Mary E. Wilkins

“ On one side was the sitting-room, on the other the kitchen. Luella went into the kitchen, and an old woman rose up from a chair by the stove. She was small as a child, but her muscles were large, her flaxen hair was braided lightly, her round blue eyes were filmy, and she grinned constantly without speaking.
"Got the cleanin' done, 'Liza?" asked Luella. The old woman nodded, and her grin widened. She was called foolish; her humble capabilities could not diffuse themselves, but were strong in only one direction: she could wash and scrub, and in that she took delight. ”

“ She always warned people not to go too near him. She fed him on ascetic fare of corn-mush and cakes, and never fired his dangerous temper with heating and sanguinary diet of flesh and bones. Louisa looked at the old dog munching his simple fare, and thought of her approaching marriage and trembled. Still no anticipation of disorder and confusion in lieu of sweet peace and harmony, no forebodings of Cæsar on the rampage, no wild fluttering of her little yellow canary, were sufficient to turn her a hair's-breadth. Joe Dagget had been fond of her and working for her all these years. ”

“ CHRISTMAS JENNY. The day before there had been a rain and a thaw, then in the night the wind had suddenly blown from the north, and it had grown cold. In the morning it was very clear and cold, and there was the hard glitter of ice over everything. The snow-crust had a thin coat of ice, and all the open fields shone and flashed. The tree boughs and trunks, and all the little twigs, were enamelled with ice. The roads were glare and slippery with it, and so were the door-yards. In old Jonas Carey's yard the path that sloped from the door to the well was like a frozen brook. ”

“ Love did not make a sound, but her face moved as if she screamed. She went weakly up-stairs with her lamp, and Amanda sat down in the parlor and thought. It was midnight before she went up-stairs.
She listened a minute at Love's door, then she tiptoed in and bent over her. Love was asleep; her little face had a peaceful look, but her skin was dank and pale with perspiration; great beads stood on her forehead. ”

“ Charlotte had decreed that that was better for her. Lucinda had not even her cup of tea since Charlotte reigned.
Lucinda had been fond of a rich cup-cake, which she had also enjoyed stirring up once a week for herself. She had taken an innocent pride in its excellence, and she had treated her few callers to it. She had liked a slice of it between meals. But that was now all done away with; there was no cake baked in the house. "That rich cake is not fit for you to eat, Aunt Lucinda," Charlotte had said. "I think we had better not have any more of it." ”

“ Flora said.
"She must have been," rejoined her mother.
But the two looked at each other, and their eyes said more than their tongues. Here was a new marvel, new evidence of a kind which they had heretofore scented at, these two rigidly walking New England souls; yet walking, after all, upon narrow paths through dark meadows of mysticism. If they never lost their footing, the steaming damp of the meadows might come in their faces.
This fancy, delusion, superstition, whichever one might name it, of theirs had lasted now three months—ever since young Jenny Dunn had died. ”

“ Nobility of character manifests itself at loop-holes when it is not provided with large doors. Sarah Penn's showed itself to-day in flaky dishes of pastry. So she made the pies faithfully, while across the table she could see, when she glanced up from her work, the sight that rankled in her patient and steadfast soul—the digging of the cellar of the new barn in the place where Adoniram forty years ago had promised her their new house should stand. ”

“ The snow was drifted into long waves, and looked like a frozen sea. A flock of sparrows had collected before Nicholas Gunn's door, and he stood watching them. They were searching for crumbs; this deep snow had shortened their resources wofully; all their larders were buried. There were no crumbs before this door; but they searched assiduously, with their feathers ruffled in the wind. Stephen Forster came up the road with his market-basket; it was all he could do to face the wind. ”

“ Alma's pretty, pleading little face as a supplement to Lucretia's, and her timorous, "Please let Lucretia go," had no effect whatever.
"I don't approve of children being out nights," said Aunt Lucretia, and Aunt Maria supported her. "There's no use talking," said she; "you can't go, Lucretia. Not another word. Take your things off, and sit down and sew your square of patchwork before supper. Almy, you'd better run right home; I guess your mother'll be wanting you to help her." And Alma went. ”

“ She had converted every unused dish in the house into a receptacle for her rose leaves. Old china teapots stood about, and sugar bowls, and earthen jars, all exhaling spicy sweetness. They were in every room in the house. The amusements which life held for Clarissa seemed to be concentrated into this one gentle, erratic one of conserving rose leaves. And the amusement was of such long standing that it was almost like a duty to her. It is doubtful if she did not unconsciously think it wrong to let a rose leaf entirely perish, with all its sweetness, while she could save it. ”

“ Old Cæsar seldom lifted up his voice in a growl or a bark; he was fat and sleepy; there were yellow rings which looked like spectacles around his dim old eyes; but there was a neighbor who bore on his hand the imprint of several of Cæsar's sharp white youthful teeth, and for that he had lived at the end of a chain, all alone in a little hut, for fourteen years. The neighbor, who was choleric and smarting with the pain of his wound, had demanded either Cæsar's death or complete ostracism. So Louisa's brother, to whom the dog had belonged, had built him his little kennel and tied him up. ”

“ Not one Sunday had she missed of stepping modestly up the aisle in her humble Sunday best, and seating herself with gentle gravity. The pew was a conspicuous one beside the pulpit, at right angles with the others. Hannah was in full view of the whole congregation. She sat erect and composed in her pretty dress. The delicate color in her cheeks was the same as ever; her soft eyes were as steady. She found the hymns and sang; she listened to the preaching.
Women looked at her, then at one another. Hannah knew it. ”

“ Christine asleep of a night in her little back bedroom, Christine of a day stepping about the house in one of Paulina's old gowns, became a part of their existence, and a part which was not far from the nature of a sweetness to their senses.
She still retained her mild shyness of manner, and rarely spoke unless spoken to. Now that she was warmly sheltered and well fed, her beauty became evident. She grew prettier every day. ”

“ The paupers, with the exception of the sick young woman, ate with gusto. The children were all hearty, and although the world had lost all its savor for the hearts and minds of the old ones, it was still somewhat salt to their palates. Now that their thoughts had ceased reaching and grasping, they could still put out their tongues, for that primitive instinct of life with which they had been born still survived and gave them pleasure. In this world it is the child only that is immortal. ”

“ Malvina had always been a veritable queen mother to Annie.
Ellen and her little boy visited Malvina for several weeks before the wedding. Ellen assisted about the sewing; she was a fine sewer.
Old Barney did not dare stay much in the house, but he wandered about the yard, and absurdly peeped in at the doors and windows. Back in his second childhood, he had all the delighted excitement of a child over a great occasion. It was perhaps a poor and pitiful happiness, but he was as happy in his own way as Annie was over her coming marriage, and, after all, happiness is only one's own heartful. ”

“ That glimpse of Margy Wilson's pretty, new face—for she was a stranger in the town—had been too much for George Elliot. He obtained an introduction, and soon was a steady visitor at Esther Barney's house. Margy fell in love with him easily. She had never had much attention from the young men, and he was an engaging young fellow, small and bright-eyed, though with a nervous persistency like his mother's in his manner. ”

“ Britton believed it. Many hard middle-aged years lay between her and her own love-time, and nothing is so changed by distance as the realities of youth. She believed herself to have been actuated by the same calm reason in marrying young John Britton, who had had fair prospects, which she thought should actuate her daughter in marrying Jonathan Nye.
Louisa got no sympathy from her, but she persisted in her refusal. She worked harder and harder. She did not spare herself in doors or out. As the summer wore on her face grew as sunburnt as a boy's, her hands were hard and brown. ”

“ And poor Lucinda came gently down to her niece's views on diet, and put cup-cake and cold pork and vegetables away from her like devices of Satan. She concealed from herself her longing for them; and she felt the most sincere love and gratitude to Charlotte for her interest in her welfare. Indeed, Charlotte did everything from the purest motives. She had meant to do her very best by her old aunt Lucinda when she had come to live with her, after her father's death, from a sense of duty. ”

“ Elizabeth came out in the early morning to sweep the brick floor of the piazza, and the front door was left ajar for a hurried flitting should any one appear.
This excessive shyness and secrecy had almost the aspect of guilt, but no more guileless and upright persons could have been imagined than these two old women. They had over their parlor windows full, softly-falling, old muslin curtains, and they looped them back to leave bare the smallest possible space of glass. The parlor chairs retreated close to the walls, the polish of the parlor table lit up a dim corner. ”

“ Whatever there was of sweet romance, whatever there was of sweet human pity in those simple, somewhat contracted country folks, was awakened. Poor, pretty, faulty Minty dragging the sulky with her sick husband in it, three miles to Bassets in the heat and dust, was to figure henceforth as the heroine of one of the unwritten folk-lore songs which are handed down from mother to daughter.
Everybody was kind to the poor young couple. When David began to mend, and there was more opportunity for them, there was no end to the kindly services which were proffered. ”

“ The little boy stood on one side of the fence and Dorothy on the other, and they ate the honey-cake. Then Dorothy ran back to the house and fell to spinning again. She spun so fast, to make up for the lost time, that one could not see the wheel-spokes at all, and the room hummed like a hive of bees. But, fast as she spun, Dame Betsy, when she returned, discovered that she had been idling, and said that she must go without her supper. Poor Dorothy could not help weeping as she twirled the wheel, she was so hungry, and the honey-cake had been very small. ”

“ Luella heard the cows low in the barn as she opened the kitchen door. "Where—did all that—blood come from?" said she.
She began to breathe in quick gasps; she stood clutching her pillow, and looking. Then she called: "Mr. Weed! Mr. Weed! Where be you? Mis' Weed! Is anything the matter? Mis' Weed!" The silence seemed to beat against her ears. She went across the kitchen to the bedroom. Here and there she held back her dress. She reached the bedroom door, and looked in.
Luella pressed back across the kitchen into the yard. She went out into the road, and turned towards the village. ”

“ She found her just as beautiful as when she left her. That long day of absence, filled in with her extravagant childish fancy, had not caused her charms to lessen in the least.
Sarah Jane ran straight to the linen chest, in whose till she had hidden for safety the precious doll, and there she lay, her indigo blue eyes staring up, smiling at her with the sweet cranberry-colored smile which Serena had fixed on her face. Sarah Jane caught her up in rapture. ”

“ That, at least, mild little Alma Way could never emulate. She was full of steadfastness and unquestioning constancy, but there were in her no smouldering fires of ambition and resolution. Music was not to her what it had been to her older rival. To this obscure woman, kept relentlessly by circumstances in a narrow track, singing in the village choir had been as much as Italy was to Napoleon—and now on her island of exile she was still showing fight.
After the church service was done, Candace left the organ and went over to her old chair by the window. Her knees felt weak, and shook under her. ”

“ They turned about and went out of the tent; they crossed the old road and climbed the stone-wall. Flora spoke as she picked her way across the meadow. "Guess I'll buy that basket when my money comes next week," said she.
Nancy said nothing; she looked gloomy. She stepped in an oozy place and wet one foot, but she did not mind it. She thought of her eight cents, and did an example in mental arithmetic. "Eight from fifty leaves forty-two," she calculated. For the first time she was envious of Flora. Everybody finds some object to grudge to another. Nancy had found hers—the sweet-grass basket. ”

“ Now the tall weeds and grasses might cluster around Cæsar's little hermit hut, the snow might fall on its roof year in and year out, but he never would go on a rampage through the unguarded village. Now the little canary might turn itself into a peaceful yellow ball night after night, and have no need to wake and flutter with wild terror against its bars. Louisa could sew linen seams, and distil roses, and dust and polish and fold away in lavender, as long as she listed. That afternoon she sat with her needle-work at the window, and felt fairly steeped in peace. ”

“ When she got home she found Serena getting supper, and her father was washing his hands out in the shed; her mother had not returned. On the kitchen sink lay a tin pan with four or five muddy parsnips. Serena looked up eagerly when her sister entered. "They coming?" said she.
"Yes, they are," replied Ruth, with a triumphant smile.
But Serena walked over to the sink and extended her arm with a tragical gesture towards the parsnips. "Well, you've gone and done it now, Ruth Whitman," said she. "There's every single parsnip that's fit to eat that I could find in the garden." ”

“ Mirandy stayed close to Jonathan, as she had been bidden, and she struggled bravely with her berry bush, but it was too tall for her; the bushes in this pasture were very tall. Mirandy tugged the branches down, and panted for breath. She was eager to fill her basket as soon as anybody. She heard Harriet and Mary Ann talking near her, although she could not see them.
"Cap'n Moseby's pasture is right over there. You get over the stone-wall, and go across one field, and you come to it," remarked Harriet.
"I s'pose the berries are as thick as spatters," said Mary Ann, with a sigh. ”

“ Benjamin shook his head like a discouraged old man, and turned to go home.
"Sammy'll feed him, and take real good care of him, and you can come over here and see him," Mr. Tucker called after him, as he went down the road.
Benjamin thought to himself that he should not want to, as he marched wearily homeward. His arms were lightened of the puppy, but his heart seemed heavy within him. Two boys whom he knew sang out to him from a load of hay, but he gave only a grim nod in response. "They've got a dog," he muttered; and indeed the pretty shepherd dog was following after the load. ”

“ Amanda, as she went out of the room, had a look of defiant embarrassment, and her face was flushed. She had not flinched, but she was a New England woman, and she discussed all topics except purely material ones shamefacedly with her sister. She felt as if she had injured her own delicacy as well as her sister's.
Amanda, out in the kitchen, got supper, and Love, in the sitting-room, wiped her eyes and worked on her tidy. It was really necessary it should be finished; she was going to sell it, and she needed the money. ”

“ Fidelia remembered.
"Well, now, Fidelia, do you suppose you can go down to the store and buy some raisins for mother to put in sister Cynthy's weddin'-cake, all yourself?"
"An' be a real smart little girl," put in Aunt Maria.
Fidelia gave one ecstatic roll of her black eyes at them, then she broke into a shout, "Lemme go! lemme go!" She oscillated on her small stubbed toes like a bird preparing to fly, and she tugged energetically at her mother's apron.
"I'll give you a penny, an' you can buy you a nice stick of red-and-white twisted candy," added her mother. ”

“ Flora got her hat and stole across the street a little below the house, so the calling woman should not see her. When she got into the cemetery she called in her turn, letting out her thin sweet voice cautiously. Finally she came directly upon the child. She was in the Blake lot, her little slender body, in its dingy cotton dress, curled up on the ground close to one of the graves. No one but Nature tended those old graves now, and she seemed to be lapsing them gently back to her own lines, at her own will. ”

“ Luella usually lodged the book agent over night, when he came to the village, although he also had his failings. Many a night she was awakened by the creaking of the cellar-stairs, when the old minister crept down stealthily, a lamp balanced unsteadily in his shaking hand, to the cider-barrel. She would listen anxiously until she heard him return to his room, then get up and look about and sniff for fire.
There was not a woman in the village who had so many blessings, worth whatever they might be, offered to her. ”

“ Sometimes I think I'm a fool to expect she'd remember anything so long ago. I wish I could see her just a minute. I'd like to tell her why I stopped writing, anyhow, though I never supposed she cared much. Her letters had begun to sound rather cool."
"I'll go in and tell Clarissa that you want to speak to her," said Anne. "I don't see any need of so much fuss." Her voice sounded sweet and crisp. She swung her blue muslin skirts between the rose-bushes with an air. Her yellow head was proudly erect.
"She looks just the way Clarissa used to," Gilman thought, as he stared after her. ”

“ Maria had hardly recovered when Caleb Childs was laid up with the rheumatism; then Mrs. Childs had a long spell of exhaustion from overwork in nursing. Christine proved exceedingly useful in these emergencies. Their need of her appeared to be the dominant, and only outwardly evident, reason for her stay; still there was a deeper one which they themselves only faintly realized—this poor young girl, who was rendered almost repulsive to these honest downright folk by her persistent cloak of mystery, had somehow, in a very short time, melted herself, as it were, into their own lives. ”