Olive Higgins Prouty

“ As I stood there quiet, listenin' to the sort of purrin' sound she made, floatin' around the little kitchen, tender and caressin', and driftin' out shy to where I was, it came over me that Isabel's talkin'-machine couldn't play anything sweeter to listen to, I guessed, than that low rumble comin' out of her own throat. There isn't any sweeter music under God's heaven, I think, than a woman hummin' to herself, unconscious-like, the way they do over their work, sometimes, when their hearts feel kind o' soft and happy inside 'em. ”

“ A person can stand what they've got to stand if they've got a mind to, fifteen dollars, or no fifteen dollars," she says.
"That's the way to talk, Isabel," I replied, full of admiration. "Will-power is a lot more use to anybody in keepin' sane and steady than fifteen dollars is." ”

“ The Janse place was less than fifty miles from Boston, I know, but, honest, you'd never guess it as you stood on the tumble-down front steps of the little house, and cast your eyes out over the long flat meadows stretchin' away towards the west, as far as you could see, with never a sign of a road, or a house, or a scrap of cultivated land to let you know there was somebody alive besides yourself, this side of the horizon. 'Twa'n't a very lively place for a young girl to live. The road the house stood on ended up in a peat-meadow. ”

“ She wasn't the first girl I'd heard talk rank and extreme to cover up a lot of fine qualities inside, which they wouldn't let you get a peep at for anything. I know, too, what the effect is, on a woman, of years and years of hardship with mighty few good times sprinkled in, and mighty few kind words, and kind looks to warm 'em up. Flowers don't grow very plenty up in the Arctic regions, where the wind blows hard, and the sun don't shine much.
After a minute I asked, "What are you goin' to do with your fifteen dollars, Isabel?" ”

“ You wouldn't think any girl so near Boston as Isabel lived would feel that way now, would you? But I wasn't a bit surprised. I see a good deal of women in my business, and with most of 'em it's circumstances, not location, that build walls 'round 'em they can't get over.
My business, as I said, is distributin' pretty things to women and children. I collect my stuff cheap in the city stores, and usually, 'long in April sometime, me and Nellie, my mare, start out on the road. We don't make our expenses, nor anywhere near. ”

“ I kind of laughed, "which I bet you wouldn't have any use for after seein' the crowds and theaters, and things in Boston, and eatin' food somebody else raised and cooked beside yourself, in restaurants I can give you the names of."
"And who do you think," asked Isabel, scathin' and scornful, "would be here, lookin' out that Gram didn't wander down in the swamp and get stuck, the way she has twice; and seein' Gramp didn't go out and hoe in his night-shirt, and go to bed in his overalls; and feedin' the hens; and milkin' the cow? You talk nonsense!" ”

“ Most of the women in the houses where we call haven't got much spare change for the kind of merchandise we've got to sell. But we make a lot of friends, and we reap a big harvest every year in welcomes, and come-agains and happy looks, when we leave behind us some little gewgaw or trinket, which, thanks to a few railroad shares left me by an uncle of mine, I can afford to part with for a little less than cost. I like people. ”

“ Nellie and I were headed for Vermont that spring. We have a big territory in New Hampshire, where we've got lots of friends, too, and it was two years before we got back to Massachusetts again. In all that time I didn't hear a word about Isabel Janse. I wondered about her a good deal, and dropped her a post-card once or twice, the way I do, to stop myself worryin' about people. She hadn't answered my cards. I didn't expect she would. None of my friends are very long on the writin' line. ”

“ I reached out and Isabel passed me the cameos. My customers don't have any use for anythin' antique. Really, the cameos were nothin' I wanted, but I said, examinin' the littlest one of them careful ('bout as big as a five-cent piece, 'twas) , "Why, Isabel, even this small little feller would buy you a lot of my stuff. I got an awful pretty one-piece challie with white dots that ought to look real nice on you. Go inside and light up, and I'll bring my shop in." ”

“ I was glad when two of the men 'round the stove shouted: "Cheese," and with a doughnut stuck onto each thumb went off into the front room where the cow's part of the show was. For then I got a chance to see Isabel.
She was standin' close up to the stove, with one hand on her hip, and the other busy with the fork dabbin' at the doughnuts in the fat-pot. She was standin' real straight and perky-like. ”

“ Isabel went on, ignorin' my generous offer, "to gallivant 'round Boston all alone, and eat in restaurants where I'd feel strange, and stared at; and go to theaters, where everybody but me is dressed up fine, and laughin' and talkin' to somebody? No, thanks."
"Oh, all right," I said, as if I washed my hands of her. Kindness won't break through the material women like Isabel clog up the avenue to their souls with, half as quick sometimes as something sharp and biting. You know how lye acts on the kitchen-sink pipe that's got stopped. That's how my pique acted on Isabel. ”

“ The soldiers all went back to their camp after a while. 'Twas then I discovered how 'twas the old road I'd come by was so neglected. There was a cart-road in front of the Janses' that used to run down to the meadow. Now, I saw, as I watched the soldiers amble along it that it ran down to a brand new state high-way, that went past the encampment. You could see automobiles whizzin' by on it.
'Twa'n't till after we'd had some supper and Gramp had been put to bed, that I found out why Isabel had been so cordial 'bout Nellie and me stoppin' to supper. ”

“ The doughnut-fryin' was in progress at that minute (I'd guessed it already from the smell) , and helpin' at it were no less than a dozen or fifteen great, big, healthy-lookin' soldier boys in uniform. A half-a-dozen of them were gathered 'round the fat on the stove; two or three others 'round a table, where one, with a woman's blue checked apron tied 'round him, was busy with the dough and cutter; and a few more were just simply takin' up room, and makin' a lot of talk and noise. One of 'em was perched up on an edge of the kitchen sink, sort of purrin' on a Jew's-harp. ”

“ And after the apples from our orchard were all et up, it would have to be cottage cheese and snow-balls, far as I could see. One of 'em at that, took out a little tin box he carried in his pocket to keep tobacco in, and cut a slot in the top of it and hollered out to the others that he was goin' to stick it up on the mantel. ”