Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

“ The graveyard gates had been left open after the funeral. They entered, and passed up the driveway along the wheel ruts of the funeral procession. Pink garlands of flowering-almond arched over the old graves, and bushes of bridal-wreath sent out white spikes. Weeping-willows swept over them in lines of gold-green light, and evergreen trees stood among them as they had stood all winter. In many of these were sunken vases and bottles of spring flowers, lilacs and violets.
Lois and Francis Arms went on to the Mason monument. ”

“ Maxwell died, reflecting that souls were more apt to pass away in the wane of the night. She would have like to wind the clock, and set the hands moving past that ghostly hour, but she did not dare to stir. She gazed at the large, dull figures sprawling over the old carpet, at the glimmering satiny scrolls on the wall-paper. On the mantel-shelf stood a branching gilt candlestick, filled with colored candles, and strung around with prisms, which glittered feebly in the low lamp-light. There was a bulging, sheet-iron wood stove—the Maxwells had always eschewed coal ”

“ All is, you'll never find a better fellow than he is, Lois Field, I don't care where you go.”
Flora spoke with slow warmth. Lois's face quivered. “If you don't take care you'll never get married at all,” said Flora, half laughing.
Lois sat up straight. “I shall never get married to anybody,” said she. “That's one thing I won't do. I'll die first.” ”

“ Mrs. Field said nothing; she sat grimly quiet, knitting. Lois looked silently out of the window. Both of them knew that Mrs. Maxwell had not known of her daughter's wedding. Presently a man's voice could be heard out in the kitchen.
“It's Francis,” said Mrs. Lowe. “I wonder if he knew?”
Lois started, and blushed softly, but nobody noticed her.
There was a deep silence in the parlor; the women were listening to the hum of voices in the kitchen.
“Don't you think it's dreadful close here?” said Mrs. Lowe.
“Yes, I think it is,” assented the minister's wife. ”

“ I guess I do,” replied Lois.
Francis still looked at her. Her little face bent, faintly rosy, under her hat. There was a grave pitifulness, like an old woman's, about her mouth, but her shoulders looked very young and slender.
“Suppose you take off your hat,” said he, “and let the air come on your forehead. I've got mine off; it's more comfortable. You won't catch cold. It's warm as summer.”
Lois took off her hat.
“That's better,” said Francis, approvingly. “You're going to live right along here in Elliot with your aunt, aren't you?” ”

“ Maxwell's parlor carpet might have been the flora of a whole age, she and her mother seemed so far apart, with that recession of soul which can cover more than earthly spaces. To the young girl with her scared, indignant eyes the older woman seemed actually living and breathing under new conditions in some strange element. ”

“ There were her three old friends and neighbors, the minister and his wife, Daniel Tuxbury, his sister and her daughter, Mrs. Jane Maxwell and her daughter, and her own Lois. She faced them all and said it again: “I ain't Esther Maxwell.”
The lawyer jerked himself forward; his face was twitching. “This woman's mind is affected,” he declared with loud importance. “She is Esther Maxwell. I will swear to it in any court. I recognize her, and I never forget a face.”
“I ain't Esther Maxwell,” said Jane Field, in her voice that was as remorseless and conclusive as fate. ”

“ Mrs. Field had spied matches over on the shelf, but she did not dare to rise to cross the room to get them and find another lamp. She did not dare to stir.
After her light went out, there was still a pale glimmer upon the opposite wall, and the white face of the silent clock showed out above the cumbersome shadow of the great mahogany piece. The glimmer came from a neighbor's lamp shining through a gap in the trees. Soon that also went out, and the old woman sat there in total darkness. ”

“ Lois watched it listlessly—the black-draped hearse, the slow-marching bearers, the close-covered wagons, and the nodding horses. She could see it plainly through the thin spring branches. It was quite a long procession; she watched it until it passed. The cemetery was only a little way below the house, on the same side of the street. By twisting her head a little, she could have seen the black throng at the gate.
After a while the hearse and the carriages went past on their homeward road at a lively pace, the gate clicked, and Mrs. Jane Maxwell and a young man came up the walk. ”

“ Mr. Tuxbury, with a moodily knitted forehead and a smiling mouth, asked the guests miserably if they would have some veal stew. It was perfectly evident that if they accepted, there would be nothing whatever left for the family to eat. They declined in terrified haste; indeed, both Lois and her mother had been impelled to pass their portions of beefsteak over to the children, but they had not dared. ”

“ Field. Mrs. Lowe sat down in one of the plush chairs. To seat herself for a few minutes before announcing dinner was, she supposed, a matter of etiquette. She held up her long rasped chin with a curt air, and, in spite of herself, her voice also was curt. She was too thorough a New England woman to play with any success softening lights over the steel of her character. She disdained to, and she was also unable to. She was not pleased to receive these unexpected guests, and she showed it. ”

“ Mrs. Lowe's eyes said, “Is that a wedding-cake?” and Mrs. Robbin's said: “I dunno; it ain't frosted. It looks jest like a loaf she's had on hand.”
But nothing could exceed the repose and dignity with which Mrs. Maxwell, at the last stage of the meal, requested her nephew to pass the cake to her. Nobody could have dreamed as she cut it, every turn of her burned wrist giving her pain, of the frantic haste with which she had taken that old fruit cake out of the jar down-cellar, and pulled those sprigs of myrtle from the bank under the north windows.
“Will you have some weddin'-cake?” said she. ”

“ They were from the adjoining town, which this railroad served as well as Green River.
Sometimes Mrs. Field looked at them, but with no speculation; the next moment she looked in the same way upon the belongings of the little country depot—the battered yellow settees, the time-tables, the long stove in its tract of littered sawdust, the man's face in the window of the ticket-office. ”

“ Lois said nothing. She opened the front door and went into the house, straight through to the kitchen, where her mother was preparing breakfast. “There's a woman out there,” she said.
“Who is it?”
“I don't know. She wants to see—Mrs. Maxwell.”
Lois looked full at her mother; her eyes were like an angel's before evil. Mrs. Field looked back at her. Then she turned toward the door.
Lois caught hold of her mother's dress. Mrs. Field twitched it away fiercely, and passed on into the sitting-room. The woman stood there waiting. She had followed Lois in. ”

“ You won't be homesick a bit after a little while; you'll like it here. There are some nice girls about your age. My cousin Flora will come and see you. She's older than you, but she's a real nice girl. She's feeling rather upset over something now, too. Now come, let's get up and go and see some more of the monuments. You don't want a school. Your aunt can lookout for you. I should laugh if she couldn't. She's a rich woman, and you're all she's got in the world. Now come, let's cheer up, and go look at some more gravestones.”
“I guess I'd rather go home,” said Lois, faintly. ”

“ It was so warm that Amanda had set all the windows open, and the room was full of the hollow gurgling of the frogs—there was some low meadow-land behind the house.
“I want to know what you think of Lois?” said Mrs. Field, suddenly; her voice was high and harsh.
“Why, I don't know, hardly, Mis' Field.”
“Well, I know. She's runnin' down. She won't ever be any better, unless I can do something. She's dyin' for the want of a little money, so she can stop work an' go away to some healthier place an' rest. She is; the Lord knows she is.” Mrs. Field's voice was solemn, almost oratorical. ”

“ What's George Freeman? What's all the Freemans? I ain't never liked them. They wa'n't never up to our folks. His mother ain't never had a black silk dress to her name—never had a thing better than black cashmere, an' they ain't never had a thing but oil-cloth in their front entry, an' the Perry's ain't never noticed them either. I ain't never wanted Flora to go into that family. I never felt as if she was lookin' high enough, an' I knew George couldn't get no kind of a livin' jest being clerk in Mason's store. ”

“ Maxwell had invited Mrs. Field and Lois to take tea with her the next afternoon, and had hinted there might be other company. “There's a good many I should like to ask,” she had said, “but I ain't situated so I can jest now, an' it's a dreadful puzzle to know who to leave out without offendin' them. I'm goin' to have the minister an' his wife anyhow, an' Lawyer Tuxbury an' his sister. I should ask Flora, but if she comes the children have got to, an' I can't have them anyhow; they're the worst-actin' young ones at the table I ever saw in my life. There's two or three men I'm goin' to ask. ”

“ Gradually this steady-headed, unimaginative old woman became possessed by a legion of morbid fancies, which played like wild fire over the terrible main fact of the case—the fact that underlay everything—that she had sinned, that she had gone over from good to evil, and given up her soul for a handful of gold. ”

“ Mrs. Maxwell made a long call, as she was accustomed to do. She was a frequent visitor, generally coming in the evening, and going home laden with spoil, creeping from cover to cover like a cat. She was afraid to have her daughter and nephew know of all the booty she obtained. She had many things snugly tucked away in bureau drawers and the depths of closets which she had carried home under her shawl by night. Jane Field was only too glad to give her all for which she asked or hinted. ”

“ Oh, mother, don't!”
“A good many things are awful,” said her mother. “Injustice is awful; if you want to set yourself up against your mother, you can. I've laid out this road that's just an' right, an' I'm goin' on it; you can do jest as you're a-mind to. If you want to tell her when she comes back, you can. I ain't ashamed of it, for I know I'm doin' what is just an' right.”
Mrs. Field noted how the photographed woman's dress was trimmed with fringe, after the fashion of one she had worn twenty years ago.
Lois looked across the room at her mother's pale, stern face bending over the album. ”

“ The three women from Green River had been six days in Elliot, they were going to leave the next morning, and Mrs. Field's secret had not been discovered. Nothing but her ill favor in the village had saved her. Nobody except Mrs. Jane Maxwell had come to call. Mrs. Babcock talked and wondered about it a great deal to Mrs. Green and Amanda.
“It's mighty queer, seems to me, that there ain't a soul but that one old woman set foot inside this house since we've been here,” said she. “It don't look to me as if folks here thought much of Mis' Field. ”

“ Mrs. Babcock whispered when they were upstairs in their chambers that night, “Mis' Field has grown tight since she got all that money. Sometimes it does work that way. I believe we should starve to death if we stayed here long. If it wa'n't for gittin' my money's worth, I should be for goin' home to-morrow. No butter an' no tea after we've come that long journey. I never heard of such a thing.”
“I don't care anything about the butter and the tea,” rejoined Amanda, “but I 'most feel as if I'd better go home to-morrow.” ”

“ Lois cast a terrified glance up at Amanda.
“Does she think I ain't going to get well?” she asked, as if her mother were not present.
“Of course she don't,” replied Amanda, with decision. She stooped and took hold of Mrs. Field's shoulders. “Now look here, Mis' Field,” said she, “you ain't actin' like yourself. You're goin' to make Lois sick, if she ain't now, if you go on this way. You get up an' make her a cup of tea, an' get her somethin' to eat. Ten chances to one, that's all that ailed her. I don't believe she's eat enough to-day to keep a cat alive.” ”

“ Maxwell laughed an unpleasant snigger. Then she resumed: “Some tidies would look real handsome on some of them great bare chairs over to your house; there ain't one there so far as I know. Thomas he wouldn't never have a new thing in the house; he was terrible set and notional about it and he was terrible tight with his money. I don't care if I do say it; everybody knows it; an' I don't see why it's any worse to say things that's true about the dead than the livin'. With some folks it's all ‘Oh, don't say nothin'; he's dead. ”

“ All the sunlight seemed to centre on her black figure like a burning-glass; the thick growth of sweet-fern around the blueberry bushes sent a hot and stifling aroma into her face; the wild flowers hung limply, like delicate painted rags, and the rocks were like furnaces. ”

“ She'd ought to take a vacation, Mis' Field, an' get away from here for a spell. Folks say Green River ain't very healthy. They say these low meadow-lands are bad. I worried enough about it after my Abby died, thinkin' what might have been done. It does seem to me that if something was done right away, Lois might get up; but there ain't no use waitin'. I've seen young girls go down; it seems sometimes as if there wa'n't nothin' more to them than flowers, an' they fade away in a day. ”

“ Her mother caught her breath. “She's got to be waked up; she's got to have some nourishment, anyhow,” said she. “Come, Lois, wake up, and have your dinner.”
Lois opened her eyes. All the animation and defiance were gone from her face. She was so exhausted that she made no resistance to anything. She let them raise her, prop her up with a pillow, and nearly feed her with the dinner. Then she lay back, and her eyes closed.
Amanda went home, and Mrs. Field went back to the kitchen to put away the dinner dishes. ”

“ Field stood opposite, her eyes downcast, her face rigid.
“I wanted to speak to you, Mis' Maxwell,” the other woman went on. “I ain't obliged to go out anywheres to live; I've got property; but it's kind of lonesome at my sister's, where I'm livin'. It's a little out of the village, an' there ain't much passin'. I like to be where I can see passin', an' get out to meetin' easy if it's bad weather. I've been thinkin'—I didn't know but maybe you'd like to have me—I heard you had some trouble with your hands, an' your niece wa'n't well—that I might be willin' to come an' stay three or four weeks. ”