Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

“ The old woman suggested at once the most fragile loveliness and a wonderful strength that could enable such fragility to exist at all. She was like some delicate field-flower which, even to the winter winds and storms, will not completely yield up its personality, but still stands, a silvery semblance of its summer self, yielding yet unyielding. ”

“ Silas Towns had the making of a shrewd business man in him. He made a good deal with Gorham for his own stock-in-trade, and became an interested, though silent, partner.
Strangely enough, Old Lady Dunn was the only one who evinced no especial pleasure. When Minnie suggested that Dave be given her recreant brother John's old room, she fairly cowered before her mother's gaze.
“No man ever goes into that room to sleep until he's proved himself worthy,” said the old woman, in her sweet, reedy voice. ”

“ The old man stirred uneasily. “Dog?” said he.
“Now, Pa,” said the woman, “don't you git excited. It's a real nice, safe little dog; and your cat's up the apple-tree, and thar ain't no call for you to worry.”
The woman flew out, her cotton skirts swishing. John Dunn looked about him. A sudden memory smote him with a pang. He might have been in his old boyhood home.
He sat silent, while the old man at the window nodded approvingly at him. “I see you ain't much more of a talker than I be,” he said. “Wall, that's right. Let the wimmen folks talk. Men ain't so much given that way. ”

“ Frank shambled forward and asked.
“Gosh A'mighty! 'Most anythin' that 'll keep me from starvin',” replied David. The little dog, snuggled close to him, wagged propitiatingly, as if he understood every word.
Finally David Mann, otherwise John Dunn, was engaged to work in his father's store.
Gorham Dunn was a bit distrustful. He wished to keep this stranger under his own roof. It was arranged that David was to occupy an attic room, unfinished but comfortable enough, which he remembered well. The hired man used to occupy it; but the days of hired men for the Dunn family were over. ”

“ Billy is a good boy, but he ain't no talker, and Ma likes to hev talkin'. I wa'n't never no talker myself, an' Billy takes arter me, I reckon. Laury was a real lively talker. Set down.”
John Dunn sat down. He had never been so absolutely embarrassed in his life as he was before these simple people and their simple hospitality.
The woman ran in and lit a lamp. “Here's a lamp, and you kin see enough to talk,” said she. “Supper will be ready before long. Your dog was 'most starved.” ”

“ Old man's been failin' lately, and Frank wa'n't never exactly cut out for storekeepin', though he's as good as they make 'em. He's 'most too good, and he 'ain't never had anything but drudgery. His folks spent everything on that good-for-nothin' John that went off and wa'n't never heard of afterward. Reckon he wound up in state prison. Everything had to go for him. T'other son didn't git nothin' but the hard work, an' nothin' for doin' it. And Minnie, she lost her beau because he insinnerated somethin' about that good-for-nothin' brother of hern, an' she flared up. ”

“ David heard the clink of dishes.
“Minnie is gettin' supper,” old man Dunn remarked. David understood there was no maid. He remembered two, always, before he had dissipated the family fortune.
On the right was the sitting-room. David followed his father in there. His mother sat beside the window.
“We've got a new man to work in the store, Ma,” said Old Man Dunn. “He's used to tendin' store, an' it's goin' to take a heap off Frank and me.” ”

“ Gorham Dunn and his son Frank were much perturbed by this competition, which was of recent date.
“Guess there won't be many customers; not so many but you can handle 'em,” Frank told his brother as he set out for home. “Silas Towns is getting some of our best ones away. He don't keep any better stuff than we do, and he don't sell no cheaper, but his store is new and sort of fancy, and it don't take much to tole folks away.” ”

“ But you can't git to Bixby Corners to-night. You come right in. Pa and me and Billy have had our supper, but it ain't no trouble at all to git you something.”
“If,” said John, “you could let me sleep in the barn —”
The woman tossed her head affrontedly. “Me and my husband don't ask folks to sleep in no barn,” said she, “when we've got two nice, clean spare chambers. You walk right in.” She pushed the gate open.
John Dunn walked in, with his dog following. The woman led the way around the house to the side-door. She opened it and entered. John hesitated. ”

“ And — she knew about John Dunn! He sat there and listened, with that sensation of strange torture, when she got to that.
“Old Gorham Dunn keeps the store in Bixby Corners,” said she. “He's so old he can't do much now, but he gits there every morning and sets. His son Frank tends mostly to the business now, but they say he 'ain't got no business head, though he's as stiddy as a clock an' means real well. Laury says the business is all runnin' behind. Laury said she pitied old Mis' Dunn an' old Mr. Dunn, an' Minnie, too; thar's a daughter. ”

“ He had overheard his mother deny his right to his old room. He had admired her for it. He admired the exquisite, strong old woman more and more, and she daily gained more power to give him pain, and she used her power.
Finally her husband, her daughter, and her other son were aghast at her treatment of the person whom they knew as David Mann. Old Gorham talked to Minnie about it.
“You'll have to say a leetle to your ma, I guess, Minnie,” he said. “First thing we know, Dave won't stand so much, an' he'll be leavin'; an' I dun'no' what Frank an' me would do without him, that's a fact.” ”

“ He privately concluded that Minnie and he were the business heads of the family. One evening he had a long talk with her in the kitchen, and, the next day being Sunday, they made a surreptitious visit of inspection to the store. Minnie looked keenly at the sugar, the flour, the chocolate and cocoa, and other things which had been dismissed from the up-to-date stock. She cocked her pretty brown head on one side, and her bright eyes shone indignantly.
“It takes a woman to run some things,” said she. “Land! If I had known Pa and Frank were letting things go to waste so! ”

“ We know it ain't your place to do all them chores.”
David laughed. “Reckon it's my place to do anythin' I kin do,” he said.
“Ma seems to hev somethin' ag'in' you, an' you 'ain't done nothin' but be a godsend to us ever sence you come,” said Gorham. “You won't think of leavin' because she seems so sort of queer? Women is queer.”
“I ain't likely to leave because she asks me to do anythin' I kin do,” said the man.
He and his father had been talking out in the yard. It was six months since he had come. The apple-tree which held the bird-house tossed yellow branches over their heads. ”

“ But always after that David Mann did the menial tasks about the place, instead of Frank. Ordered by his mother, he milked, cleaned the barn, chopped wood, and performed the tasks of a servant, although both his father and brother remonstrated.
“It beats all what has got into Ma,” Gorham told the man whom he knew as David. “The way she orders you around don't suit the rest of us. ”

“ They don't know whether he's alive or dead, but Laury says that folks say that his ma has kep' his room up for him — had that papered and the plaster mended when the paper an' plaster was droppin' off every other room in the house. I guess there ain't no doubt that them poor old folks is jest livin' in the hopes that that miserable poor tool will come back an' be petted jest the way the one was in the Bible. ”

“ He'd been better wuth while if he'd hustled 'round an' put on overalls, an' done the chores, an' sold that calf an' made his pa and ma buy somethin' they'd been doin' without on account of his foolishness.”
“Scripter is Scripter,” said Abby's mistress, “and what don't seem sense to us is jest because we don't understand. It don't make much odds nohow, I guess. I reckon that scalawag ain't never goin' to go back, nor let his poor old pa and ma pass away easy, nohow.”
The old man snored explosively in his chair. John welcomed the guttural snort. The woman ceased talking about Bixby Corners. ”