Autumn Part 12

But it did not amuse Mrs. Grumble to hear anyone else find fault with Mr. Jeminy. "He's enjoying himself," she said. "I don't know as how we've any call to make remarks."

"I only said 'at his age,'" replied Miss Beal hastily. But when she thought it over, it occurred to her that she was right, and Mrs.

Grumble was wrong. Without courage on her own account, she was able to defend with energy the general opinion. "I said 'at his age,'" she repeated more firmly.

Mrs. Grumble folded her hands, and a.s.sumed a forbidding expression. "I expect," she said, "that Mr. Jeminy is old enough to do as he pleases."

"Maybe he is," answered the dressmaker, nettled by her friend's tone, "maybe he is. And maybe there's others old enough to know what's right in a man of his years, Mrs. Grumble."

"At any rate," remarked Mrs. Grumble, "it's not for you to say."

"It's not alone me is saying it," replied Miss Beal. "What's more,"

she added, "for all I don't like to repeat this to you, Mrs. Grumble, there's many think Mr. Jeminy is too old to teach school any longer.

There's some would like to see a young woman at the schoolhouse."

"Oh," said Mrs. Grumble.

Miss Beal laid her hand on her friend's arm in a gesture at once triumphant and consoling. "Never you mind," she said; "trouble comes to all."

Mr. Jeminy went home from the fair with a light heart. He started early, because he liked to walk; and he carried in his hand a bit of lace for Mrs. Grumble. As he went down the road, beneath the turning leaves, and through the shadows cast by the descending sun, he began to sing, out of the fullness of his heart, the following song:

The Lord of all things, With liberalitee, Maketh the small birds, To sing on every tree.

The Lord of all things, He maketh also me; Giveth me no wings, Giveth me no words.

When Mr. Jeminy had sung as much as he liked, he went on to say: "In autumn the birds go south by easy stages; to-day their songs are departed from these woods, where there is none left but the catbird, to creak upon the bough. Soon snow will cover the earth, in which nothing is growing. But you, happy song birds, will build your nests far away, in green and windy trees, and your quarrels will fill distant valleys with music."

When Mr. Jeminy was nearly home he looked behind him and saw Thomas Frye and Anna Barly returning from the fair. He drew aside to let them pa.s.s, and with the sun s.h.i.+ning in his eyes, he thought to himself, "Only the young are happy to-day."

VIII

THE TURN OF THE YEAR

A fortnight later, the dress-maker was called in haste to Barly Farm, to sew coa.r.s.e and fine linen, and a dress for Anna to be married in.

But it all had to be done within the week, towels, sheets, pillow-cases, table-cloths, and ap.r.o.ns. "More than a body could sew in a month," she declared. For Anna was going to have a baby. "Do what you can," said Mrs. Barly, "and we'll have to get along with that."

And so we find Miss Beal at the farm by eight each morning, wis.h.i.+ng the day were longer, to enable her tongue to catch up to her fingers; for she thought that she knew a thing or two, and could see what was directly in front of her nose. "I'm n.o.body's fool," she said, as she guided the cloth, snapped the thread, and rocked the treadle of the sewing machine; and she sang to herself from morning to evening. As the only songs she knew were from the hymnal, she sang, with a heart overflowing with praise:

Ah how shall fallen man Be just before his G.o.d?

If He contend in righteousness, We sink beneath His rod. Amen.

or again:

Who place on Sion's G.o.d their trust Like Sion's rock shall stand, Like her immovable be fixed By His almighty hand. Amen.

She was happy; it seemed to her that G.o.d, to whom she lifted up her prayers, was wise and active, watching every sparrow. She was satisfied that young folks were no better off than in her own day, but might expect to find themselves, if they fell from grace, as wretched as in the past. When Sara Barly had made the dress-maker comfortable in the spare room, she went down to the kitchen in search of Anna. But Anna was in the barn with Tabitha, the cat, whose new-born kittens filled her with glee. Mrs. Barly stood in the middle of the kitchen, as idle as her pots, and looked out through the window at the brown and yellow fields. When she had tied her ap.r.o.n on, she felt dull and tired; it seemed to her as if she were no longer virtuous, yet had not received anything in return for what she had given. And because she felt as if she had been cheated, she, also, lifted up her voice to G.o.d.

"Oh, G.o.d," she said, "all my life I never did anything like that."

By way of answer, she heard the low hum of the sewing machine, and the alleluias of the dressmaker, singing as though she were in church.

Farmer Barly was down in the south pasture, with the schoolmaster's friend, Mr. Tomkins; he wanted to put up a swinging gate between the south field and the road. But all at once he felt like saying: "I don't want a gate at all; I want a fence to shut people out." For when he thought of Anna, in the gay autumn weather, he felt old and moldy.

"A bad year," said Mr. Tomkins; "still, I guess you're not worrying. I understand you put a silo in your barn. But I suppose you have your own reasons for doing it. A good year for cows, what with the gra.s.s.

I hear you're thinking of buying Crabbe's Jersey bull. A fine animal; I'd like him myself."

"You're welcome to him," said Mr. Barly.

"Ah," said Mr. Tomkins, "he's beyond me, Mr. Barly, beyond my means.

I'm not a rich man. But I have my health."

"What are riches?" asked Mr. Barly. "They're a source of trouble, Mr.

Tomkins. They teach a young girl to waste her time."

"Well, trouble," said Mr. Tomkins.

"But what's trouble? Between you and me, a bit of trouble is good for us all. Then we're liable to know better."

Mr. Barly shook his head wearily. "I don't know," he said; "folks are queer crotchets."

"Why, then," said Mr. Tomkins, "so they are; and so would I be, as crotchety as you like, if I owned anything beyond the little I have."

"Small good it would do you," said Mr. Barly. "Life is a heavy cross, having or not having, what with other people doing as they please."

And taking leave of Mr. Tomkins, he went home, thinking that in a world where people robbed their neighbors, it were better not to possess anything.

As he pa.s.sed the potato patch, he heard Abner singing, without much tune to his voice, a song he had learned in the army. "Ay," muttered Mr. Barly, "go on--sing. You've learned that much, anyway. I may as well sing, myself, for all the good I've ever had attending to my business. I'll sing a good one; then I'll be right along with everybody, and let come what may."

Anna, too, heard Abner singing, as she knelt in front of the basket where the mother cat lay with her four blind kittens. "You see, Tabby," she said, "people still sing. A lot of them learned to sing in the war, and now they're home, they may as well sing as cry. Oh, Tabby, I wanted to sing, too . . . now look at me.

"I went out so grand," she said. "I was going to find all sorts of things. But what did I find?"

At that moment, John Henry entered the barn, smoking his corncob pipe.

When the smell of smoke reached Anna, she grew weak and ill, and stumbling back to the house, went upstairs to rest. But even to climb the stairs made her catch her breath. Now, before breakfast of a morning, she was deathly sick; afterwards she was tired, and ready to cry over anything. Poor Anna; she was dumb with shame. "I'm worse than Mrs. Wicket," she said to herself, over and over again. "I'm worse than Mrs. Wicket. My life is ruined. I'd be better dead."

And what of honest Thomas? He was pale with fright. It seemed to him as if the devil had reached up, and caught him by the leg. He was in for it. But like a fly in a web, he could not believe that it was not some other fly. "Oh, G.o.d," he prayed, "look down . . . say something to me."

When Mr. Jeminy was told that Thomas Frye and Anna Barly were to be married, he exclaimed: "What a shame.

"Yes," he continued with energy, "what a shame, Mrs. Grumble. They did as they were bid. Now they know that love is a trap to catch the young, and tie them up once and for all, close to the kitchen sink."

"No one bade them do what they'd no right to do," said Mrs. Grumble.

"They did," replied Mr. Jeminy sensibly, "only what they were meant to do. Youth was not made for the chimney corner, Mrs. Grumble. And love is not all one piece. We make it so, because we are timid and indolent. We like to think that one rule fits everything; that everything is simple and familiar. Even G.o.d, Mrs. Grumble, in your opinion, is an old man, like myself."

"He is not," said Mrs. Grumble.

"Yes," continued Mr. Jeminy, "you believe that G.o.d is an old man, insulted by everything. Now he has been insulted by Anna Barly, who did as she had a mind to. Well, well . . ."