A White Heron and Other Stories (5 page)

“'T is a great thing for anybody to have got through, ain't it?” said Mrs. Crowe softly, as she began to go down the stairs on tiptoe. The warm air from the kitchen beneath met them with a sense of welcome and shelter.

“I don' know why it is, but I feel as near again to Tempy down here as I do up there,” replied Sister Binson. “I feel as if the air was full of her, kind of. I can sense things, now and then, that she seems to say. Now I never was one to take up with no nonsense of sperits and such, but I declare I felt as if she told me just now to put some more wood into the stove.”

Mrs. Crowe preserved a gloomy silence. She had suspected before this that her companion was of a weaker and more credulous disposition than herself “'T is a great thing to have got through,” she repeated, ignoring definitely all that had last been said. “I suppose you know as well as I that Tempy was one that always feared death. Well, it's all put behind her now; she knows what 't is.” Mrs. Crowe gave a little sigh, and Sister Binson's quick sympathies were stirred toward this other old friend, who also dreaded the great change.

“I'd never like to forgit almost those last words Tempy spoke plain to me,” she said gently, like the comforter she truly was. “She looked up at me once or twice, that last afternoon after I come to set by her, and let Mis' Owen go home; and I says, ‘Can I do anything to ease you, Tempy?' and the tears come into my eyes so I couldn't see what kind of a nod she give me. ‘No, Sarah Ann, you can't, dear,' says she; and then she got her breath again, and says she, looking at me real meanin', ‘I'm only a-gettin' sleepier and sleepier; that's all there is,' says she, and smiled up at me kind of wishful, and shut her eyes. I knew well enough all she meant. She'd been lookin' out for a chance to tell me, and I don' know's she ever said much afterwards.”

Mrs. Crowe was not knitting; she had been listening too eagerly. “Yes, 't will be a comfort to think of that sometimes,” she said, in acknowledgment.

“I know that old Dr. Prince said once, in evenin' meetin', that he'd watched by many a dyin' bed, as we well knew, and enough o' his sick folks had been scared o' dyin' their whole lives through; but when they come to the last, he'd never seen one but was willin', and most were glad, to go. ”T is as natural as bein' born or livin' on,' he said. I don't know what had moved him to speak that night. You know he wa'n't in the habit of it, and 't was the monthly concert of prayer for foreign missions anyways,” said Sarah Ann; ”but 't was a great stay to the mind to listen to his words of experience.”

“There never was a better man,” responded Mrs. Crowe, in a really cheerful tone. She had recovered from her feeling of nervous dread, the kitchen was so comfortable with lamplight and firelight; and just then the old clock began to tell the hour of twelve with leisurely whirring strokes.

Sister Binson laid aside her work, and rose quickly and went to the cupboard. “We'd better take a little to eat,” she explained. “The night will go fast after this. I want to know if you went and made some o' your nice cupcake, while you was home to-day?” she asked, in a pleased tone; and Mrs. Crowe acknowledged such a gratifying piece of thoughtfulness for this humble friend who denied herself all luxuries. Sarah Ann brewed a generous cup of tea, and the watchers drew their chairs up to the table presently, and quelled their hunger with good country appetites. Sister Binson put a spoon into a small, old-fashioned glass of preserved quince, and passed it to her friend. She was most familiar with the house, and played the part of hostess. “Spread some o' this on your bread and butter,” she said to Mrs. Crowe. “Tempy wanted me to use some three or four times, but I never felt to. I know she'd like to have us comfortable now, and would urge us to make a good supper, poor dear.”

“What excellent preserves she did make!” mourned Mrs. Crowe. “None of us has got her light hand at doin' things tasty. She made the most o' everything, too. Now, she only had that one old quince-tree down in the far corner of the piece, but she'd go out in the spring and tend to it, and look at it so pleasant, and kind of expect the old thorny thing into bloomin'.”

“She was just the same with folks,” said Sarah Ann. “And she'd never git more 'n a little apernful o' quinces, but she'd have every mite o' goodness out o' those, and set the glasses up onto her best-room closet shelf, so pleased. 'T wa'n't but a week ago to-morrow mornin' I fetched her a little taste o' jelly in a teaspoon; and she says ‘Thank ye,' and took it, an' the minute she tasted it she looked up at me as worried as could be. ‘Oh, I don't want to eat that,' says she. ‘I always keep that in case o' sickness.' ‘You're goin' to have the good o' one tumbler yourself,' says I. ‘I'd just like to know who's sick now, if you ain't!' An' she couldn't help laughin', I spoke up so smart. Oh, dear me, how I shall miss talkin' over things with her! She always sensed things, and got just the p'int you meant.”

“She didn't begin to age until two or three years ago, did she?” asked Mrs. Crowe. “I never saw anybody keep her looks as Tempy did. She looked young long after I begun to feel like an old woman. The doctor used to say 't was her young heart, and I don't know but what he was right. How she did do for other folks! There was one spell she wasn't at home a day to a fortnight. She got most of her livin' so, and that made her own potatoes and things last her through. None o' the young folks could get married without her, and all the old ones was disappointed if she wa'n't round when they was down with sickness and had to go. An' cleanin', or tailorin' for boys, or rughookin',—there was nothin' but what she could do as handy as most. ‘I do love to work,'—ain't you heard her say that twenty times a week?”

Sarah Ann Binson nodded, and began to clear away the empty plates. “We may want a taste o' somethin' more towards mornin',” she said. “There's plenty in the closet here; and in case some comes from a distance to the funeral, we'll have a little table spread after we get back to the house.”

“Yes, I was busy all the mornin'. I've cooked up a sight o' things to bring over,” said Mrs. Crowe. “I felt 't was the last I could do for her.”

They drew their chairs near the stove again, and took up their work. Sister Binson's rocking-chair creaked as she rocked; the brook sounded louder than ever. It was more lonely when nobody spoke, and presently Mrs. Crowe returned to her thoughts of growing old.

“Yes, Tempy aged all of a sudden. I remember I asked her if she felt as well as common, one day, and she laughed at me good. There, when Mr. Crowe begun to look old, I couldn't help feeling as if somethin' ailed him, and like as not 't was somethin' he was goin' to git right over, and I dosed him for it stiddy, half of one summer.”

“How many things we shall be wanting to ask Tempy!” exclaimed Sarah Ann Binson, after a long pause. “I can't make up my mind to doin' without her. I wish folks could come back just once, and tell us how 't is where they've gone. Seems then we could do without 'em better.”

The brook hurried on, the wind blew about the house now and then; the house itself was a silent place, and the supper, the warm fire, and an absence of any new topics for conversation made the watchers drowsy. Sister Binson closed her eyes first, to rest them for a minute; and Mrs. Crowe glanced at her compassionately, with a new sympathy for the hard-worked little woman. She made up her mind to let Sarah Ann have a good rest, while she kept watch alone; but in a few minutes her own knitting was dropped, and she, too, fell asleep. Overhead, the pale shape of Tempy Dent, the outworn body of that generous, loving-hearted, simple soul, slept on also in its white raiment. Perhaps Tempy herself stood near, and saw her own life and its surroundings with new understanding. Perhaps she herself was the only watcher.

Later, by some hours, Sarah Ann Binson woke with a start. There was a pale light of dawn outside the small windows. Inside the kitchen, the lamp burned dim. Mrs. Crowe awoke, too.

“I think Tempy'd be the first to say 't was just as well we both had some rest,” she said, not without a guilty feeling.

Her companion went to the outer door, and opened it wide. The fresh air was none too cold, and the brook's voice was not nearly so loud as it had been in the midnight darkness. She could see the shapes of the hills, and the great shadows that lay across the lower country. The east was fast growing bright.

“'T will be a beautiful day for the funeral,” she said, and turned again, with a sigh, to follow Mrs. Crowe up the stairs.

MISS PECK had spent a lonely day in her old farmhouse, high on a long Vermont hillside that sloped toward the west. She was able for an hour at noon to overlook the fog in the valley below, and pitied the people in the village whose location she could distinguish only by means of the church steeple which pricked through the gray mist, like a buoy set over a dangerous reef. During this brief time, when the sun was apparently shining for her benefit alone, she reflected proudly upon the advantage of living on high land, but in the early afternoon, when the fog began to rise slowly, and at last shut her in, as well as the rest of the world, she was conscious of uncommon depression of spirits.

“I might as well face it now as any time,” she said aloud, as she lighted her clean kerosene lamp and put it on the table. “Eliza Peck! just set down and make it blazing clear how things stand with you, and what you're going to do in regard to 'em! 'T ain't no use matching your feelin's to the weather, without you've got reason for it.” And she twitched the short curtains across the windows so that their brass rings squeaked on the wires, opened the door for the impatient cat that was mewing outside, and then seated herself in the old rocking-chair at the table end.

It is quite a mistake to believe that people who live by themselves find every day a lonely one. Miss Peck and many other solitary persons could assure us that it is very seldom that they feel their lack of companionship. As the habit of living alone grows more fixed, it becomes confusing to have other people about, and seems more or less bewildering to be interfered with by other people's plans and suggestions. Only once in a while does the feeling of solitariness become burdensome, or a creeping dread and sense of defenselessness assail one's comfort. But when Miss Peck was aware of the approach of such a mood she feared it, and was prepared to fight it with her best weapon of common sense.

She was much given to talking aloud, as many solitary persons are; not merely talking to herself in the usual half-conscious way, but making her weaker self listen to severe comment and pointed instruction. Miss Peck the less was frequently brought to trial in this way by Miss Peck the greater, and when it was once announced that justice must be done, no amount of quailing or excuse averted the process of definite conviction.

This evening she turned the light up to its full brightness, reached for her knitting-work, lifted it high above her lap for a moment, as her favorite cat jumped up to its evening quarters; then she began to rock to and fro with regularity and decision. “'T is all nonsense,” she said, as if she were addressing some one greatly her inferior—“'t is all nonsense for you to go on this way, Elizy Peck! you're better off than you've been this six year, if you only had sense to feel so.”

There was no audible reply, and the speaker evidently mistook the silence for unconvinced stubbornness.

“If ever there was a woman who was determined to live by other folks' wits, and to eat other folks' dinners, 't was and is your lamented brother's widder, Harri't Peck—Harri't White that was. She's claimed the town's compassion till it's good as run dry, and she's thought that you, Elizy Peck, a hard-workin' and self-supportin' woman, was made for nothin' but her use and comfort. Ever since your father died and you've been left alone you've had her for a clog to your upward way. Six years you've been at her beck an' call, and now that a respectable man, able an' willing to do for her, has been an' fell in love with her, and shouldered her and all her whims, and promised to do for the children as if they was his own, you've been grumpin' all day, an' I'd like to know what there is to grump about!”

There was a lack of response even to this appeal to reason, and the knitting-needles clicked in dangerous nearness to the old cat's ears, so that they twitched now and then, and one soft paw unexpectedly revealed its white curving claws.

“Yes,” said Miss Peck, presently, in a more lenient tone, “I s'pose 't is the children you're thinking of most. I declare I should like to see that Tom's little red head, and feel it warm with my two hands this minute! There's always somethin' hopeful in havin' to do with children, ‘less they come of
too
bad a stock. Grown folks—well, you can make out to grin an' bear 'em if you must; but like's not young ones'll turn out to be somebody, and what you do for ‘em may count towards it. There's that Tom, he looks just as his father used to, and there ain't a day he won't say somethin' real pleasant, and never sees the difference betwixt you an' somebody handsome. I expect they'll spile him—you don't know what kind o' young ones they'll let him play with, nor how they'll let him murder the king's English, and never think o' boxin' his ears. Them big factory towns is all for eatin' and clothes. I'm glad you was raised in a good old academy town, if 't was the Lord's will to plant you in the far outskirts. Land, how Harri't did smirk at that man! I will say she looked pretty—'t is hard work and worry makes folks plain like me—I believe she's fared better to be left a widder with three child'n, and everybody saying how hard it was, an' takin' holt, than she would if brother had lived and she'd had to stir herself to keep house and do for him. You've been the real widder that Tom left—you've mourned him, and had your way to go alone—not she! The colonel's lady,” repeated Miss Peck, scornfully—“that's what sp'ilt her. She never could come down to common things, Mis' Colonel Peck! Well, she may have noble means now, but she's got to be spoke of as Mis' Noah Pigley all the rest of her days. Not that I'm goin' to fling at any man's accident of name,” said the just Eliza, in an apologetic tone. “I did want to adopt little Tom, but 't was to be expected he'd object—a boy's goin' to be useful in his business, and poor Tommy's the likeliest. I would have ‘dopted him out an' out, and he shall have the old farm anyway. But oh dear me, he's all spoilt for farming now, is little Tom, unless I can make sure of him now and then for a good long visit in summer time.

“Summer an' winter; I s'pose you're likely to live a great many years, Elizy,” sighed the good woman. “All sole alone, too! There, I've landed right at the startin' point”—and the kitchen was very still while some dropped stitches in a belated stocking for the favorite nephew were obscured by a mist of tears like the fog outside. There was no more talking aloud, for Miss Peck fell into a revery about old days and the only brother who had left his little household in her care and marched to the war whence for him there was to be no return. She had remembered very often, with a great sense of comfort, a message in one of his very last letters. “Tell Eliza that she's more likely to be promoted than I am,” he said (when he had just got his step of Major); “she's my superior officer, however high I get, and now I've heard what luck she's had with the haying, I appoint her Brigadier-General for gallantry in the field.” How poor Tom's jokes had kept their courage up even when they were most anxious! Yes, she had made many sacrifices of personal gain, as every good soldier must. She had meant to be a schoolteacher. She had the gift for it, and had studied hard in her girlhood. One thing after another had kept her at home, and now she must stay here—her ambitions were at an end. She would do what good she could among her neighbors, and stand in her lot and place. It was the first time she had found to think soberly about her.life, for her sister-in-law and the children had gone to their new home within a few days, and since then she had stifled all power of proper reflection by hard work at setting the house in order and getting in her winter supplies. “Thank Heaven the house and place belong to me,” she said in a decisive tone. “'T was wise o' father to leave it so—and let her have the money. She'd left me no peace till I moved off if I'd only been half-owner; she's always meant to get to a larger place—but what I want is real promotion.”

The Peck farmhouse was not only on a by-road that wandered among the slopes of the hills, but it was at the end of a long lane of its own. There was rarely any sound at night except from the winds of heaven or the soughing of the neighboring pine-trees. By day, there was a beautiful inspiriting outlook over the wide country from the farmhouse windows, but on such a night as this the darkness made an impenetrable wall. Miss Peck was not afraid of it; on the contrary, she had a sense of security in being shut safe into the very heart of the night. By day she might be vexed by intruders, by night they could scarcely find her—her bright light could not be seen from the road. If she were to wither away in the old gray house like an unplanted kernel in its shell, she would at least wither undisturbed. Her sorrow of loneliness was not the fear of molestation. She was fearless enough at the thought of physical dangers.

The evening did not seem so long as she expected—a glance at her reliable timekeeper told her at last that it was already past eight o'clock, and her eyes began to feel heavy. The fire was low, the fog was making its presence felt even in the house, for the autumn night was chilly, and Miss Peck decided that when she came to the end of the stitches on a certain needle she would go to bed. To-morrow, she meant to cut her apples for drying, a duty too long delayed. She had sent away some of her best fruit that day to make the annual barrel of cider with which she provided herself, more from habit than from real need of either the wholesome beverage or its resultant vinegar. “If this fog lasts, I've got to dry my apples by the stove,” she thought, doubtfully, and was conscious of a desire to survey the weather from the outer doorway before she slept. How she missed Harriet and the children!—though they had been living with her only for a short time before the wedding, and since the half-house they had occupied in the village had been let. The thought of bright-eyed, red-headed little Tom still brought the warm tears very near to falling. He had cried bitterly when he went away. So had his mother—at least, she held up her pocket-handkerchief. Miss Peck never had believed in Harriet's tears.

Out of the silence of the great hillslope came the full sound of a voice, and as Miss Peck sprang from her chair to the window, dropping the sleeping cat in a solid mass on the floor, she recognized the noise of a carriage. Her heart was beating provokingly; she was tired by the excitement of the last few days. She did not remember this, but was conscious of being startled in an unusual way. It must be some strange crisis in her life; she turned and looked about the familiar kitchen as if it were going to be altogether swept away. “Now, you needn't be afraid that Pigley's comin' to bring her back, Elizy Peck!” she assured herself with grim humor in that minute's apprehension of disaster.

A man outside spoke sternly to his horse, Eliza stepped quickly to the door and opened it wide. She was not afraid of the messenger, only of the message.

“Hold the light so's I an see to tie this colt,” said a familiar voice; “it's as dark as a pocket, ‘Liza. I'll be right in. You must put on a good warm shawl; 't is as bad as rain, this fog is. The minister wants you to come down to his house; he's at his wits' end, and there was nobody we could think of that's free an' able to except you. His wife's gone, died at quarter to six, and left a mis'able baby; but the doctor expects 't will live. The nurse they bargained with's failed 'em, and 't is an awful state o' things as you ever see. Half the women in town are there, and the minister's overcome; he's sort of fainted away two or three times, and they don't know who else to get, till the doctor said your name, and he groaned right out you was the one. 'T ain't right to refuse, as I view it. Mis' Spence and Mis' Corbell is going to watch with the dead, but there needs a head.”

Eliza Peck felt for once as if she lacked that useful possession herself, and sat down, with amazing appearance of calmness, in one of her splint-bottomed chairs to collect her thoughts. The messenger was a good deal excited; so was she; but in a few moments she rose, cutting short his inconsequent description of affairs at the parsonage.

“You just put out the fire as best you can,” she said. “We'll talk as we go along. There's plenty o' ashes there, I'm sure; I let the stove cool off considerable, for I was meanin' to go to bed in another five minutes. The cat'll do well enough. I'll leave her plenty for to-morrow, and she's got a place where she can crep in an' out of the wood-shed. I'll just slip on another dress and put the nails over the windows, an' we'll be right off.” She was quite herself again now; and, true to her promise, it was not many minutes before the door was locked, the house left in darkness, and Ezra Weston and Miss Peck were driving comfortably down the lane. The fog had all blown away, suddenly the stars were out, and the air was sweet with the smell of the wet bark of black birches and cherry and apple-trees that grew by the fences. The leaves had fallen fast through the day, weighted by the dampness until their feeble stems could keep them in place no longer; for the bright colors of the foliage there had come at night sweet odors and a richness of fragrance in the soft air.

“'T is an unwholesome streak o' weather, ain't it?” asked Ezra Weston. “Feels like a dog-day evenin' now, don't it? Come this time o' year we want bracin' up.”

Miss Peck did not respond; her sympathetic heart was dwelling on the thought that she was going, not only to a house of mourning, but to a bereft parsonage. She would not have felt so unequal to soothing the sorrows of her every-day acquaintances, but she could hardly face the duty of consoling the new minister. But she never once wished that she had not consented so easily to respond to his piteous summons.

There was a strangely festive look in the village, for the exciting news of Mrs. Elbury's death had flown from house to house—lights were bright everywhere, and in the parsonage brightest of all. It looked as if the hostess were receiving her friends, and helping them to make merry, instead of being white and still, and done with this world, while the busy women of the parish were pulling open her closets and bureau drawers in search of household possessions. Nobody stopped to sentimentalize over the poor soul's delicate orderliness, or the simple, loving preparations she had made for the coming of the baby which fretfully wailed in the next room.