had paused at the Widow Mellen's door.
"Here we be!" said Calvin Parks. "Take my hand, Rosy! so, thar she goes! Hope ye'll find yer ma right smart! Give her my respects and tell her, – wal, I swan!"
For the door flew open, and out ran the minister, torn and stained and covered with dust, and caught Rose Ellen by both hands and drew her almost forcibly into the house.
"Mother!" cried the girl. "How is she? I – I got so scared, not hearing from her, I couldn't stay another day, Mr. Lindsay!"
"Oh, – your mother?" said Mr. Lindsay, incoherently. "She – a – she seems to be in excellent health, except for her deafness. It is I who am ill, Rose Ellen: very ill, and wanting you more than I could bear!"
"Wanting me?" faltered Rose Ellen, with lips wide, with blue eyes brimming over. "You, Mr. Lindsay, wanting me?"
"Yes, Rose Ellen!" cried the minister. They were still standing in the passage, and he was still holding her hands, and it was quite absurd, only neither of them seemed to realize it.
"I have always wanted you, but I have only just found it out. I cannot live at all without you: I have been only half alive since you went away. I want you for my own, for always."
"Oh, you can have me!" cried Rose Ellen, and the blue eyes brimmed over altogether with happy shining tears. "Oh, I was yours all the time, only I didn't know you – I didn't know – "
She faltered, and then hurried on. "It – it wasn't only that I was scared about mother, Mr. Lindsay. I couldn't stay away from – oh, some said – some said you were going to be married, and I couldn't bear it, no, I couldn't!"
But when Charles Lindsay heard that, he drew Rose Ellen by both hands into the study, and shut the door. And only the lizard knew what happened next.
It was a month later.
There had been a wedding, the prettiest wedding that the village had ever seen. The whole world seemed turned to roses, and the sweetest rose of all, Rose Ellen Lindsay, had gone away on her husband's arm, and Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd were shaking hands very hard, and blowing peals of joy with their pocket-handkerchiefs. Mrs. Mellen had preserved her usual calm aspect at the wedding, and looked young enough to be her own daughter, "some said," in her gray silk and white straw bonnet. But when it was all over, the wedding party gone, and the neighbours scattered to their homes again, Sophronia Mellen did a strange thing. She went round deliberately, and opened every window of her house. The house stood quite apart, with only the two houses close beside it on either hand, and no others till you came quite into the street itself. She opened every window to its utmost. Then she took a tin pan, and a pair of tongs, and leaned out of the front parlour window, and screamed three times, at the top of her lungs, beating meanwhile with all her might upon the pan. Then she went to the next window, and screamed and banged again, and so on all over the house. There were twenty windows in her house, and by the time she had gone the round, she was crimson and breathless. Nevertheless, she managed to put her last breath into a shriek of such astounding volume that the windows fairly rang. One last defiant clang of the tongs on the tin pan and then she sat down quietly by the back parlour window, and settled herself well behind the curtain, and prepared to enjoy herself thoroughly. "They shall have their fill this time!" she murmured to herself; "and I shall get all the good of it."
For some minutes there was dead silence: the event had been too awful to be treated lightly. At length a rustling was heard, and very cautiously a sharp nose, generously touched with colour, was protruded from the window of the left-hand house.
"Mis' Bean," said the owner of the nose. "Be you there?"
"Well, I should say I was!" was the reply; and Mrs. Bean's fat curls shook nervously out of her window.
"Maria Peake, what do you s'pose this means? Ain't it awful? Why, I've got palpitations to that degree, – don't s'pose there's a robber in the house, do ye? with all them weddin' presents about, 'twould be a dreadful thing! 'Tain't likely he would spare her life, and she tryin' to give the alarm like that! Most likely she's layin' dead this minute, and welterin' in her – "
"Sssssssh!" hissed Mrs. Peake, in a deadly whisper. "Melissa Bean, you won't let a person hear herself think. 'Tain't no robber, I tell ye! She's gone out of her mind, Phrony Mellen has, as sure as you're a breathin' woman!"
"You don't tell me she has!" Mrs. Bean leaned further out, her eyes distended with awful curiosity, her fat lips dropping apart. She was not a pleasant object, the hidden observer thought; but she was no worse than the skinny cabbage-stalk which now stretched itself far out from the opposite window.
"I tell ye," Mrs. Peake hissed, still in that serpent-whisper, the most penetrating sound that ever broke stillness, "She's as crazy as a clo'esline in a gale o' wind. Some say she's wore an onsettled eye for six weeks past, and she glared at me yesterday, when I run in to borry an egg, same as if I was one wild animal and she was another. Ssssh! 'Tis Bowler, I tell ye! They go that way, jest as often as they git a chance! I call it an awful jedgment on Elder Lindsay, bein' married into that family. Some say his mother besought him on her bended knees, but he was clean infatooated. I declare to you, Mis' Bean, I'm terrified most to death, to think of you and me alone here, so near to a ravin' lunatic. I don't think nothin' of robbers, alongside o' madness. She might creep in while you're standin' there, – your house is more handy by than mine, 'count of there bein' no fence, and – "
"Yah! bah! ha! ha! ha! hurrah!" sounded in sharp, clear tones from Mrs. Mellen's window. Two ghastly faces, white with actual terror, gazed at each other for an instant, then disappeared; and immediately after was heard a sound of bolts being driven home, and of heavy furniture being dragged about.
But Mrs. Mellen sat and fanned herself, being somewhat heated, and gazed calmly at the beauty of the prospect.
"I've enjoyed myself real well!" she said. "I couldn't free my mind, not while Rosy and Mr. Lindsay was round; I've had a real good time."
She fanned herself placidly, and then added, addressing the universe in general, with an air of ineffable good will:
"I shouldn't wonder if my hearin' improved, too, kind o' suddin, same as it came on. That's Bowler, too! It's real convenient, bein' a Bowler!"
NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS
"Hi-Hi!" said Miss Peace, looking out of the window. "It is really raining. Isn't that providential, now?"
"Anne Peace, you are enough to provoke a saint!" replied a peevish voice from the furthest corner of the room. "You and your providences are more than I can stand. What do you mean this time, I should like to know? the picnic set for to-day, and every soul in the village lottin' on goin', 'xcept those who would like best to go and can't. I've been longin' for these two years to go to a picnic and it's never ben so's I could. And now, jest when I could ha' gone, this affliction must needs come to me. And then to have you rejoicin' 'cause it rains!"
The speaker paused for breath, and Miss Peace answered mildly: "I'm real sorry for you, Delia, you know I am; and if the' was any way of getting you to the grove, – but what I was thinking of, you know I couldn't finish Jenny Miller's dress last night, do what I could; and seeing it raining now, thinks I, they'll have to put off the picnic till to-morrow or next day, and then Jennie can go as nice as the rest. She does need a new dress, more than most of the girls who has them. And she's so sweet and pretty, it's a privilege to do for her. That's all I was thinking, Delia."
Mrs. Delia Means sniffed audibly, then she groaned.
"Your leg hurting you?" cried Miss Peace, with ready sympathy.
"Well, I guess you'd think so," was the reply. "If you had red-hot needles run into your leg. Not that it's any matter to anybody."
"Hi-hi," said Miss Peace, cheerily. "It's time the bandages was changed, Delia. You rest easy just a minute, and I'll run and fetch the liniment and give you a rub before I put on the new ones."
Mrs. Means remaining alone, it is proper to introduce her to the reader. She and Miss Peace were the rival seamstresses of Cyrus Village; that is, they would have been rivals, if Mrs. Means had had her way; but rivalry was impossible where Anne Peace was one of the parties. She had always maintained stoutly that Delia Means needed work a sight more than she did, having a family, and her husband so weakly and likely to go off with consumption 'most any time. Many and many a customer had Anne turned from her door, with her pleasant smile, and "I don't hardly know as I could, though I should be pleased to accommodate you; but I presume likely Mis' Means could do it for you. She doos real nice work, and I don't know as she's so much drove just now as I am."
Delia Case had been a schoolmate of Anne Peace's. She was a pretty girl, with a lively sense of her own importance and a chronic taste for a grievance. She had married well, as every one thought, but in these days her husband had lost his health and Delia was obliged to put her shoulder to the wheel. She sewed well, but there was a sigh every time her needle went into the cloth, and a groan when it came out.
"A husband and four children, and have to sew for a living!" – this was the burden of her song; and it had become familiar to her neighbours since David Means had begun to "fail up," as they say in Cyrus.
Anne Peace had always been the faithful friend of "Delia Dumps." (It was Uncle Asy Green who had given her the name which stuck to her through thick and thin – Uncle Asy believed in giving people their due, and thought "Anne made a dreffle fool of herself, foolin' round with that woman at all.") Anne had been her faithful friend, and never allowed people to make fun of her if she were present.
A week before my story opens, when Mrs. Means fell down and broke her leg, just as she was passing Miss Peace's house, the latter lady declared it to be a special privilege.
"I can take care of her," she explained to the doctor, when he expressed regret at being obliged to forbid the sufferer's being moved for some weeks, "just as well as not and better. David isn't fit to have the care of her, and – well, doctor, I can say to you, who know it as well as I do, that Delia mightn't be the best person for David to have round him just now, when he needs cheering up. Then, too, I can do her sewing along with my own, as easy as think; work's slack now, and there's nothing I'm specially drove with. I've been wishing right along that I could do something to help, now that David is so poorly. I'm kin to David, you know, so take it by and large, doctor, it doos seem like a privilege, doesn't it?"
The doctor growled. He was not fond of Mrs. Means.
"If you can get her moved out of Grumble Street and into Thanksgiving Alley," he said, "it'll be a privilege for this village; but you can't do it, Anne. However, there's no use talking to you, you incorrigible optimist. You're the worst case I ever saw, Anne Peace, and I haven't the smallest hope of curing you. Put the liniment on her leg as I told you, and I'll call in the morning. Good day!"
"My goodness me, what was he saying to you?" Mrs. Means asked as Anne went back into the bedroom. "You've got something that you'll never get well of? Well, Anne Peace, that does seem the cap sheaf on the hull. Heart complaint, I s'pose it is; and what would become of me, if you was to be struck down, as you might be any minute of time, and me helpless here, and a husband and four children at home and he failin' up. You did look dretful gashly round the mouth yisterday, I noticed it at the time, but of course I didn't speak of it. Why, here I should lay, and might starve to death, and you cold on the floor, for all the help I should get." Mrs. Means shed tears, and Anne Peace answered with as near an approach to asperity as her soft voice could command.
"Don't talk foolishness, Delia. I'm not cold yet, nor likely to be. Here, let me 'tend to your leg; it's time I was getting dinner on this minute."
It continued to rain on the picnic day; no uncertain showers, to keep up a chill and fever of fear and hope among the young people, but a good, honest downpour, which everybody past twenty must recognize as being just the thing the country needed. Jenny Miller came in, smiling all over, though she professed herself "real sorry for them as was disappointed." "Tudie Peaslee sat down and cried, when she saw 'twas rainin'," she said, as she prepared to give her dress the final trying-on. "There, Miss Peace. I did try to feel for her, but I just couldn't, seems though. Oh, ain't that handsome? that little puff is too cute for anything! I do think you've been smart, Miss Peace. Not that you ever was anything else."
"You've a real easy figure to fit, Jenny," Miss Peace replied, modestly. "I guess that's half the smartness of it. It doos set good, though, I'm free to think. The styles is real pretty this summer, anyhow. Don't that set good, Delia?"
She turned to Mrs. Means, who was lying on the sofa (they call it a l'unge in Cyrus), watching the trying-on with keenly critical eyes.
"Ye-es," she said. "The back sets good enough, but 'pears to me there's a wrinkle about the neck that I shouldn't like to see in any work of mine. I've always ben too particklar, though; it's time thrown away, but I can't bear to send a thing out 'cept jest as it should be."
"It don't wrinkle, Mis' Means!" cried Jenny, indignantly. "Not a mite. I was turning round to look at the back of the skirt, and that pulled it; there ain't a sign of a wrinkle, Miss Peace, so don't you think there is."
Mrs. Means sniffed, and said something about the change in young folks' manners since she was a girl. "If I'd ha' spoke so to my elders – I won't say betters, for folks ain't thought much of when they have to sew for a livin', with a husband and four children to keer for – I guess I should ha' found it out in pretty quick time."
"Hi-hi!" said Miss Peace, soothingly. "There, Delia, Jenny didn't mean anything. Jenny, I guess I'll have to take you into the bedroom, so's I can pull this skirt out a little further. This room doos get so cluttered with all my things round." She hustled Jenny, swelling like an angry partridge, into the next room, and closed the door carefully.
"You don't want to anger Mis' Means, dear," she said gently, taking the pins out of her mouth for freer speech. "She may be jest a scrap pudgicky now and again, but she's seen trouble, you know, and she doos feel it hard to be laid up, and so many looking to her at home. Turn round, dear, jest a dite – there!"
"I can't help it, Miss Peace," said Jenny. "There's no reason why Mis' Means should speak up and say the neck wrinkled, when anybody can see it sets like a duck's foot in the mud. I don't mind what she says to me, but I ain't goin' to see you put upon, nor yet other folks ain't. I should like to know! and that wrapper she cut for Tudie Peaslee set so bad, you'd think she'd fitted it on the pump in the back yard, Mis' Peaslee said so herself."
"Hi-hi!" cried Anne Peace, softly, with an apprehensive glance toward the door; "don't speak so loud, Jennie. Tudie ain't so easy a form to fit as you, not near. And you say she was real put about, do ye, at the picnic being put off?"
"She was so!" Jenny assented, seeing that the subject was to be changed. "She'd got her basket all packed last night, she made so sure 'twas goin' to be fine to-day. Chicken sandwiches, she had, and baked a whole pan of sponge-drops, jest because some one – you know who – is fond of 'em." Miss Peace nodded sagely, with her mouth full of pins, and would have smiled if she could; "and now they've put it off till Saturday, 'cause the minister can't go before then, and every livin' thing will be spoiled."
"Dear, dear!" cried Miss Anne, her kind face clouding over; "that does seem too bad, don't it? all those nice things! and Tudie makes the best sponge-cakes I ever eat, pretty nigh."
Jenny smiled, and stretched her hand toward a basket she had brought. "They won't really be wasted, Miss Peace," she said. "Tudie thought you liked 'em, and I've got some of 'em here for you, this very minute. You was to eat 'em for your own supper, Tudie told me to tell you so."
"Well, I do declare, if that isn't thoughtful!" exclaimed Miss Peace, looking much gratified. "Tudie is a sweet girl, I must say. Delia is real fond of cake, and she's been longing for some, but it doos seem as if I couldn't find time to make it, these days."
"I should think not!" cried Jenny (who was something of a pepper-pot, it must be confessed), "I should think not, when you have her to take care of, and her work and yours to do, and all. And, Miss Peace, – Tudie meant the sponge-drops for you, every one. She told me so."
"Yes, dear, to be sure she did, and that's why I feel so pleased, just as much as if I had eaten them. But bread is better for me, and – why! if she hasn't sent a whole dozen. One, two, three – yes, a dozen, and one over, sure as I stand here. Now, that I call generous. And, I'll tell you what, dearie! Don't say a word, for I wouldn't for worlds have Tudie feel to think I was slighting her, or didn't appreciate her kindness; but – well, I have wanted to send some little thing round to that little girl of Josiah Pincher's, that has the measles, and I do suppose she'd be pleased to death with some of these sponge-drops. Hush! don't say a word, Jenny! it would be a real privilege to me, now it would. And you know it isn't that I don't think the world of Tudie, and you, too; now, don't you?"
Jenny protested, half-laughing, and half-crying; for Tudie Peaslee had declared herself ready to bet that Miss Peace would not eat a single one of the sponge-drops, and Jenny had vowed she should. But would she or would she not, before ten minutes were over she had promised to leave the sponge-drops at the Pinchers' door as she went by, for little Geneva. There was no resisting Miss Peace, Tudie was right; but suddenly a bright idea struck Jenny, just as she was putting on her hat and preparing to depart. Seizing one of the sponge-drops, she broke off a bit, and fairly popped it into Miss Peace's mouth, as the good lady was going to speak. "It's broke, now," she cried, in high glee, "it's broke in two, and you can't give it to nobody. Set right down, Miss Peace, and let me feed you, same as I do my canary bird." She pushed the little dressmaker into a chair, and the bits followed each other in such quick succession that Miss Peace could make no protest beyond a smothered, "Oh, don't ye, dear; now don't! that's enough! – my stars, Jenny, what do you think my mouth's made of?" (Crunch!) "There, dear, there! It is real good – oh, dear! not so fast. I shall choke! Tell Tudie – no, dearie, not another morsel!" (Crunch.) "Well, Jenny Miller, I didn't think you would act so, now I didn't."