“Yes,” said Mrs. Goodsoe emphatically, after we had silently considered the situation for a short space of time,—“yes, there was consider’ble talk, now I tell you! The raskil boys pestered ’em just about to death for a while. They used to collect up there an’ rap on the winders, and they’d turn out all the deacon’s hens ’long at nine o’clock ’o night, and chase ’em all over the dingle;cu an’ one night they even lugged the pig right out o’ the sty, and shoved it into the back entry, an’ run for their lives. They’d stuffed its mouth full o’ somethin’, so it couldn’t squeal till it got there. There wa’n’t a sign o’ nobody to be seen when Lizy hasted out with the light, and she an’ the deacon had to persuade the creatur’ back as best they could; ’t was a cold night, and they said it took ’em till towards mornin’. You see the deacon was just the kind of a man that a hog wouldn’t budge for; it takes a masterful man to deal with a hog. Well, there was no end to the works nor the talk, but Lizy left ’em pretty much alone. She did ’pear kind of dignified about it, I must say!”
“And then, were they married in the spring?”
“I was tryin’ to remember whether it was just before Fast Daycv or just after,” responded my friend, with a careful look at the sun, which was nearer the west than either of us had noticed. “I think likely ’t was along in the last o’ April, any way some of us looked out o’ the window one Monday mornin’ early, and says, ‘For goodness’ sake! Lizy’s sent the deacon home again!’ His old sorrel havin’ passed away, he was ridin’ in Ezry Welsh’s hoss-cart, with his hen-coop and more bundles than he had when he come, and he looked as meechin’cw as ever you see. Ezry was drivin’, and he let a glance fly swiftly round to see if any of us was lookin’ out; an’ then I declare if he didn’t have the malice to turn right in towards the barn, where he see my oldest brother, Joshuay, an’ says he real natural, ‘Joshuay, just step out with your wrench. I believe I hear my kingboltcx rattlin’ kind o’ loose.’ Brother, he went out an’ took in the sitooation, an’ the deacon bowed kind of stiff. Joshuay was so full o’ laugh, and Ezry Welsh, that they couldn’t look one another in the face. There wa’n’t nothing ailed the kingbolt, you know, an’ when Josh riz up he says, ‘Goin’ up country for a spell, Mr. Brimblecom?’
“ ‘I be,’ says the deacon, lookin’ dreadful mortified and cast down.
“ ‘Ain’t things turned out well with you an’ Sister Wisby?’ says Joshuay. ‘You had ought to remember that the woman is the weaker vessel.’
“ ‘Hang her, let her carry less sail, then!’ the deacon bu’st out, and he stood right up an’ shook his fist there by the hen-coop, he was so mad; an’ Ezry’s hoss was a young creatur’, an’ started up an set the deacon right over backwards into the chips.cy We didn’t know but he’d broke his neck; but when he see the women folks runnin’ out, he jumped up quick as a cat, an’ clim’ into the cart, an’ off they went. Ezry said he told him that he couldn’t git along with Lizy, she was so fractious in thundery weather; if there was a rumble in the daytime she must go right to bed an’ screech, and if ’t was night she must git right up an’ go an’ call him out of a sound sleep. But everybody knew he’d never a gone home unless she’d sent him.
“Somehow they made it up agin right away, him an’ Lizy, and she had him back. She’d been countin’ all along on not havin’ to hire nobody to work about the gardin an’ so on, an’ she said she wa’n’t goin’ to let him have a whole winter’s board for nothin’. So the old hens was moved back, and they was married right off fair an’ square, an’ I don’t know but they got along well as most folks. He brought his youngest girl down to live with ’em after a while, an’ she was a real treasure to Lizy; everybody spoke well o’ Phebe Brimblecom. The deacon got over his pious fit, and there was consider’ble work in him if you kept right after him. He was an amazin’ cider-drinker, and he airnt the name you know him by in his latter days. Lizy never trusted him with nothin’, but she kep’ him well. She left everything she owned to Phebe, when she died, ’cept somethin’ to satisfy the law. There, they’re all gone now: seems to me sometimes, when I get thinkin,’ as if I’d lived a thousand years!”
I laughed, but I found that Mrs. Goodsoe’s thoughts had taken a serious turn.
“There, I come by some old graves down here in the lower edge of the pasture,” she said as we rose to go. “I couldn’t help thinking how I should like to be laid right out in the pasture ground, when my time comes; it looked sort o’ comfortable, and I have ranged these slopes so many summers. Seems as if I could see right up through the turf and tell when the weather was pleasant, and get the goodness o’ the sweet fern. Now, dear, just hand me my apernful o’ mulleins out o’ the shade. I hope you won’t come to need none this winter, but I’ll dry some special for you.”
“I’m going home by the road,” said I, “or else by the path across the meadows, so I will walk as far as the house with you. Aren’t you pleased with my company?” for she demurred at my going the least bit out of the way.
So we strolled toward the little gray house, with our plunder of mullein leaves slung on a stick which we carried between us. Of course I went in to make a call, as if I had not seen my hostess before; she is the last maker of muster-gingerbreadcz and before I came away I was kindly measured for a pair of mittens.
“You’ll be sure to come an’ see them two peach-trees after I get ’em well growin’?” Mrs. Goodsoe called after me when I had said good-by, and was almost out of hearing down the road.
A WINTER COURTSHIP
THE PASSENGER AND MAIL transportation between the towns of North Kilby and Sanscrit Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson Briley, whose two-seated covered wagon was usually much too large for the demands of business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and North Kilby people were stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in entire solitude, except for the limp leather mail-bag, which he held firmly to the floor of the carriage with his heavily shod left foot. The mail-bag had almost a personality to him, born of long association. Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-looking body, but he held a warlike soul, and encouraged his fancies by reading awful tales of bloodshed and lawlessness in the far West. Mindful of stage robberies and train thieves, and of express messengers who died at their posts, he was prepared for anything; and although he had trusted to his own strength and bravery these many years, he carried a heavy pistol under his front-seat cushion for better defense. This awful weapon was familiar to all his regular passengers, and was usually shown to strangers by the time two of the seven miles of Mr. Briley’s route had been passed. The pistol was not loaded. Nobody (at least not Mr. Briley himself ) doubted that the mere sight of such a weapon would turn the boldest adventurer aside.
Protected by such a man and such a piece of armament, one gray Friday morning in the edge of winter, Mrs. Fanny Tobin was traveling from Sanscrit Pond to North Kilby. She was an elderly and feeble-looking woman, but with a shrewd twinkle in her eyes, and she felt very anxious about her numerous pieces of baggage and her own personal safety. She was enveloped in many shawls and smaller wrappings, but they were not securely fastened, and kept getting undone and flying loose, so that the bitter December cold seemed to be picking a lock now and then, and creeping in to steal away the little warmth she had. Mr. Briley was cold, too, and could only cheer himself by remembering the valor of those pony-express drivers of the pre-railroad days, who had to cross the Rocky Mountains on the great California route.da He spoke at length of their perils to the suffering passenger, who felt none the warmer, and at last gave a groan of weariness.
“How fur did you say ’t was now?”
“I do’ know ’s I said, Mis’ Tobin,” answered the driver, with a frosty laugh. “You see them big pines, and the side of a barn just this way, with them yellow circus bills? That’s my three-mile mark.”
“Be we got four more to make? Oh, my laws!” mourned Mrs. Tobin. “Urge the beast, can’t ye, Jeff’son? I ain’t used to bein’ out in such bleak weat
her. Seems if I couldn’t git my breath. I’m all pinched up and wigglin’ with shivers now. ’T ain’t no use lettin’ the hoss go step-a-ty-step, this fashion.”
“Landy me!” exclaimed the affronted driver. “I don’t see why folks expects me to race with the cars.db Everybody that gits in wants me to run the hoss to death on the road. I make a good everage o’ time, and that’s all I can do. Ef you was to go back an’ forth every day but Sabbath fur eighteen years, you’d want to ease it all you could, and let those thrash the spokes out o’ their wheels that wanted to. North Kilby, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Sanscrit Pond, Tuesdays, Thu’sdays, an’ Saturdays. Me an’ the beast’s done it eighteen years together, and the creatur’ warn’t, so to say, young when we begun it, nor I neither. I re’lly didn’t know ’s she’d hold out till this time. There, git up, will ye, old mar’!” as the beast of burden stopped short in the road.
There was a story that Jefferson gave this faithful creature a rest three times a mile, and took four hours for the journey by himself, and longer whenever he had a passenger. But in pleasant weather the road was delightful, and full of people who drove their own conveyances, and liked to stop and talk. There were not many farms, and the third growth of white pines made a pleasant shade, though Jefferson liked to say that when he began to carry the mail his way lay through an open country of stumps and sparse underbrush, where the white pines nowadays completely arched the road.
They had passed the barn with circus posters, and felt colder than ever when they caught sight of the weather-beaten acrobats in their tights.
“My gorry!” exclaimed Widow Tobin, “them pore creatur’s looks as cheerless as little birch-trees in snow-time. I hope they dresses ’em warmer this time o’ year. Now, there! look at that one jumpin’ through the little hoop, will ye?”
“He couldn’t git himself through there with two pair o’ pants on,” answered Mr. Briley. “I expect they must have to keep limber as eels. I used to think, when I was a boy, that ’t was the only thing I could ever be reconciled to do for a livin’. I set out to run away an’ follow a rovin’ showman once, but mother needed me to home. There warn’t nobody but me an’ the little gals.”
“You ain’t the only one that’s be’n disapp’inted o’ their heart’s desire,” said Mrs. Tobin sadly. “ ’T warn’t so that I could be spared from home to learn the dressmaker’s trade.”
“ ’T would a come handy later on, I declare,” answered the sympathetic driver, “bein’ ’s you went an’ had such a passel o’ gals to clothe an’ feed. There, them that ’s livin’ is all well off now, but it must ha’ been some inconvenient for ye when they was small.”
“Yes, Mr. Briley, but then I’ve had my mercies, too,” said the widow somewhat grudgingly. “I take it master hard now, though, havin’ to give up my own home and live round from place to place, if they be my own child’en. There was Ad’line and Susan Ellen fussin’ an’ bickerin’ yesterday about who’d got to have me next; and, Lord be thanked, they both wanted me right off but I hated to hear ’em talkin’ of it over. I’d rather live to home, and do for myself.”
“I’ve got consider’ble used to boardin’,” said Jefferson, “sence ma’am died, but it made me ache ’long at the fustdc on ’t. I tell ye. Bein’ on the road’s I be, I couldn’t do no ways at keepin’ house. I should want to keep right there and see to things.”
“Course you would,” replied Mrs. Tobin, with a sudden inspiration of opportunity which sent a welcome glow all over her. “Course you would, Jeff ’son,”—she leaned toward the front seat; “that is to say, on-less you had jest the right one to do it for ye.”
And Jefferson felt a strange glow also, and a sense of unexpected interest and enjoyment.
“See here, Sister Tobin,” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Why can’t ye take the trouble to shift seats, and come front here long o’ me? We could put one buff ’lo top o’ the other,—they’re both wearin’ thin,—and set close, and I do’ know but we sh’d be more protected ag’inst the weather.”
“Well, I couldn’t be no colder if I was froze to death,” answered the widow, with an amiable simper. “Don’t ye let me delay you, nor put you out, Mr. Briley. I don’t know ’s I’d set forth to-day if I’d known ’t was so cold; but I had all my bundles done up, and I ain’t one that puts my hand to the plough an’ looks back, ’cordin’ to Scriptur’.”dd
“You wouldn’t wanted me to ride all them seven miles alone?” asked the gallant Briley sentimentally, as he lifted her down, and helped her up again to the front seat. She was a few years older than he, but they had been schoolmates, and Mrs. Tobin’s youthful freshness was suddenly revived to his mind’s eye. She had a little farm; there was nobody left at home now but herself, and so she had broken up housekeeping for the winter. Jefferson himself had savings of no mean amount.
They tucked themselves in, and felt better for the change, but there was a sudden awkwardness between them; they had not had time to prepare for an unexpected crisis.
“They say Elder Bickers, over to East Sanscrit, ’s been and got married again to a gal that’s four year younger than his oldest daughter,” proclaimed Mrs. Tobin presently. “Seems to me ’t was fool’s business.”
“I view it so,” said the stage-driver. “There’s goin’ to be a mild open winter for that fam’ly.”
“What a joker you be for a man that’s had so much responsibility!” smiled Mrs. Tobin, after they had done laughing. “Ain’t you never ’fraid, carryin’ mail matter and such valuable stuff, that you’ll be set on an’ robbed, ’specially by night?”
Jefferson braced his feet against the dasher under the worn buffalo skin. “It is kind o’ scary, or would be for some folks, but I’d like to see anybody get the better o’ me. I go armed, and I don’t care who knows it. Some o’ them drover men that comes from Canady looks as if they didn’t care what they did, but I look ’em right in the eye every time.”
“Men folks is brave by natur’,” said the widow admiringly. “You know how Tobin would let his fist right out at anybody that ondertook to sass him. Town-meetin’ days, if he got disappointed about the way things went, he’d lay ’em out in win’rows;de and ef he hadn’t been a church-member he’d been a real fightin’ character. I was always ’fraid to have him roused, for all he was so willin’ and meechin’df to home, and set round clever as anybody. My Susan Ellen used to boss him same’s the kitten, when she was four year old.”
“I’ve got a kind of a sideways cant to my nose, that Tobin give me when we was to school. I don’t know’s you ever noticed it,” said Mr. Briley. “We was scufflin’, as lads will. I never bore him no kind of a grudge. I pitied ye, when he was taken away. I re’lly did, now, Fanny. I liked Tobin first-rate, and I liked you. I used to say you was the han’somest girl to school.”
“Lemme see your nose. ’T is all straight, for what I know,” said the widow gently, as with a trace of coyness she gave a hasty glance. “I don’t know but what ’t is warped a little, but nothin’ to speak of. You’ve got real nice features, like your marm’s folks.”
It was becoming a sentimental occasion, and Jefferson Briley felt that he was in for something more than he had bargained. He hurried the faltering sorrel horse, and began to talk of the weather. It certainly did look like snow, and he was tired of bumping over the frozen road.
“I shouldn’t wonder if I hired a hand here another year, and went off out West myself to see the country.”
“Why, how you talk!” answered the widow.
“Yes ’m,” pursued Jefferson. “ ’T is tamer here than I like, and I was tellin’ ’em yesterday I’ve got to know this road most too well. I’d like to go out an’ ride in the mountains with some o’ them great clipper coaches, where the driver don’t know one minute but he’ll be shot dead the next. They carry an awful sight o’ gold down from the mines, I expect.”
“I should be scairt to death,” said Mrs. Tobin. “What creatur’s men folks be to like suc
h things! Well, I do declare.”
“Yes,” explained the mild little man. “There’s sights of desp’ra does makes a han’some livin’ out o’ followin’ them coaches, an’ stoppin’ an’ robbin’ ’em clean to the bone. Your money or your life!” and he flourished his stub of a whip over the sorrel mare.
“Landy me! you make me run all of a cold creep. Do tell somethin’ heartenin’, this cold day. I shall dream bad dreams all night.”
“They put on black crape over their heads,” said the driver mysteriously. “Nobody knows who most on ’em be, and like as not some o’ them fellows come o’ good families. They’ve got so they stop the cars, and go right through ’em bold as brass. I could make your hair stand on end, Mis’ Tobin,—I could so!”
“I hope none on ’em ’ll git round our way, I’m sure,” said Fanny Tobin. “I don’t want to see none on ’em in their crape bunnits comin’ after me.”
“I ain’t goin’ to let nobody touch a hair o’ your head,” and Mr. Briley moved a little nearer, and tucked in the buffaloes again.
“I feel considerable warm to what I did,” observed the widow by way of reward.
“There, I used to have my fears,” Mr. Briley resumed, with an inward feeling that he never would get to North Kilby depot a single man. “But you see I hadn’t nobody but myself to think of. I’ve got cousins, as you know, but nothin’ nearer, and what I’ve laid up would soon be parted out; and—well, I suppose some folks would think o’ me if anything was to happen.”
Mrs. Tobin was holding her cloud over her face,dg—the wind was sharp on that bit of open road,—but she gave an encouraging sound, between a groan and a chirp.
“ ’T wouldn’t be like nothin’ to me not to see you drivin’ by,” she said, after a minute. “I shouldn’t know the days o’ the week. I says to Susan Ellen last week I was sure ’t was Friday, and she said no, ’t was Thursday; but next minute you druv by and headin’ toward North Kilby, so we found I was right.”
The Country of the Pointed Firs and Selected Short Fiction Page 29