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shadows lurked and brooded, still showing themselves ready to leap aloft with any slightest motion of the flames that lived behind the
old black fire-dogs. At every trip across the room, she stopped to look from the window into the silver paradise without, and at every
glance she groaned, as if groaning were a duty. The kitchen was unlighted save by the fire and one guttering candle; but even through
such inadequate illumination the Widder Poll was a figure calculated to stir rich merriment in a satirical mind. Her contour was rather
square than oblong, and she was very heavy. In fact, she had begun to announce that her ankles wouldn't bear her much longer, and
she should "see the day when she'd have to set by, from mornin' to night, like old Anrutty Green that had the dropsy so many years
afore she was laid away." Her face, also, was cut upon the broadest pattern in common use, and her small, dull eyes and closely shut
mouth gave token of that firmness which, save in ourselves, we call obstinacy. To-night, however, her features were devoid of even
their wonted dignity, compressed, as they had been, by the bandage encircling her face. She looked like a caricature of her
unprepossessing self. On one of her uneasy journeys to the window, she caught the sound of sleigh-bells; and staying only to assure
herself of their familiar ring, she hastily closed the shutter, and, going back to the fireplace, sank into a chair there, and huddled over
the blaze. The sleigh drove slowly into the yard, and after the necessary delay of unharnessing, a man pushed open the side door, and
entered the kitchen. He, too, was short and square of build, though he had no superfluous flesh. His ankles would doubtless continue to
bear him for many a year to come. His face was but slightly accented; he had very thin eyebrows, light hair, and only a shaggy fringe
of whisker beneath the chin. This was Heman Blaisdell, the Widder Poll's brother-in-law, for whom she had persistently kept house
ever since the death of his wife, four years ago. He came in without speaking, and after shaking himself out of his great-coat, sat
silently down in his armchair by the fire. The Widder Poll held both hands to her face, and groaned again. At length, curiosity
overcame her, and, quite against her judgment, she spoke. She was always resolving that she would never again take the initiative; but
every time her resolution went down before the certainty that if she did not talk, there would be no conversation at all,--for Heman
had a staying power that was positively amazing.
"Well?" she began, interrogatively.
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Meadow Grass
Heman only stirred slightly in his chair.
"_Well!_ ain't you goin' to tell me what went on at the meetin'?"
Her quarry answered patiently, yet with a certain dogged resistance of her,--
"I dunno's there's anything to tell."
"How'd it go off?"
"'Bout as usual."
"Did you speak?"
"No."
"Lead in prayer?"
"No."
"Wa'n't you _asked_?"
"No."
"Well, my soul! Was Roxy Cole there?"
"Yes."
"Did you fetch her home?"
"No, I didn't!" Some mild exasperation animated his tone at last. The Widder detected it, and occupied herself with her tooth.
"My soul an' body! I wonder if it's goin' to grumble all night long!" she exclaimed, bending lower over the blaze. "I've tried everything
but a roasted raisin, an' I b'lieve I shall come to that."
Heman rose, and opened the clock on the mantel; he drew forth the key from under the pendulum, and slowly wound up the
time-worn machinery. In another instant, he would be on his way to bed; the Widder knew she must waste no time in hurt silence, if
she meant to find out anything. She began hastily,--
"Did they say anything about the, church fair?"
"They ain't goin' to have it."
"Not have it! Well, how beethey goin' to git the shinglin' paid for?"
"They've got up the idee of an Old Folks' Concert."
"Singin'?"
"Singin' an' playin'."
"Who's goin' to play?"
"Brad Freeman an' Jont Marshall agreed to play fust an' second fiddle." Heman paused a moment, and straightened himself with an air
of conscious pride; then he added,--
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"They've asked me to play the bass-viol."
The Widder had no special objections to this arrangement, but it did strike her as an innovation; and when she had no other reason for
disapproval, she still believed in it on general principles. So altogether effective a weapon should never rust from infrequent use!
"Well!" she announced. "I never heard of such carryin's-on,--never!"
Heman was lighting a small kerosene lamp. The little circle of light seemed even brilliant in the dusky room; it affected him with a
relief so sudden and manifest as to rouse also a temporary irritation at having endured the previous gloom even for a moment.
"'Ain't you got no oil in the house?" he exclaimed, testily. "I wish you'd light up, evenin's, an' not set here by one taller candle!"
He had ventured on this remonstrance before, the only one he permitted himself against his housekeeper's ways, and at the instant of
making it, he realized its futility.
"The gre't lamp's all full," said the Widder, warming her apron and pressing it to her poulticed face. "You can light it, if you've got the
heart to. That was poor Mary's lamp, an' hard as I've tried, I never could bring myself to put a match to that wick. How many evenin's
I've seen her set by it, rockin' back'ards an' for'ards,--an' her needle goin' in an' out! She was a worker, if ever there was one, poor
creatur'! At it all the time, jes' like a silk-worm."
Heman was perfectly familiar with this explanation; from long repetition, he had it quite by heart. Possibly that was why he did not [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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