The Wooing of Calvin Parks

CHAPTER XIV

AT LAST!

Mr. Sim shuffled in from one door, Mr. Sam from the other. As each raised his eyes to look at the table, he saw the figure opposite; both stopped short, and the two pairs of little gray eyes glared, one at a black waistcoat, the other at a red.

"Take your seats, Cousins, please!" said Mary Sands, quickly. "Mr. Parks, if you'll set opposite me – that's it! The Lord make us thankful, Cousins and Mr. Parks, this Christmas Day, and mindful of the wants of others, amen! You said you didn't mind carvin', Mr. Parks, so I've give you the turkey."

The four gray eyes, releasing the waistcoat buttons opposite, glanced furtively over the table, and opened wide. Never had the Sill farm seen a Christmas dinner like this. "Ma" had liked a good set-out, but she aimed to be saving, holidays and all days. They always had a turkey, but it was apt to be the smallest hen in the flock, and the rest was to match. But here, – here was the Big Young Gobbler, the pride and glory of the poultry yard, no longer ruffling it in black and red, but shining in rich golden brown, with strings of nut-brown sausages about his portly breast. Here was cranberry sauce, not in a bowl, but moulded in the wheat-sheaf mould, and glowing like the Great Carbuncle. Here was an Alp of potato, a golden mountain of squash, onions glimmering translucent like moonstones, the jewels of the winter feast, celery tossing pale-green plumes – good gracious! celery enough for a hotel, Mr. Sam thought; here beside each plate was a roll – was this bread, Mr. Sim wondered, twisted into a knot and shining "like artificial?" and on each roll a spray of scarlet geranium with its round green leaf. And what —what was that in the middle of the table? The twins forgot the waistcoats; forgot the waste too, forgot even each other, and stared with all their eyes. A castle! a real castle, towers and battlements, moat and drawbridge, all complete, all sparkling in crystal sugar. From the topmost turret a tiny pennon floating; in the gateway a knight on horseback, nearly as large as the pennon, with fairy lance couched. It was the triumph of Mr. Ivory Cheeseman's life.

"You take that to your lady friend," he said, "and say the man as made it wishes her well, and you too, friend Parks, you too!"

Mary Sands was gazing at it with delighted eyes.

"Did you ever, Cousins?" she said. "Now did you ever see anything so handsome as that? It's a Christmas present from Mr. Parks, and it beats any present ever I had in my life. I declare, this is a Christmas, isn't it, Cousins? and look at you both dressed up to the nines, and lookin' real – " she caught Calvin's eye over the turkey, and faltered, – "real nice, I'm sure! And each one of you changin' his vest for Christmas! I'm sure it's real smart of you. Cousin Sim's got on his new slippers, Cousin Sam! Cousin Sim, you see Cousin Sam's got the seal on, and don't it look elegant? Why, I'm just as proud of you both! Now you want to make a good dinner, Mr. Parks and Cousins, or I shall think it isn't good, and I own I've done my best."

"Good!" said Calvin Parks, as he handed a solid ivory slab to Mr. Sim; "if there's a better dinner than this in the State of Maine, the folks wouldn't get over it, I expect. I've seen dinners served from the Roostick down to New Orleans, and I never see the ekal of this for style nor quality."

"I'm sure you are more than kind to say so!" said Mary Sands. "Dear me! times like this, any one thinks of days past and gone, don't they? You must have had real good times Christmas, when you was boys together, Mr. Parks, Cousins and you together."

"Well, I guess!" said Calvin Parks. "Sam, do you rec'lect one time I come over to spend Christmas Day with you when we was little shavers about ten year old, and we left the pig-pen gate open, and the pigs got all over the place? Gorry! do you rec'lect the back door stood open, and nothin' to it but old Marm Sow must projick right into the kitchen where your Ma was gettin' dinner? Haw! haw! do you rec'lect that?"

"He! he!" piped Mr. Sam; "I guess I do! and Ma up and basted her hide with hot gravy! My Juniper, how she hollered!"

Mr. Sim fixed Mary Sands with a glittering eye. "You tell him 'twarn't gravy, 'twas puddin' sauce!" he said.

"Cousin Sam, Cousin Sim says 'twas puddin' sauce!" said Mary Sands cheerfully.

"Think likely 'twas!" said Mr. Sam. "Tell him he's right for once, and put that down on his little slate."

"Then another time," Calvin went on; "another morsel, Miss Hands? just a scrap? can't? now ain't that a sight! I can, just as easy – watch me now! I rec'lect well, that Methody parson was here with his boy. What was his name? Lihu, was it, or 'Liphalet?"

"'Liphalet!" said Mr. Sim, a faint twinkle coming into his dim eyes. "'Liphalet Pinky!"

"'Liphalet Pinky! that's it!" Calvin laid down his knife and fork to slap his thigh. "Jerusalem crickets! how we did play it on that unfort'nate youngster! Miss Hands, you see Sim settin' there, sober as a judge; you'd think he'd been like that all his life now, wouldn't you? You'd never think he'd get an unfort'nate boy into the bucket and h'ist him up and down the well till he was e'enamost scairt to death, would you now?"

"I certin should not!" cried Mary Sands gleefully. "Why, Cousin Sim!"

"And he hollerin' all the time, 'Lemme out! I'll tell Pa on you, and he'll call down the wrath to come! You lemme out!' and then we'd slack on the old sweep and down he'd go again – haw! haw!"

"He! he!" cackled Mr. Sim, rubbing his little withered hands. "I can see the tossel on his cap now, bobbin' up and down, and his little pickéd nose under it – he! he!"

"Ho! ho!" chimed in Mr. Sam suddenly. "And I can see you – I mean, tell him I can see him bobbin' up and down on Ma's knee when she spanked him for it."

"That's too long to say," said Mary Sands placidly; "think likely he heard it, didn't you, Cousin Sim?"

"Tell him he got jest as good!" retorted Mr. Sim.

"Cousin Sam, Cousin Sim says you got it just as good!" said Mary. "Now, Mr. Parks, if you're a mind to carry the turkey out while I bring in the pies – if nobody'll have any more, that is to say!"

"Well!" said Calvin Parks, rising and lifting the huge platter; "if all had eat what I have, there'd be nothin' to carry out, that's all I have to say. After you, Miss Hands!"

He closed the pantry door cautiously after him.

"How do you think it's goin'?" he asked eagerly.

"Splendid!" cried Mary Sands under her breath. "It's goin' splendid! They've looked at each other much as four or five times, and twice they only just stopped in time or they'd have spoke to each other. I saw Cousin Sam catch his breath and fairly choke the words back. Keep right on as you are, Mr. Parks, and we'll have 'em talkin' in another hour, see if we don't!"

The pies – such pies! – had come and gone. With furtive blinks, Mr. Sam had unbuttoned the lower buttons of a black, Mr. Sim of a red waistcoat; they leaned back in their chairs, their sharp little features relaxed, and they stirred their coffee with the air of men at peace with the world.

Calvin Parks bent over his cup with an attentive look.

"Boys," he said pensively, "warn't this your Ma's cup?"

The twins started, and looked at the dark blue cup with gold on the handle.

"It was so!" said Mr. Sam.

"Certin!" said Mr. Sim.

"I thought so!" said Calvin. "Miss Hands, you ought to have this cup by rights; and yet I'm pleased to have it, for I thought a sight of the boys' Ma, and she knowed it. She was always good to me, if she did call me a rover; always good to me she was, from the time I was knee high to a grasshopper. The boys was bigger than me in those days, Miss Hands; I dono as you'd think it now, but so it was. They stopped growin' at the same time; didn't you, boys? Along about fourteen year old, warn't it? You've been just the same height since then, haven't ye?"

"I'm a mite the tallest!" said Mr. Sam, raising his head.

"Tell him it ain't so!" piped Mr. Sim. "Tell him I am!"

"Sho!" said Calvin Parks. "I don't believe either one of you has the least idee, reelly. If there was any difference, I should say Sim was just a shade the tallest; how does it look it to you, Miss Hands?"

"I think Cousin Sam is!" replied Mary Sands promptly.

"You don't say!" said Calvin. "Now that's queer! Looks to me – well! I say, let's find out! 'Tis easy done. Come on into the front room, boys, and stand back to back, and I'll measure ye!"

The front room was open in honor of Christmas Day; "Ma's" best parlor, with its cross-stitch embroideries, its mourning pictures, its rigid black horse-hair chairs and sofas. Above the mantelpiece, with its tall vases of waving pampas grass, "Ma" herself gazed down from a portentous gold frame with a quelling glance; "Pa" hung beside her, a meek young man with a feeble smile of apology; one could understand that he had backed out of existence as soon as might be. In one corner stood a tall dim mirror, and before it a little double chair of quaint shape, evidently made for two children.

"Sho!" said Calvin Parks. "How did that chair come here? Why, I haven't seen that for forty year. Jerusalem! that takes me back – why, Sim and Sam, it seems only yesterday, the first time ever I set foot in this room, and there sat you two in that little chair gogglin' at me, and your Ma standin' beside you. Say, boys, that kind of takes holt of me! your Ma was a good woman, if she did know her own mind. Well, we're all poor creatur's. Here! you stand back to back in front of the glass, and then I can see – hold your chins up – shoulders back; shoulders back, Sim! don't scrooch down that way; you ain't really a crab, you know – head up, Sam! there! now shut your eyes; any one can stand straighter with their eyes shut; now, – "

A voice spoke from the doorway; a woman's voice, full and clear, with a sharp ring of decision.

"Now you love each other pretty, right away, or I'll take the back of the hairbrush to you both!"

"Ma!" cried the twins; and they fell on their knees beside the little chair.

"I told 'em shut their eyes, and then slipped out!" said Calvin Parks. "They never missed me. Jerusalem! Miss Hands, if you'll excuse the expression, how did you manage it? you got her tone to the life, I tell you."

"I always had the trick of followin' a voice," said Mary Sands modestly. "And I remembered Cousin Lucindy's to Conference, for she used to speak an amazin' deal. Oh! Mr. Parks, listen! do listen to them two poor old creatur's!"

They listened. From the front room came a babble of talk, two voices flowing together in a stream, pauseless, inseparable; so fast the stream flowed, there seemed no time for breathing. But now, as the conspirators listened, dish-cloth in hand and joy in their hearts, the voices ceased for a moment, and then, with one consent, broke out into quavering, squeaking, piping song.

CHAPTER XV

BY WAY OF CONTRAST

"I wish't you could stay to supper!" said Mary Sands.

"I wish't I could!" said Calvin. "I want you to understand that right enough; and I guess you do!" he added, with a look that brought the color into Mary's wholesome brown cheek. "But they plead with me kind o' pitiful, and – honest, I'm sorry for them two women, Miss Hands. They don't seem to be real pop'lar with the neighbors – I don't know just how 'tis, but so 'tis, – and they kind o' look to me, you see. You understand how 'tis, don't you, Mary – I would say Miss Hands?"

"I expect I do, Mr. Parks!" said Mary gently, yet with some significance.

Calvin looked down at her, and his heart swelled. An immense wave of tenderness seemed to flow from him, enfolding the little woman as she stood there, so neat and trim in her blue cashmere dress, her pretty head bent, the light playing in the waves of her pretty hair.

"For two cents and a half," Calvin Parks said silently, "I'd pick you up and carry you off this minute of time. You're my woman, and don't you forget it!" Then he spoke aloud, and his voice sounded strange in his ears.

"You and the boys," he said, "are always askin' me for stories. If – if I should come and tell you a story some day – the very first day I had a right to – that the boys warn't goin' to hear, nor anybody else but just you – would you listen to it, Miss Hands?"

Mary's head bent still lower, and she examined the hem of her apron critically. "I expect I would, Mr. Parks!" she said softly.

But when Calvin had driven off, chirrupping joyfully to the brown horse, Mary's little brown hands came together with a clasp, and she looked anxiously after him.

"If they don't get you away from me!" she said. "Oh! my good, kind, – there! stupid dear, if they don't get you away from me!"

"Hossy," said Calvin; "do you feel good? Do you? Speak up!"

The brown horse shook his head as the whip cracked past his ear, and whinnied reproachfully.

"Sho!" said Calvin. "You don't mean that. I know it's a mite late, but we'll get there, and you're sure of a good supper, whatever I be. But we've had us a great day, little hossy! we've had us a great day. Them two poor old mis'able lobster-claws is j'ined together, and betwixt the two they'll make a pretty fair lobster, take and humor 'em, and kind of ease 'em along till they get used to each other again. And they ain't the only ones that's feelin' good, little hossy; no siree and the bob-cat's tail! You take them four good-lookin' legs of your'n round the Lord's earth, and if you find a happier man than little Calvin is to-night, I'll give you a straw bunnet for Easter. Put that in your – well, not exactly pipe and smoke it – say nose-bag and smell it! Gitty up, you little hossy!" He flourished the whip round the head of the brown horse, who, catching the holiday spirit, flung up his heels incontinent, and broke into a canter even as his master broke into song.

The moon came up over the great snow-fields, and the world from ghostly white flashed into silver and ebony. The "orbéd maiden" seemed to smile on Calvin Parks as he jogged along the white road; perhaps in all her sweep of vision she may have seen few things pleasanter than this middle-aged lover.

"Looks real friendly, don't she?" said Calvin. "And no wonder! Christmas night, and a prospect like this; it's what I call sightly! I wish't I had my little woman along to see it with me; don't you, hossy? What say? You speak up now, when I talk to you about a lady! Where's your manners?"

The whip cracked like a pistol shot, and the brown horse flung up his heels again from sheer good will, and whinnied his excuses.

"Now you're talkin'!" said Calvin Parks. "And you'd better, little hossy. I want you to understand right now that if you warn't the hossy you are – and if two-three other things were as they ain't – summer instead of winter, for one of 'em – it ain't ridin' I'd be takin' that little woman, no sir! I'd get her aboard the Mary Sands, and we'd go slippin' down along shore, coastwise, seein' the country slidin' past, and hear the water lip-lappin', and the wind singin' in the riggin,' – what? I tell you! there'd be a pair of vessels if ever the Lord made one and man the other.

"Sho! seein' in that paper that Cap'n Bates was leavin' the Mary and goin' aboard a tug has got me worked up, kind of. If it warn't that I had sworn off rovin' and rollin' for ever more – I tell you! Jerusalem! but I'd like to hear the Mary talkin' once more – never was a vessel had a pleasanter way of speakin' – there again they're alike, them two. Take her with all sails drawin', half a gale o' wind blowin', and if she don't sing, that schooner, then I never heard singin,' that's all. And even in a calm, just lying rollin' on a long swell, and she'll say 'Easy does it! easy does it! breeze up soon, and Mary knows it!' and the water lip-lappin', and the sails playin' 'Isick and Josh, Isick and Josh,' – great snakes! Gitty up, hossy, or I shall take the wrong turn and drive to Bath instead of Tinkham."

Spite of moonlight and good spirits, the way was long, and it was near nine o'clock when Calvin drove in at the Widow Marlin's gateway. He whistled, a cheerful and propitiatory note, as he drove past the house to the barn.

"Presume likely they'll be put out some at me bein' late," he said; "but you shall have your supper first, hossy, don't you be afeared! They can't no more than kill me, anyway, and I don't know as they'd find it specially easy to-night."

The house was ominously silent as Calvin entered. The kitchen was empty, and he opened the door of the sitting-room, but paused on the threshold. Miss Phrony Marlin was sitting in the corner, weeping ostentatiously, with loud and prolonged sniffs. Her mother, a little withered woman like crumpled parchment, cowered witch-like over the air-tight stove, and looked at Calvin and then at her daughter, but said nothing.

"Excuse me!" said Calvin, stepping back. "I'll go into the kitchen. I didn't know; no bad news, I hope, Mis' Marlin?"

"She's all broke up!" said the old woman.

"So I see. Anything special happened?"

"Oh! you cruel man!" moaned Miss Phrony from the corner.

"Who?" said Calvin. "Me? Now what a way to talk! What's the matter, Miss Phrony? What have I done? Why, I haven't been here since breakfast time."

"That's it!" said the widow. "She's ben lookin' for you all afternoon, and she had extry victuals cooked for you, and you never come."

"Now ain't that a sight!" said Calvin cheerily. "Why, I told you I'd most likely be late, don't you rec'lect I did? We've been a long ways to-day, hossy and me have. How about them victuals, now? I could eat a barn door, seem's though."

"How long was you at them Sillses?" demanded Miss Phrony, wiping her eyes elaborately. "You didn't keep them waitin', I'll be bound."

"Why, I took dinner with 'em," said Calvin, indulgently. "I told you I was goin' to, you know. Gorry! you wouldn't have wanted me here to dinner if you'd seen the way I ate. How was your chicken, old lady? He looked like a good one. I picked out the best nourished one I could find."

"I wish't those folks was dead, and you too, and me, and everybody!" broke out Miss Phrony suddenly.

"Sho!" said Calvin Parks. "The whole set out, eh? Now I am surprised at you. Just think what all them funerals would come to; why, we should have to call on the town, certin we should. Come now, Miss Phrony, cheer up! I'll go and get my own supper, if you'll tell me what to get."

"The Lord will provide!" piped up the old woman shrilly.

"I don't doubt it," said Calvin Parks. "I'll kind o' look round, though; I don't want to give no trouble."

"If you'll set down, Cap'n Parks," said Miss Phrony majestically, "I'll get your supper."

Once more wiping her eyes, she sailed out of the room. Calvin looked after her meditatively. "I didn't think of her scarin' up a tantrum," he said, "or mebbe I'd have hastened more. I dono, though. Christmas Day, appears as though a man had a right to his time, don't it? Not that I ain't sorry to have discumbobberated her, for I am. I'd like to see everybody well content to-night, same as I be."

"She says you're breakin' her heart!" said the old woman, her black eyes fixed on him.

"Sho! now what a way that is to talk! Why, s'pose I hadn't come home at all; s'pose I'd stopped to supper, as they asked me to; you'd have saved victuals then, don't you see? I wish't I had now!" he added reflectively. "I never thought of her cookin' anything special."

"Supper's ready!" sighed Miss Phrony from the doorway.

In the kitchen a cloth, not too clean, was laid, and on it, with much parade of knife and fork, appeared a very dry knuckle of ham, a plate of yellow soda biscuit, and a pallid and flabby pie. Spite of himself, Calvin's cheery face fell as he looked on this banquet; but he sat down, and attacked the ham-bone manfully.

"How are ye, old feller?" he said. "I certinly thought I'd seen the last of you, but you come of a long-lived stock, that's plain. Could I have a drop of tea, Miss Phrony? Seems' though something hot would help this spread on its downward way. Fire out? Well, never mind! I'll get along."

"I had the spasms come on so bad," said Miss Phrony, "along about eight o'clock, when I give you up, my stren'th went from me, and I couldn't heave the wood to keep the fire up. I had coffee for you, but it's cold. Would you like some?"

"I guess not!" said Calvin, recalling the coffee at breakfast. "I'll do first-rate. Well! did you try on your tippet, what? real becomin', was it?"

Miss Phrony's face softened, and she gave him a languishing glance – with one eye, the other trying to see what it was like, with little success.