Chapter VIII: Part 8

Abel went obediently at her side. Freelove was still visible in the road ahead. Lydia talked and laughed very loud, but he did not turn his head, although he must have heard. When they reached the Hersey house, Lydia turned promptly into the yard. “Good-night, Abel,” she called, loudly. And Abel Perkins responded with rueful sweetness, for he had thought to be asked in, and went on down the road in Freelove’s tracks. Lydia watched him out of sight. She knew he would meet Freelove at the village store, if he did not overtake him. She did not go into the house and disturb the mint on the door-sill. She waited a few minutes, then she also went on a little way to the next house, where lived a young woman mate of hers. She went in and stayed until nearly nine o’clock, and the two girls talked over Deborah Belcher’s wedding, but not a word did Lydia say about her quarrel with Freelove.

When she went home, she got down on her knees in the porch, and examined the mint carefully. It was bright moonlight; not a sprig had been disturbed. Lydia opened the door and walked in, trampling the mint ruthlessly.

The next day was Sunday, and she went to meeting dressed in her best gown, with roses sprinkled over a blue ground, and her Leghorn bonnet trimmed with a rose-colored ribbon, and sat fanning herself calmly with a painted fan when Freelove entered, but he never looked at her.

The minister preached from Psalm lxxv. 5, “Lift not up your horn on high; speak _not_ with a stiff neck,” and there was much nudging in the congregation, and uneasiness among the young men who had saluted Abraham White and his bride. Freelove sat straight and stiff, but his face was red. Lydia smiled behind her fan.

The next morning Sarah Porter, the girl whom she had visited Saturday evening, came in. She had heard that Lydia had really jilted her lover. She and her mother had watched, and knew that he had not come courting the night before.

“I hear you and Freelove have fallen out,” said she. Her lips were smiling archly, but her eyes were hard and curious.

“There’s plenty to hear, if folks keep their ears pricked up,” replied Lydia, and she would say no more.

She smiled scornfully when presently she watched Sarah Porter’s squat figure go out of the yard. “She didn’t find out much,” she muttered. “She’d give all her old shoes to get Freelove herself, but he wouldn’t look at her.”

That forenoon Lydia took her flax-carding out on the porch again. Soon, as she sat there, she saw Abel Perkins coming. He hesitated at the gate. He carried a great bunch of white lilacs. Purple lilacs were plenty in East Bridgewater, but white ones grew nowhere except in the squire’s yard.

“Ain’t you coming in, Abel?” called Lydia, and she smiled her sweet imperious smile at him.

Abel came up the path, extending the great bunch of lilacs like a propitiatory offering to a deity.

“I thought maybe you’d like a bunch of these white lilacs, Lydia,” he said.

“Thank you, Abel; they’re real handsome, and I’ll put them in a pitcher when I go in,” replied Lydia, graciously.

This morning she wore a green and white gown, which made her face still more like a rose. Abel stood leaning against a post of the porch, looking at her, then looking quickly away.

“Have you got any errands or anything you want done, Lydia?” he stammered.

Lydia looked at him; a sudden wicked light came into her eyes. There he stood, in his fine waistcoat and broadcloth, with his handsome knee-buckles and gold chain. His hands were long and slim and white, much whiter than hers.

“Why, yes, Abel,” said she; “if you really want something to do, the pease out in my garden need sticking.”

Abel Perkins stared aghast a minute; then he started eagerly.

“You’ll have to go up in the pasture and cut some brush,” said Lydia.

The truth was that Freelove Keith had taken it upon himself to tend Lydia’s garden, which was but a small one, and she thought with spiteful delight how, when he came again, if he came at all, he would find some of the work done, and wonder. But it did not fall out as she had planned, for presently she heard loud voices out in the garden, and peering around the corner of the porch, she saw Freelove and Abel, each with a bundle of brush.

Lydia gathered up her work hastily, and fled into the house. She went up to the south chamber, and peeped around the curtain. Both of her lovers were sticking the pease, Abel awkwardly, with trembling haste, and Freelove with a sturdy vehemence that might have suited Cadmus sowing the dragon’s teeth. Just then there was a sullen quiet, but presently arose another altercation. Lydia spied a long rent in the skirt of Abel’s fine coat. Soon Abel started towards the house, and she sat down on the floor of the south chamber and laughed. She heard a faint voice below calling her, but she did not reply, and Abel dared not search for her in the house.

Lydia peered out again, and saw Freelove at work alone in the garden, but he never once glanced up at the house. She saw Sarah Porter’s face, and her mother’s over her shoulder, at a window of their house across the yard, and she watched jealously lest Freelove should glance that way; but he did not. When the pease were finished, he went out of the yard, looking neither to the right nor left. Lydia went down-stairs cautiously, to be sure Abel Perkins was gone.

However, when he came again, as he did soon, she greeted him kindly, and smiled sweetly by way of indirect condolence when he told how Freelove Keith had driven him from the garden. Lydia spied the rent, which his mother had neatly mended, in his broadcloth coat.

“Why, Abel, you have torn your fine coat,” said she.

Abel blushed. “I tore it getting the sticks for the pease. But ’tis of no account,” he said; “and I’m willing to tear it again if there is anything else you want done, Lydia.”

“Maybe your mother won’t be quite so willing to mend it again,” said Lydia.

But presently she brought out the churn, and set Abel Perkins, in his fine clothes, churning cream out on the porch. Sarah Porter called her mother out into their front yard to see, and Freelove Keith went by; he went often to see his Aunt Nabby.

Abel churned until the butter came, and it took full long, and his fine waistcoat was spattered with cream; and then she sent him home like a little boy. Lydia found many another domestic task for Abel Perkins, and all on the porch. She set him carding flax, and spinning, and making candle-wicks. She found errands also for him to do, and many commands for him to obey. She sent him to Abington with a couple of feather pillows for her aunt, and awkwardly enough he managed them on horseback. She forbade his going to Boston on a little trip with some of the village young men, Freelove being of the party. Abel Perkins never rebelled against her rule, but there came a time when Lydia herself arose for him.

One afternoon he sat on the porch spinning at the wheel, and Lydia had tied one of her blue aprons around his waist, when she suddenly spoke.

“Take off that apron now, and stop spinning, and go home, Abel Perkins,” said she.

Abel jumped up, and stared at her.

“I mean what I say,” said she. “If you are not ashamed for yourself, I am ashamed for you, and I am ashamed for myself more than I am for you. No man can make a woman like him by doing everything she tells him to; she only despises him for it. You remember it next time. Now you had better go home and learn your Latin books.”

“Can’t I come again, Lydia?” said Abel. He was quite pale, and tears stood in his eyes.

But Lydia would not speak softly to him. “No,” she replied, “you can’t. You mustn’t come here wasting your time any more. You must study your books. You are not old enough to go courting; get your college books learned through first.”

“Can I come then, Lydia?” he inquired, faintly.

“No,” said she; “I shall never want anybody coming again. Take off that apron and go home.”

And Abel Perkins obeyed. He looked very dejected and youthful going out of the yard. Lydia went into the house and cried.

Abel stayed away for a week; then he came again. Lydia would not have gone to the door had she known who it was plying the knocker. She never heard the knocker but with a hope that it might be Freelove, although he never came now.

When she saw Abel standing there, she frowned.

“Don’t look at me so, Lydia,” he pleaded. “I couldn’t help coming. I can’t eat, and I haven’t slept any. I’m sick, Lydia. Mother keeps asking me what the matter is.”

Indeed Abel looked ill; he was paler than usual, and had a pinched and woe-begone expression that drew his face down, and made it appear thinner.

“Well, you come in,” said Lydia. “I’m going to mix you up some medicine, if you’re sick. I know a very good one that my father showed me how to make. It’ll cure you right up, Abel.”

And Lydia made Abel seat himself on the settle in the keeping-room, and went with a cup and spoon to the cupboard in the fore room, where her father’s old gallipots were kept. Then she took from this and that, and mixed carefully, and returned to Abel.

“Here, drink this,” said she.

Abel held out his hand, but turned his face away.

“’Tis only a little assafœtida that I put in to quiet the nerves that you smell,” said she. “’Tis mostly for the liver. My father used to say that the root of all sickness was the liver, and he did not know but it was the root of all evil. If your liver were in good order you would not fret, Abel Perkins. Drink it down.”

And Abel drank it down with an effort.

“Now you’d better go home,” said she, “and wait till it takes effect. I’ll warrant you’ll eat some supper to-night.”

“I sha’n’t, Lydia, if you don’t let me come to see you,” said Abel, piteously.

“Yes, you will. How long did you go without your supper when that girl in Abington gave you the mitten? I ain’t the first one you’ve stopped eating for, Abel Perkins, and you not twenty! You know it’s so.”

Abel blushed, and looked down foolishly.

Lydia laughed. “If you keep on this way, you’ll starve to death before you come of age,” said she. “Now you’d better go home and study your books, and leave such matters alone until you get more sense to manage them. I suppose you will when you’ve got the college books learned through.”

Abel arose. Lydia followed him to the door, and her voice was softer as she bade him good-bye. He looked piteously backward at her as he went out of the yard, but still she was not so touched as she had been before.

“That story about his being so crazy over that girl in Abington was true,” she said to herself; and although she was generous enough to feel relieved that her unlucky lover had an elastic as well as susceptible temperament, and was likely to recover from his wounds, still she disliked him the more for it.

It now wanted only a month for the expiration of the year since Lydia and Freelove’s banns had been published. Should they not marry before then, they could not legally, unless they were again published.

It was a month since Freelove had set foot in Lydia’s house, or indeed spoken to her. He came, early in the morning sometimes, and cared for her garden, but they never exchanged a word. Everybody said that the marriage was broken off. Lydia kept on as usual. She had some beautiful linen in the loom, and she wove as if she were certainly going to be married. Sarah Porter used to come in and wonder, but she found out nothing from Lydia, who never spoke Freelove’s name.

“She’s making more linen,” Sarah told her mother when she got home, and the two women speculated anxiously. They knew that Freelove did not go to see Lydia, at all events, for they and all the neighbors watched.

When the last day of the year since the banns came, there was no longer doubt in anybody’s mind, nor was there, indeed, in Lydia’s. She stayed in-doors, and wove her linen in a mechanical fashion. She sat before the great loom, and it was as if she were playing a harmony of sweet housewifely industry upon it like a very artist, but the tears rolled down her cheeks, which were not rosy that morning.

Had she not listened two months for the sound of the knocker, she would not have heard it above the great hum of the loom that afternoon; but hear it she did, and went to answer it, wiping her eyes.

Freelove Keith stood in the porch, and out at the gate stood his horse, with a pillion behind the saddle.

“Come, Lydia,” said Freelove, “I want you to get on the pillion, and ride over to Aunt Nabby’s with me.”

“I can’t,” said Lydia, faintly. “I’m all over flax lint from the loom.”

“Put on an apron,” said Freelove.

Lydia went into the house, and tied an apron around her waist, and came out again. Freelove lifted her on the pillion, and they rode down the street without a word, until they reached the minister Elihu Eaton’s house, which was about half way to Aunt Nabby’s.

Freelove drew rein. “Now we’ll go in and get married, Lydia,” said he.

“Oh, Freelove, _I_ can’t!” gasped Lydia.

“Now or never,” said Freelove, sternly.

“I was going to have a wedding, Freelove, and a brocade gown, and cake--”

“Now or never,” said Freelove.

He sprang off the saddle and held up his arms. Lydia slipped down into them, and followed him, trembling, her head drooping, into the minister’s house.

When they came out, a stout old woman stood waiting for them at the gate.

“I’ve got married, Aunt Nabby,” said Freelove, with a gay laugh.

“Well, I should think ’twas time,” replied the old woman. She chuckled; her iron-bowed spectacles flashed back the light. “I’ve got a bedquilt made for Liddy, and six yarn socks for you, Freelove,” she said; “and I’m going home and bake a pound-cake with some plums in it.”

Aunt Nabby went scuttling down the road. Freelove and Lydia remounted, and went back at a canter. Freelove pulled a conch shell from his pocket, and blew as lustily as a herald. Folks ran to the windows, and Lydia hid her blushing face against her husband’s shoulder.

THE END

Transcriber's notes

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Itemized changes from the original text:

Page 41: "lay" is modified in "lie". The past tense is rather
confusing.
Page 67 contains a word, starting with "h" that was illegible in the
scan. The most probable completion is "her".
Page 69: "frowsly" has been changed into "frowsy".
Page 168 contains an interchange of the two Evelina's. Originally the
text said "Adams", but in view of the logic of the story it has to be
"Leonard".
Page 180: an exclamation mark has been added to the text below the
picture, in order to balance this text against the list of
illustrations.

The author is not too consequent in the use of hyphens. Several words are encountered with and without hyphen. A small overview: Over-seas / overseas; goodman / good-man; homespun / home-spun; hearth-stone / hearthstone.

In the text special characters are used surrounding words or phrases to
indicate formatting. Their meaning is as follows.
_word_ means 'word' is in italic;
+WORD+ means 'WORD' is in small capitals;