Chapter VIII (1)

Appleton flung the contents of his portmanteau into his closet, rid himself of the dust of travel, made a quick change, and in less than forty minutes was at the door of Miss Tucker's lodgings.

She had a little sitting-room on the first floor, and his loud rat-a-tat brought her to the door instead of the parlor-maid.

At the unexpected sight of him she turned pale.

"Why--why, I thought it was the luggage-man. Where did you come from?" she stammered.

"From London, an hour ago. I met Mrs. Kennion on my way from the station."

"Oh! Then she told you I am going home?"

"Yes, she told me. How could you go to America without saying good-bye, Miss Tommy?"

She flushed and looked perilously near tears.

"I wrote to you this morning as soon as I had decided," she said. "I don't like to dart off in this way, you can imagine, but it's a question of must."

He did not argue this with her; that was a bridge to be crossed when a better understanding had been reached; so, as if taking the journey as an inexorable fact, he said: "Come out and dine with me somewhere, and let us have a good talk."

"I'm afraid I can't. I'm eating now on a tray in my sitting-room,"--and she waved a table napkin she was holding in her hand. "I am rather tired, and Miss Scattergood gave me some bacon and an egg from the nest."

"Give the bacon to the cat and put back the egg in the nest," he said coaxingly. "Mrs. Kennion said: 'Don't let her eat her last dinner alone. Take her to the Swan.'"

"Oh, I am only in my traveling-clothes and the Swan is full of strangers to-night."

"The Green Dragon, then, near the cathedral. You look dressed for Buckingham Palace."

She hesitated a moment, and then melted at the eagerness of his wish. "Well, then, if you'll wait five minutes."

"Of course; I'll go along to the corner and whistle a hansom from the stand. Don't hurry!"

The mental processes of Miss Thomasina Tucker had been very confused during the excitement of the last twenty-four hours.

That she loved Fergus Appleton she was well aware since the arrival of the cablegram calling her back to America. Up to that time she had fenced with her love--parried it, pricked it, thrust it off, drawn it back, telling herself that she had plenty of time to meet the issue if it came. That Fergus Appleton loved her she was also fairly well convinced, but that fact did not always mean--everything--she told herself, with a pitiful little attempt at worldly wisdom. Perhaps he preferred his liberty to any woman; perhaps he did not want to settle down; perhaps he was engaged to some one whom he didn't care for now, but would have to marry; perhaps he hadn't money enough to share with a wife; perhaps he was a flirt--no, she would not admit that for an instant. Anyway, she was alone in the world, and the guardian of her own dignity. If she could have allowed matters to drift along in the heavenly uncertainty of these last days, there would have been no problem; but when she was forced to wake from her delicious dream and fly from everything that held her close and warm, fly during Fergus Appleton's absence, without his knowledge or consent--that indeed was heart-breaking. And still her pride showed her but the one course. She was alone in the world and without means save those earned by her own exertions. A living income was offered her in America and she must take it or leave it on the instant. She could not telegraph Fergus Appleton in London and acquaint him with her plans, as if they depended on him for solution; she could only write him a warm and friendly good-bye. If he loved her as much as a man ought who loved at all, he had time to follow her to Southampton before her ship sailed. If business kept him from such a hurried journey, he could ask her to marry him in a sixpenny wire, reply paid. If he neither came nor wired, but sent a box of mignonette to the steamer with his card and "Bon voyage" written on it, she would bury something unspeakably dear and precious that had only just been born--bury it, and plant mignonette over it. And she could always sing! Thank Heaven for the gift of song!

This was Tommy's mood when she was packing her belongings, after hearing the bishop say that Appleton could not return till noon next day. It had changed a trifle by the time that Fergus had gone to the corner to whistle for a hansom. Her gray frieze jacket and skirt were right enough when she hastily slipped on a better blouse with a deep embroidered collar, pinned with Helena Markham's parting gift of an emerald clover-leaf. Her gray straw hat had a becoming band of flat green leaves, and she had a tinge of color. (Nothing better for roses in the cheeks than hurrying to be ready for the right man.) Anyway, such beauty as Tommy had was always there, and when she came to the door she smote Appleton's eyes as if she were "the first beam from the springing east."

Once in the hansom, they talked gayly. They dared not stop, indeed, for when they kept on whipping the stream they forgot the depth of the waters underneath.

* * * * *

Meantime the Green Dragon, competitor of the Swan, had great need of their lavish and interesting patronage.

The Swiss head waiter, who was new to Wells, was a man of waxed mustaches and sleepless ambitions. The other hotels had most of the tourists, but he intended to retrieve the fortunes of his employer, and bring prosperity back to the side streets. He adored his vocation, and would have shed his heart's blood on the altar of any dining-room of which he had charge.

There were nine tables placed about the large room, though not more than three had been occupied in his tenure of office; but all were beautifully set with flowers and bright silver and napkins in complicated foldings. Pasteboard cards with large black numbers from one to eight stood erect on eight of the tables, and on the ninth an imposing placard bore the sign:

ENGAGED

in letters two inches high, giving the idea that a hungry crowd was waiting to surge in and take the seats.

The second man, trained within an inch of his life, had been already kindled by the enthusiasm of his superior, and shared his vigils.

This very evening there had been hopes deferred and sickened hearts over the indifference of the public to a menu fit for a king. Were there not consomme royale, filet of sole, maitre d'hotel, poulet en casserole, pommes de terres sautes, haricots verts, and a wonderful Camembert? A savory could be inserted in an instant, and a sweet arranged in the twinkling of an eye.

"A carriage, Walter! Prepare!"

Both flew silently to the window.

"Two ladies; ah, they are not alighting! They wish to know if there is evening service in the cathedral."

"A gentleman, Walter! In a four-wheeler!"

"No, he dines not. He has come to request his umbrella of the porter."

"A hansom, Walter!"

"Ah, they alight. She is of an elegance unmistakable. They are young married ones, and will dine well. Hasten, Walter, and order both sweet and savory!"

Fergus and Tommy looked about the cozy room with pleasure as they entered, receiving the salute of Gustave and the English bow of Walter as tributes to their deep, unspoken hopes.

"Where will you sit, Miss Tucker?" asked Appleton, and as he spoke his quick eye observed the "Engaged" placard, and with lightning dexterity he steered his guest toward that table. (There _was_ an opening, if you like!) Not quick enough for Tommy, though, for she had seen it and dropped into a seat several feet away, declaring its position was perfect. Gustave put menus before his distinguished clients with a flourish, and indicated the wine card as conspicuously as was consistent with good form. Then he paused and made mental notes of the situation.

"Ah, very good, very good," murmured Appleton. "You might move the flowers, please; they rather hide--the view; and bring the soup, please."

"Very young married ones!" thought Gustave, summoning his slave and retiring to a point where he could watch the wine card. Walter brought the consomme, and then busied himself at the other tables. They would never be occupied, but it was just as well to pretend, so he set hideous colored wine-glasses, red, green, and amber, at the various places, and polished them ostentatiously with a clean napkin in the hope that the gentleman would experience a desire for liquid refreshment.

"This is very jolly, and very unexpected," said Appleton.

"It is, indeed."

"I hope you don't miss the nest-egg."

"You mustn't call it a nest-egg! That's a stale thing, or a china one that they leave in, I don't know why--for an example, or a pattern, or a suggestion," said Tommy, laughing. "An egg from the nest is Miss Scattergood's phrase, and it means a new-laid one."

"Oh, I see!--well, do you regret it?"

"Certainly not, with this sumptuous repast just beginning!"

"You always give me an appetite," exclaimed Appleton.

"It's a humble function, but not one to be despised," Tommy answered mischievously, fencing, fencing every minute, with her heart beating against her ribs like a sledge-hammer.

Walter brought the fish and solicitously freed the wine card that had somehow crept under a cover of knives and forks.

"I beg ten thousand pardons. What will you drink, Miss Tucker? We must have a drop of something to cheer us at a farewell dinner. Here is a vintage champagne, a good honest wine that will hearten us up and leave no headache in its train."

"I couldn't to-night, Mr. Appleton; I really couldn't."

"Then I refuse to be exhilarated alone," said Fergus gallantly; "and you always have the effect of champagne on me anyway. I decline to say good-bye. I can't even believe it is 'au revoir' between us. We had such delightful days ahead, and so many plans."

"Yes; it isn't nice to make up your mind so suddenly that it turns everything topsy-turvy," sighed Tommy--"I won't have any meat, thank you."

Walter looked distinctly grieved. "I can recommend the pulley-ong-cazzerole, miss, and there's potatoes sortey with it."

Tommy's appetite kindled at the sound of his accent, and she relented. "Yes, I'll have a small portion, please, after all."

"When friends are together the world seems very small, and when they are separated it becomes a space too vast for human comprehension--I think I've heard that before, but it's true," said Appleton.

"Yes," Tommy answered, for lack of anything better to say.

"It seems as if we had known each other for years."

"And it is less than three weeks," was Tommy's contribution to the lagging conversation.

"The bishop offered me a letter of introduction to you when he wrote me at the Bexley Sands Inn, you remember, but he added in a postscript that in case of accident he was not to be held responsible. Rather cryptic, I thought--at the time."

"A little Commonburg, sir?" asked Walter. "It is a very fine ripe one, and we have some fresh water-cress."

"'Commonburg,' Miss Tucker? No? Then bring the coffee, please."

A desperate silence fell between them, they who had talked unendingly for days and evenings!

When Walter brought the tray with the coffee-pot and the two little cups, Appleton suddenly pushed his chair back, saying: "Let us take our coffee over by the window, shall we, and perhaps I may have a cigarette later? Don't light the gas, waiter--we want to see the hills and the afterglow."

There was no avoiding it; Appleton and the waiter conveyed Tommy helplessly over to a table commanding the view and the sunset, and it was the one on which the huge "Engaged" placard reared itself persuasively and suggestively.

"We shall need nothing more, waiter; you may go; I think this will cover the bill,"--and scorning the chair opposite Tommy, Appleton seated himself beside her.

"You have turned your back to the afterglow," she said, as she reached forward to move "Engaged" to a position a trifle less obvious.

"I don't care tuppence about the afterglow," and Appleton covered her hand with his own. "Make it come true, dear, dear Tommy! Make it come true!"

"What?" she asked, between a smile and a tear.

"The placard, dear, the placard! If you should travel the world over, you couldn't find a man who loves you as I do."

"What would be the use in my traveling about to find another man when I am so satisfied with this one?" whispered Tommy. "Oh, remember! they may come back at any moment!"

"I will, I will, if only I may have the comfort of holding your hand after all my miserable doubts! I never knew what companionship meant before I met you! I never really cared about life until now."

"I have always cared about it, but never like this," confessed Tommy. "You see, I have always been alone, ever since I grew up."

"And I! How wonderful of Fate to bring us together! And will you let me cable to the churches that you cannot come home just yet?"

"You think I'd better not go--so soon?"

"Without me? Never! You shall go anywhere you like, any time you like, so long as you take me with you. We'll settle all those things to-morrow--the blessedest day that ever dawned, that's what to-morrow will be! Couldn't you marry me to-morrow, Tommy?"

"Certainly not! At any rate--not in the morning!" said Tommy mischievously, withdrawing her hand and moving out of the danger zone.

"And you must remember that your talent is your own, to use as you like!" Appleton continued after a well-filled pause. "Your voice is a unique and precious gift. I'll try not to be selfish with it, or jealous of it, though if it had half the effect on other men that it has upon me, the floor would be strewn with broken hearts every time you sing!"--and he hummed under his breath:

"I hardly know, my darling,
What mostly took my heart,
Unless perhaps your singing
Has done the greater part."

"Oh, you dear absurdity!" said Tommy, twinkling and sparkling enchantingly.--"I wish the waiter wouldn't come in every time I want to say something especially private!"

"'Confound his politics, frustrate his knavish tricks,' but we shall soon be out of his reach, spinning along to the palace."

"Are we going there? Oh! I shall be afraid to tell the bishop and Mrs. Kennion!"

"You needn't be. I told Mrs. Kennion this afternoon that I loved you to distraction. If the bishop is back from Bath, she'll have passed on the information by now."

"I was just going to say, when the waiter came so near, that it isn't the public I love, it's the singing! Just to sing and sing, that's what I long to do!"

"And what you shall do, so help me! You know you wanted me to find a new name for you? Wasn't I clever to think of Appleton?"

"Very! And you're kindly freeing me of half of my 'bizarre Americanism,' as my Torquay correspondent called it. How shall we deal with Thomasina?"

"We'll call her Tommy. A darling, kissable little name, Tommy!--No, I'm not going to do anything!"

"You don't think it's cowardly of me to marry you?"

"Cowardly?"

"Yes, when I haven't actually proved that I can earn my living; at least, I haven't done it long enough, or well enough, yet."

"I think it's brave of you to marry me."

"Brave?"

"To turn your back on a possible career."

"It's not the 'careering' that I love; though it will seem very strange when Tommy Tucker doesn't have to sing for her supper!--Shall we go? The waiter is coming in again. I believe he thinks we are going to run off with the spoons!"

"So we are! At least, when we go, the spoons will go! I know it's a poor joke, but I am too happy to be brilliant. Call the head waiter, please,"--this to Walter, who despaired of ever getting rid of his guests, and was agreeably disappointed that a gentleman who had not ordered wine should ask for Gustave.

Appleton took the "Engaged" placard off the table and used it nonchalantly as a fan in crossing the room. Then as he drew near the men he slipped two gold pieces into Tommy's hand.

"May I carry away this placard, waiter?" he asked, as if it were quite a sane request. "I've taken a fancy to it as a souvenir of a most delightful and memorable dinner."

"Assuredly, assuredly!" murmured Gustave. He knew that there was romance in the air, although he did not perceive the exact point of Appleton's request.

"The young lady will reward you for your courtesy. No; I'll help with her jacket, thank you."

Tommy, overcome with laughter and confusion and blushes, pressed the gold pieces into the hands of the astonished waiters, who bowed almost to the floor.

"You are always giving me sovereigns, dear Fergus," she whispered with a laugh and something like a sob, as they drove along in the delicious nearness provided by the hansom.

"Never mind," said Fergus. "You will be giving me one when you marry me!"

THE TURNING-POINT

Not far from the village of Bonny Eagle, on the west bank of the Saco, stood two little low-roofed farmhouses; the only two that had survived among others of the same kind that once dotted the green brink of the river.

Long years before, in 1795 or thereabouts, there had been a cluster of log houses on this very spot, known then as the Dalton Right Settlement, and these in turn had been succeeded at a later date by the more comfortable frame-roof farmhouses of the period.

In the old days, before the sound of the axe for the first time disturbed the stillness of the forest, the otter swam in the shadowy coves near the shore and the beaver built his huts near by. The red deer came down to dip his antlers and cool his flanks in the still shallows. The speckled grouse sat on her nest in the low pine boughs, while her mate perched on the mossy logs by the riverside unmolested.

The Sokokis built their bark wigwams here and there on the bank, paddling their birch canoes over the river's smooth surface, or threading the foamy torrents farther down its course.

Here was the wonderful spring that fed, and still feeds, Aunt Judy's Brook, the most turbulent little stream in the county. Many a moccasin track has been made in the soft earth around the never-failing fountain, and many the wooden bucket lowered into its crystal depths by the Dalton Righters when in their turn they possessed the land.

The day of the Indian was over now, and the day of the farmer who succeeded him was over, too. The crash of the loom and the whir of the spinning-wheel were heard no longer, but Amanda Dalton, spinster,--descendant of the original Tristram Dalton, to whom the claim belonged,--sat on alone in her house, and not far away sat Caleb Kimball, sole living heir of the original Caleb, himself a Dalton Righter, and contemporary of Tristram Dalton.

Neither of these personages took any interest in pedigree or genealogy. They knew that their ancestors had lived and died on the same acres now possessed by them, but the acres had dwindled sadly, and the ancestors had seemingly left little for which to be grateful. Indeed, in Caleb's case they had been a distinct disadvantage, since the local sense of humor, proverbially strong in York County, had always preserved a set of Kimball stories among its most cherished possessions. Some of them might have been forgotten in the century and a half that had elapsed, if the Caleb of our story had not been the inheritor of certain family traits famous in their day and generation.

Caleb the first had been the "cuss" of his fellow farmers, because in coming from Scarboro to join the Dalton Righters he had brought whiteweed with the bundle of hay for his cattle when he was clearing the land. The soil of this particular region must have been especially greedy for, and adapted to, this obnoxious grass-killer, for it flourished as in no other part of the county; flourishes yet, indeed--though, if one can forget that its presence means poor feed for cattle where might be a crop of juicy hay, the blossoming fields of the old Dalton Settlement look, in early June, the loveliest, most ethereal, in New England. There, a million million feathery daisies sway and dance in the breeze, lifting their snowy wheels to the blue June sky. There they grow and thrive, the slender green stalks tossing their pearly disks among sister groves of buttercups till the eye is fairly dazzled with the symphony of white and gold. The back-aching farmers of the original Dalton Settlement had indeed tried to root out the lovely pests, but little did our Caleb care! If he had ever trod his ancestral acres either for pleasure or profit he might in time have "stomped out" the whiteweed, so the neighbors said, for he had the family foot, the size of an anvil; but he much preferred a sedentary life, and the whiteweed went on seeding itself from year to year.

Caleb was tall, loose-jointed, and black as a thunder-cloud--the swarthy skin, like the big foot, having been bequeathed to him by the original Caleb, whose long-legged, shaggy-haired sons had been known as "Caleb's colts." Tall and black, all of them, the "colts," so black that the village wits said the Kimball children must have eaten smut and soot and drunk cinder tea during the years their parents were clearing the land. Tall and black also were all the Kimball daughters, so tall it was their boast to be able to look out over the tops of the window curtains; and proud enough of their height to cry with rage when any rival Amazon came into the neighborhood.

Whatever else they were or were not, however, the Kimballs had always been industrious and frugal. It had remained for the last scion of the old stock to furnish a byword for slackness. In a village where stories of outlandish, ungodly, or supernatural laziness were sacredly preserved from year to year, Caleb Kimball's indolence easily took the palm. His hay commonly went to seed in the field. His cow yielded her morning's milk about noon, and her evening "mess" was taken from her (when she was lucky) by the light of a lantern. He was a bachelor of forty-five, dwelt alone, had no visitors and made his living, such as it was, off the farm, with the help of a rack-o'-bones horse. He had fifty acres of timber-land, and when his easy-going methods of farming found him without money he simply sold a few trees.

The house and barn were gradually falling into ruins; the farm implements stood in the yard all winter, and the sleigh all summer. The gate flapped on its hinges, the fences were broken down, and the stone walls were full of gaps. His pipe, and a snarling rough-haired dog, were his only companions. Hour after hour he sat on the side steps looking across the sloping meadows that separated his place from Amanda Dalton's; hour after hour he puffed his pipe and gazed on the distant hills and the sparkling river; gazed and gazed--whether he saw anything or thought anything, remembered anything, or even dreamed anything, nobody could guess, not even Amanda Dalton, who was good at guessing, having very few other mental recreations to keep her mother-wit alive.

Caleb Kimball, as seen on his doorstep from Amanda Dalton's sink window, was but a speck, to be sure, but he was her nearest neighbor; if a person whose threshold you never cross, and who never crosses yours, can be called a neighbor. There were seldom or never meetings or greetings between the two, yet each unconsciously was very much alive to the existence of the other. In days or evenings of solitude one can make neighbors of very curious things.

The smoke of Amanda's morning fire cried "Shame" to Caleb's when it issued languidly from his kitchen chimney an hour later. Amanda's smoke was like herself, and betokened the brisk fire she would be likely to build; Caleb's showed wet wood, poor draught, a fallen brick in the chimney.

Later on in the morning Caleb's dog would sometimes saunter down the road and have a brief conversation with Amanda's cat. They were neither friends nor enemies, but merely enlivened a deadly, dull existence with a few casual remarks on current topics.

Once Caleb had possessed a flock of hens, but in the course of a few years they had dwindled to one lonely rooster, who stalked gloomily through the wilderness of misplaced objects in the Kimball yard, and wondered why he had been born.

Amanda pitied him, and flung him a surreptitious handful of corn from her apron pocket when she met him walking dejectedly in the road halfway between the two houses. So encouraged he extended his rambles, and one afternoon Amanda, looking out of her window, saw him stop at her gate and hold a tete-a-tete with one of her Plymouth Rock hens. The interview was brief but effective. In a twinkling he had told her of his miserable life and his abject need of sympathy.

"There are times," he said, "when, I give you my word, I would rather be stewed for dinner than lead my present existence! It is weak for me to trouble you with my difficulties, but you have always understood me from the first."

"Say no more," she replied. "I am a woman and pity is akin to love. The fowls of Amanda Dalton's flock do not need me as you do. Eleven eggs a day are laid here regularly, and I will go where my egg will be a daily source of pleasure and profit."

"The coop is draughty and the corn scarce," confessed the rooster, doing his best to be noble.

"I am of the sex created especially to supply companionship," returned the hen, "therefore I will accompany you, regardless of personal inconvenience."

Amanda saw the departure of the eloping couple and pursued them not.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "if any male thing hereabouts has sprawl enough to go courtin' I'm willin' to encourage 'em. She'll miss her clean house and good food, I guess, but I ain't sure. She's 'women-folks' after all, and I shouldn't wonder a mite but she'd take real comfort in makin' things pleasanter up there for that pindlin', God-forsaken old rooster! She'll have her hands full, but there, I know what 'tis to get along with empty ones!"

There were not many such romances or comedies as these to enliven Amanda's mornings. Then afternoon would slip into twilight, darkness would creep over the landscape, and Amanda's light--clear, steady, bright, serene--would gleam from its place on the sink shelf through the kitchen window, over the meadow, "up to Kimball's." It was such a light as would stream from a well-trimmed lamp with a crystal clean chimney, but it met with small response from its neighbor's light during many months of the year. In late autumn and winter there would be a fugitive candle gleam upstairs in the Kimball house, and on stormy evenings a dull, smoky light in the living-room.

From the illumination in the Dalton sink window, Caleb thought Amanda sat in the kitchen evenings, but she didn't. She said she kept the second light there because she could afford it, and because the cat liked it. The cat enjoyed the black haircloth sofa in the sitting-room, afternoons, but she greatly preferred the kitchen for evening use; it made a change, and the high-backed cushioned rocker was then vacant. Amanda had nobody to consider but the cat, so she naturally deferred to her in every possible way. It was bad for the cat's character, but at least it kept Amanda from committing suicide, so what would you? Here was a woman of insistent, unflagging, unending activity. Amanda Dalton had energy enough to attend to a husband and six children--cook, wash, iron, churn, sew, nurse--and she lived alone with a cat. The village was a mile, and her nearest female neighbor, the Widow Thatcher, a half-mile away. She had buried her only sister in Lewiston years before, and she had not a relation in the world. All her irrepressible zeal went into the conduct of her house and plot of ground. Day after day, week after week, year after year, the established routine was carried through. First the washing of the breakfast dishes and the putting to rights of the kitchen, which was radiantly clean before she began upon it. Next her bedroom; the stirring-up of the cornhusk mattress, the shaking of the bed of live geese feathers, the replacing of cotton sheets, homespun blankets, and blue-and-white counterpane. Next came the sitting-room with its tall, red, flag-bottomed chairs, its two-leaved table, its light stand that held the Bible and work-basket and lamp. The chest of drawers and tall clock were piously dusted, and the frames of the Family Register, "Napoleon Crossing the Alps," and "Maidens Welcoming Washington in the Streets of Alexandria," were carefully wiped off. Once a week the parlor was cleaned, the tarlatan was lifted from the two plaster Samuels on the mantelpiece, their kneeling forms were cleaned with a damp cloth, the tarlatan replaced, and the parlor closed again reverently. There was kindling to chop, wood to bring in, the modest cooking, washing, ironing, and sewing to do, the flower-beds to weed, and the little vegetable garden to keep in order.

But Amanda had a quick foot, a neat hand, a light touch, and a peculiar faculty of "turning off" work so that it simply would not last through the day. Why did she never think of going to the nearest city and linking her powers with those of some one who would put them to larger uses? Simply because no one ever did that sort of thing in Bonny Eagle in those days. Girls crowded out of home by poverty sought employment here and there, but that a woman of forty, with a good home and ten acres of land--to say nothing of coupon bonds that yielded a hundred dollars a year in cash--that such a one should seek a larger field in a strange place, would have been thought flying in the face of Providence, as well as custom.

Outside Bonny Eagle, in the roar and din and clamor of cities, were all sorts of wrongs that needed righting, wounds that cried out to be healed. There were motherless children, there were helpless sufferers moaning for the sight of a green field, but the superfluous females of Amanda Dalton's day had not awakened to any sense of responsibility with regard to their unknown brothers and sisters.

Amanda was a large-hearted woman. She would have shared her soda biscuit, her bean soup, her dandelion greens, her hogshead cheese, her boiled dinner, her custard pie, with any hungry mortal, but no one in Bonny Eagle needed bite nor sup. Therefore she feather-stitched her dish-towels, piled her kindling in a "wheel pattern" in the shed, named her hens and made friends of them, put fourteen tucks in her unbleached cotton petticoats, and fried a pancake every Saturday for her cat.

"It's either that or blow your brains out, if you've got a busy mind!" she said grimly to Susan Benson, her best friend, who was passing a Saturday afternoon with her. It was chilly and they liked the cheerful warmth of the Saturday fire that was baking the beans and steaming the brown bread.

Susan unrolled her patchwork and, giving a flip to the cat with her thimble finger, settled herself comfortably in the kitchen rocker.

The cat leaped down and stalked into the next room with an air of offended majesty, as much as to say: "Of all the manners I ever saw, that woman has the worst! She contrives to pass by three empty chairs and choose the one I chance to be occupying!"

"You wouldn't be so lonesome if you could see a bit of life from your house, Mandy," said Mrs. Benson. "William an' I were sayin' last night you'd ought to move into the village winters, though nothin' could be handsomer than the view from your sink window this minute. Daisies, daisies everywhere! How do you manage to keep 'em out o' your place, Mandy, when they're so thick on Caleb Kimball's?"

"I just root an' root, an' keep on rootin'," Amanda responded cheerfully, "though I don't take a mite o' pride out of it, for the better my place looks the worse his does, by comparison."

"It is a sight!" said Mrs. Benson, standing for a moment by the sink and looking up to Kimball's.

"I went up there one night after dark, when I knew Caleb 'd gone to Hixam, an' I patched up some o' the holes in his stone wall, thinkin' his whiteweed seeds wouldn't blow through quite so thick!"--and Amanda joined Mrs. Benson at the window. "I'd 'a' done a day's work on his side o' the wall as lief as not, only I knew folks would talk if they saw me."

"Land, no, they wouldn't, Mandy. Everybody knows you wouldn't take him if he was the last man on earth; an' as for Caleb, I guess he wouldn't marry any woman above ground, not if she was a seraphim. I used to think he'd spunk up some time or other, when he got over his mother's death; but it's too late now, I'm afraid."

"Caleb set great store by his mother; that's one good thing about him," said Amanda.

"He did for certain," agreed Mrs. Benson. "If that girl he was engaged to hadn't 'a' spoken disrespectful to her in his hearin' there'd 'a' been a wife an' children up there now an' the place would 'a' looked diff'rent."

"Not so very diff'rent! He didn't lose much in Eliza Johnson. I guess he knows that by now!" remarked Amanda serenely; "though I s'pose 't was quarrelin' with her that set him runnin' down hill, all the same."

"I never thought he cared anything about Eliza. She was determined to have him, an' he was too lazy to say no, but you see in the end she only got her labor for her pains. The Kimball boys never had any luck with their love affairs. When Caleb an' his mother was left alone, she was terrible anxious for him to marry. She was allers findin' girls for him, but part of 'em wouldn't look at him, and he wouldn't make up to any of 'em."

"I was livin' in Lewiston those years," said Amanda.

"I remember you was. Well, when old Mrs. Kimball broke her arm, Charles, the youngest son, that was a stage-driver, determined he'd get somebody for Caleb, for his own wife wouldn't lift her finger to help 'bout the house. He saw a girl up to Steep Falls that he kind o' liked the looks of, an' he offered her a ride down to his mother's to spend the day, thinkin' if the family liked her she might do for Caleb. However, her eyes was weak an' she didn't know how to milk, so they thought she'd better go home by train. That would 'a' been fair enough for both parties, but when Charles drove her to the station he charged her fifteen cents an' it made an awful sight o' talk. She had a hot temper, an' she kind o' resented it!"

"I dare say 't wa'n't so," commented Amanda; "but everybody's dead that could deny it, except Caleb, and he wouldn't take the trouble."

"It's one of the days when he's real drove, ain't it?" asked Susan sarcastically, as she looked across the field to the wood-pile where a gray-shirted figure sat motionless. "If ever a man needed a wife to patch the seat of his pants, it's Caleb Kimball! I guess it's the only part of his clothes he ever wears out. He wa'n't like that before his mother died; the wheels seemed to stop in him then an' there. He was queer an' strange an' shy, but I never used to think he'd develop into a reg'lar hermit. She'd turn in her grave, Mis' Kimball would, to see him look as he does. I don't s'pose he gets any proper nourishment. The smartest man in the world won't take the trouble to make pie for himself, yet he'll eat it 's long 's he can stan' up! Caleb's mother was a great pie-baker. I can see her now, shovelin' 'em in an' out o' the oven Saturdays, with her three great black lanky boys standin' roun' waitin' for 'em to cool off.--'Only _one_, mother?' Caleb used to say, kind o' wheedlin'ly, while she laughed up at him leanin' against the door-frame.--'What's one blueb'ry pie amongst me?'"

"He must 'a' had some fun in him once," smiled Amanda.

"They say women-folks ain't got no sense o' humor," remarked Mrs. Benson, with a twitch of her thread. "I notice the men that live _without_ 'em don't seem to have any! We may not amount to much, but we're somethin' to laugh _at_."

"Why don't you bake him a pie now an' then, an' send it up, Susan?" asked Amanda.

"Well, there, I don't feel I hardly know him well enough, though William does. I dare say he wouldn't like it, an' he'd never think to return the plate, so far away.--Besides, there never _is_ an extry pie in a house where there's a man an' three boys; which reminds me I've got to go home an' make one for breakfast, with nothin' to make it out of."

"I could lend you a handful o' dried plums."

"Thank you; I'll take 'em an' much obliged. I declare it seems to me, now the rhubarb's 'bout gone, as if the apples on the trees never would fill out enough to drop off. There does come a time in the early summer, after you're sick of mince, 'n' squash, 'n' punkin, 'n' cranberry, 'n' rhubarb, 'n' custard, 'n' 't ain't time for currant, or green apple, or strawb'ry, or raspb'ry, or blackb'ry--there does come a time when it seems as if Providence might 'a' had a little more ingenuity in plannin' pie-fillin'!--You might bake a pie for Caleb now an' then yourself, Mandy; you're so near."

"Mrs. Thatcher lives half a mile away," replied Amanda; "but I couldn't carry Caleb Kimball a pie without her knowin' it an' makin' remarks. I'd bake one an' willin' if William 'd take it to him; but there, 't would only make him want another. He's made his bed an' he's got to lie on it."

"He _lays_ on his bed sure enough, an' most o' the time probably--but do you believe he ever makes it?"

Amanda shuddered. "I don't know, Susan; it's one o' the things that haunts me; whether he makes it or whether he don't."

"Do you ever see any wash hung out?" Mrs. Benson's needle stopped in midair while she waited for Amanda's answer.

"Ye-es; now an' then."

"What kind?"

"Sheets; once a gray blanket; underclothes; but naturally I don't look when they're hung out. He generally puts 'em on the grass, anyway."

"Well, it's a sin for a man to live so in a Christian country, an' the kindest thing to say about him is that he's crazy. Some o' the men folks over to the store declare he is crazy; but William declares he ain't. He says he's asleep. William kind o' likes him. Does he ever pass the time o' day with you?"

"Hardly ever. I meet him once or twice a year, maybe, in the road. He bows when I go past on an errand an' holds on to his dog when he tries to run out an' bite me."

"That's real kind o' gentlemanly," observed Susan.

"I never thought of it that way," said Amanda absently; "but perhaps it is. All I can say is, Caleb Kimball's a regular thorn in my flesh. I can't do anything for him, an' I can't forget him, right under foot as he is--his land joinin' mine. Mornin', noon, an' night for years I've wanted to get into that man's house an' make it decent for him; wanted to milk the cow the right time o' day; feed the horse; weed the garden; scrub the floor; wash the windows; black the stove."

"How you do go on, Mandy!" exclaimed Mrs. Benson. "What diff'rence does it make to you how dirty he is, so long's you're clean?"

"It does make a diff'rence, an' it always will. I hate to see the daisies growin' so thick, knowin' how he needs hay. I want to root 'em out same's I did mine, after I'd been away three years in Lewiston. I hate to take my pot o' beans out o' the oven Saturday nights an' know he ain't had gumption enough to get himself a Christian meal. Livin' alone 's I do, Susan, things 'bulk up' in my mind bigger'n they'd ought to."

"They do so," agreed Susan; "an' you mustn't let 'em. You must come over to our house oftener. You know William loves to have you, an' so do the boys. The Bible may insinuate we are our brother's keeper, but we can't none of us help it if he won't _be_ kept!--There, I must be gettin' home. I've had considerable many reminders the last half-hour that it's about time! It's none o' my business, Mandy, but you do spoil that cat, an' the time's not far off when he won't be a mite o' comfort to you. Of course, I'm too intimate here to take offense, but if the minister should happen to set in this chair when he calls, an' see that cat promenade round an' round the rockers an' then rustle off into the settin'-room as mad as Cuffy, he'd certainly take notice an' think he wa'n't a welcome visitor."

"Like mistress, like cat!" sighed Amanda. "Tristram an' I get awful set in our ways."

"Kind o' queer, Mandy, namin' a cat for your grandfather," Mrs. Benson observed anxiously as she opened the door. "William an' me don't want you to get queer."

"I ain't got anything better 'n a cat to name for grandfather," said poor Amanda, in a tone that set her friend Susan thinking as she walked homeward.

The summer wore along and there came a certain Tuesday different from all the other Tuesdays in that year, or in all the forty years that had gone before--a Tuesday when the Kimball side door was not opened in the morning. No smoke issued from the chimney all day. The rooster and his kidnapped hen flew up from the steps and pecked at the door panels vigorously. Seven o'clock in the evening came, then eight, and no light to be seen anywhere. The dog howled; the horse neighed; the cow lowed ominously in the closed barn. At nine o'clock Amanda took a lantern and sped across the field, found a pail in the shed, slipped into the barn, milked the cow, gave the beasts hay and water, and leaving the pail of milk on the steps, went quietly home again, anxious lest she had done too much, anxious also lest she had not done enough.

Next morning she stationed herself at her kitchen window and took account of her signs. The milk-pail was overturned on the steps, the rooster and hen perching on the rim, but there was no smoke coming from the chimney. She thought quickly as she did everything else. She waited long enough to make a cup of coffee, then she slipped out of her door and up to Kimball's. Her apron was full of kindling, and on her arm she carried a basket with a package of herbs, a tiny bottle of brandy, one of cologne, some arrowroot and matches, a cake of hard soap and a clean towel, bones for the dog and corn for the hen.

Caleb's door was unlocked. The dog came out of the shed evincing no desire to bark or bite. The kitchen was empty, and--she thanked the Lord silently, as she gave a hasty glance about--not as dreadful as she had anticipated. Untidy beyond words, bare, dreary, cheerless, but not repulsively dirty. She stole softly through the lower part of the house, and then with a beating heart went up the uncarpeted stairs. At the head was an open door that showed her all she expected and feared to find. The sun streamed in at the dusty, uncurtained window over the motionless body of Caleb Kimball, who lay in a strange, deep sleep, unconscious, on the bed. His hair was raven black against the pillow and the lashes on his cheeks looked more 'n a yard long, Amanda told Susan Benson. (She afterward confessed that this was a slight exaggeration due to extreme excitement.) She spoke his name three times, but he did not stir. She must get the doctor and send for William Benson, that was clear; but first she must try her hand at improving the immediate situation.

Stealing downstairs she tied on her apron and lighted a fire in the kitchen stove, with the view of making things respectable before gossipy neighbors came in. Her sister used to say that the minute Amanda tied on her apron things began to move and take a turn for the better, and it was so now. She poured a few drops of cologne into a basin of water, and putting the towel over her arm went upstairs to Caleb's bedside.

"I've done him wrong," she thought remorsefully as she noted his decent night-clothing and bedding. "He ain't lost his self-respect in all these years, and every soul in Bonny Eagle thought he was living like an animal!"

She bathed his face and throat and hands, then moistened and smoothed his hair without provoking a movement or a sound. He seemed in a profound stupor, but there was no stertorous breathing. Straightening the bedclothes and giving a hasty wipe to the tops of the pine bureau and table, she opened the window and closed the blinds. At this moment she spied one of the Thatcher boys going along the road, and ran down to the gate to ask him to send William Benson and the doctor as soon as possible.

"Tell them Miss Dalton says please to come quick; Caleb Kimball's very sick," she said.

"Don't you need mother, too?" asked the boy. "She's wanted to git into his house for years, and she'd do most anything for the chance."

"No, thank you," said Amanda pitilessly. "I can do everything for the present, and Mr. Benson will probably want his wife, if anybody."

"All right," said the boy as he started off on a dog-trot. News was rare in Bonny Eagle, and Caleb Kimball was a distinguished and interesting figure in village gossip.

Amanda Dalton had never had to hurry in her life. That was one of her crosses, for there probably never was a woman who could do more in less time. It was an hour and a half before William Benson came, and in those ninety minutes she had swept the kitchen and poured a pail or two of hot soap-suds over the floor, that may have felt a mop, but certainly had not known a scrubbing-brush for years. She tore down the fly-specked, tattered, buff shades, and washed the three windows; blackened the stove; fed the dog and horse; milked the cow; strained the milk and carried it down cellar; making three trips upstairs in the meantime to find no change in the patient. His lids stayed down as though they were weighted with lead, his long arms lay motionless on the counterpane.

Amanda's blood coursed through her veins like lightning. Here was work to her hand; blessed, healing work for days, perhaps weeks to come. In these first moments of emotional excitement I fear she hoped it would be a long case of helpless invalidism, during which it would be her Christian duty to clean the lower part of the house and perhaps make some impression on the shed; but this tempting thought was quickly banished as she reflected that Caleb Kimball was a bachelor, and the Widow Thatcher the person marked out by a just but unsympathetic Providence for sick-nurse and housekeeper.

"She shan't come!" thought Amanda passionately. "I'll make the doctor ask me to take charge. William Benson shall stay here nights an' Susan will run in now an' then daytimes, or I'll get little Abby Thatcher to do the rough work an' keep me company; then her mother won't make talk."

"I don't know exactly what's the matter with the man," confessed the doctor, when he came. "There's a mark and a swelling on the back of his head as if he might have fallen somewhere. He hasn't got any pulse and he's all skin and bone. He's starved out, I guess, and his machinery has just stopped. He wants nursing and feeding and all the things a woman can do for him. The Lord never intended men-folks to live alone!"

"If they ain't got wit enough to find that out for themselves it ain't likely any woman'll take the trouble to tell 'em!" exclaimed Amanda with some spirit.

"Don't get stuffy, Amanda! Just be a good Christian and take hold here for a few days till we see whether we've got to have a nurse from Portland. Man's extremity is God's opportunity; maybe Caleb'll come to his senses before he gets over this sickness."

"I wonder if he ever had any senses?" said Amanda.

"Plenty," the doctor answered as he prepared the medicines; "but he hasn't used them for twenty years.--I'll come back in an hour and fetch Bill Benson with me. Then I'll stay till I can bring Caleb back to consciousness. We shall have to get him downstairs as soon as he can be moved; it will be much easier to take care of him there."

* * * * *

The details of Caleb Kimball's illness would be such as fill a nurse's bedside record book. The mainspring of life had been snapped and the machinery refused to move for a long time. When he recovered consciousness his solemn black eyes followed Amanda Dalton's movements as if fascinated, but he spoke no word save a faltering phrase or two at night to William Benson.

Meantime much had been happening below-stairs, where Amanda Dalton reigned supreme, with Susan Benson and Abby Thatcher taking turns in housework or nursing. William Benson was a painter by trade, and Amanda's ingenious idea was to persuade him to paint and paper the Kimball kitchen before Caleb was moved downstairs.

This struck William as a most extraordinary and unnecessary performance.

"Israel in Egypt!" he exclaimed. "What's the matter with you women? I never heard o' such goin's-on in my life! I might lay abed a thousand years an' nobody'd paint my premises. Let Caleb git his strength back an' then use a little elbow grease on his own house--you can't teach an old dog new tricks, Susan!"

"'Pends on how old the dog is, an' what kind o' tricks you want to teach him," Susan replied. "It'd be a queer dog that wouldn't take to a clean kennel, or three good meals a day 'stead o' starvation vittles. Amanda says it may be a kind of a turnin'-point in Caleb's life, an' she thinks we'd ought to encourage him a little."

"Ain't I encouragin' him by sleepin' on his settin'-room lounge every night an' givin' him medicine every two hours by the alarm clock? I've got my own day's work to do; when would I paint his kitchen, I'd like to know?"

"We thought probably you'd like to do it nights," suggested his wife timidly.

"Saul in Tarsus! Don't that beat the devil?" ejaculated William. "Caleb Kimball ain't done a good day's work for years, an' I'm to set up nights paintin' his kitchen!" Nevertheless the magnificent impertinence of the idea so paralyzed his will that he ended by putting on twelve single rolls of fawn-colored paper and painting the woodwork yellow to harmonize, working from eight to twelve several nights and swearing freely at his own foolishness.

By this time Amanda had made the downstairs chamber all tidy and comfortable for the patient. She had contributed a window shade and dimity curtains; Susan a braided rug and a chair cushion. The chamber (the one in which Caleb's mother had died) opened from the kitchen and commanded an enticing view of the fresh yellow walls and shining cook-stove. On the day before Caleb's removal Amanda sat on the foot of the bed and looked through the doorway with silent joy, going to and fro to move a bright tin dipper into plainer view or retire a drying dish-cloth to greater privacy.