The Last of the Peterkins Part 12

I'm real sorry about the Jones's losing their cow; it comes hard for them. It's better for our potato patch, particularly if they do not have another. Cyrus ought to fence it in.

Sam came in last night. He had heard that Larkin Prince was summoned off by a company out West, for work that would pay, and would set him up for years, and he had a free pa.s.s, and old Wylie had given his consent to his marrying Clara. Some people, he said, had luck come to them without trying for it, just standing round. There was he himself had been looking for just such work last year, and n.o.body had thought of him.

I hope I wasn't hard on Sam. I couldn't help telling him if he'd gone up to the schools, as Larkin Prince did, and he might have done, he could have made himself fit for an engineer or a chemical agent. Well, it took him kind of surprised, and I agreed to go round this evening, when father is at home, and talk to father and mother about Sam's going to some of them schools. At least he might try; and, anyhow, it would get him out of the kind of company he's taken a fancy to.

I must say I didn't think of how he'd feel about Clara Wylie; but, of course, her father would never have given Sam any encouragement more than Larkin. And as for Clara Wylie--well, I saw her look at Larkin that night.

I don't know but I made a mistake in sending so many of his woollen socks to Artemas by Larkin Prince. Perhaps I had better have sent more of the cotton ones. Larkin said he would tell him we were all well, and how he found us. Lavinia had gone up to bed, and was hollering to me to come up to her, and Cyrus slung Silas's cap into the window, and it most hit Larkin; Silas came in after it through the window, and the rest of the boys were pounding on the barn door, where they were having a militia meeting, or some kind of a parade, with half the boys in town.

So Artemas will know things goes on about as usual.

An excellent sermon from Mr. Jenkins today. I can't seem to think what it was about, to put it down; but we are all of us more and more pleased with him as a minister. You can't expect all things of any man; and if a minister preaches a good sermon twice a Sunday and perhaps at evening meeting, and goes around among the people as much as Mr. Jenkins, and holds meetings through the week, and Bible cla.s.s every Friday evening, and sits by the bedside of the sick and the dying, and gives a hand in his own farming or a neighbor's, and stands on the committee for the schools, I don't know as you can expect much more of him.

Mrs. Carruthers says there's a talk of the Peebles moving up to the city for good and all. I should think they might as well go as careening back and forth, spring and fall; though she says they will still go down to the seash.o.r.e or up to the mountains, summers. When I had a home, I will say, I liked to stay in it.

There, now! I do believe that I have not mentioned in my diary that our house is burned down, and much as ever we all got out alive, coming in the night so. I suppose I ought to have put it in as being one of the princ.i.p.al events; but somehow I have been so unsettled since the fire, I haven't seemed to think to write it down. And, of course, Artemas would see from the depot, the minute he arrived, that the house wasn't there, and he wouldn't need to wait and read about it in my diary; and I have been pretty busy getting set to rights again. Everything being burnt, there 's all the summer clothes to be made over again, except a few things I brought off in a bundle along with the diary. Still, it might have been better than writing about my neighbors, as I did about the Peebles.

Mr. Jenkins came in as I was writing. He says that diaries are good things, and if you didn't put in only your thoughts in a sentimental kind of way, they'd be useful for posterity. I told him I didn't write for posterity, but for Artemas, instead of a letter. He was surprised I hadn't written him about the fire, as the news might reach him exaggerated. I could not help from laughing, for I don't see how it could be made out much worse,--the house burnt down, and the barn with the horse in it, and Cyrus's crop of squashes. Much as ever we got out alive, and I had to come to rooms--two pair, back. I did bring the diary out in my ap.r.o.n.

Mr. Jenkins spoke of the insurance, and maybe Artemas might have something to say about that; but we talked it all over the night before he went away, and he spoke of the insurance being out, and he didn't think it worth while to renew; there never had been a fire, and it wasn't likely there would be.

Mrs. Carruthers came in to inquire when was a good time to try out soap.

I told her I managed generally to do it when Artemas wasn't at home, as he was not partial to the smell in the house. But Mr. Carruthers never does go away, and she doesn't believe he'd notice it. I don't know but I'd rather have my husband coming and going like Artemas, instead of sticking around not noticing, especially if he was Mr. Carruthers.

Clara Wylie has been with letters in her hands, and it seems she wrote to Larkin Prince all about our fire; how our boys dropped matches in the hay, and the fire spread to the house from the barn, and how we were waked up, and had to hurry out just as we were. I don't believe she told how the Wylies took us in that night, and found us these rooms at their aunt Marshall's till Artemas comes home. But it seems that Artemas has told Larkin it ain't no kind of consequence, the house burning down, because he never liked it facing the depot, and he'll be glad to build again, and has money enough for it, and can satisfy the neighbors if there's a complaint that our boys burned down all that side of the street, with being careless with their matches. And there was a note inclosed to me from Artemas. He says he'd had a kind of depressed time, when things were going wrong, but matters began to look up when Larkin Prince came, who had just the information needed. So it's just as well I didn't write about the fire. I hope Artemas don't talk too large about his earning so much; anyhow, I shall try to get along spending next to nothing, and earning what I can making b.u.t.tonholes.

I've made over my ruby cashmere for Lavinia, and I'm sorry now that I had it dyed over so dark, the olive is kind of dull for her; but I can't seem to lay my hand on anything else for her, and she must have something. Lucky it was lying on the chair, close by the door, so I brought it off from the fire.

Artemas has come home.

X.

JEDIDIAH'S NOAH'S ARK.

I.

"I don't see how we can ever get them back again," said Mr. Dyer.

"Why should not we ask the 'grateful people'?" asked Jedidiah.

To explain what Jedidiah and his father meant, I shall have to tell how it was Jedidiah came to have a Noah's Ark, and all about it, for it was a little odd.

Jedidiah was the son of poor parents. His father lived in a small, neat house, and owned a little farm. It was not much of a place; but he worked hard, and raised vegetables upon it, mostly potatoes. But Mrs.

Dyer liked string-beans and peas; so they had a few of these, and pumpkins, when the time came; but we have nothing to do with them at present. If I began to tell you what Mrs. Dyer liked, it would take a great while, because there are marrow-squashes and cranberry-beans, though she did not care so much for tomatoes; but vegetables do help out, and don't cost as much as butcher's meat, if you don't keep sheep; but hens Mrs. Dyer did keep. It was the potatoes that were most successful, for it was one summer when everybody's potatoes had failed.

They had all kinds of diseases, especially at Spinville, near which Mr.

Dyer lived. Some were rotten in the middle, some had specks outside; some were very large and bad, some were small and worse; and in many fields there were none at all. But Mr. Dyer's patch flourished marvellously. So, after he had taken in all he wanted for himself, he told his wife he was going to ask the people of Spinville to come and get what they wanted.

"Now, Mr. Dyer!" said his wife. She did not say much else; but what she meant was, that if he had any potatoes to spare, he had better sell them than give them away. Mr. Dyer was a poor man; why should not he make a little money?

But Mr. Dyer replied that he had no cart and horse to take the potatoes to Spinville with, and no time either. He had agreed to mow the deacon's off-lot, and he was not going to disappoint the deacon, even if he should get a couple of dollars by it; and he wasn't going to let his potatoes rot, when all Spinville was in want of potatoes. So Mr. Dyer set to work, and printed in large letters on a sheet of paper these words: "All persons in want of potatoes, apply to J. Dyer, Cranberry Lane, Wednesday, the fifteenth, after seven o'clock, A.M. Gratis."

The last word was added after Mr. Dyer had pasted the notice against the town hall of Spinville; for so many people came up to bother him with questions as to how much he was going to ask for his potatoes, that he was obliged to add this by way of explanation, or he would never have got to the deacon's off-lot Tuesday morning.

Wednesday morning, Mrs. Dyer sat by the front window, with her darning.

She had persuaded Mr. Dyer to wait till Wednesday; for as for having all the people tramping through the yard when the clean clothes were out, she couldn't think of it; and she might as well get through the ironing, then she could have an eye on them. And how provoked they'd all be to come down all that way to Cranberry Hollow, to find only a bin of potatoes to divide among them all.

The little shed was full of potatoes, Mr. Dyer answered. And he had no idea many people would come, just the poorer ones; and as long as he had any potatoes to spare, he was willing they should take them.

But, sure enough, as Mrs. Dyer said, what a procession came! Poor Mrs.

Jones's little girl, with a bag; Tom Scraggs, with two baskets; the minister's son, with a wheelbarrow; and even rich Mr. Jones, the selectman, with a horse and cart. Boys and girls, and old women, and middle-sized men, and every kind of a vehicle, from a tin tipcart to Mrs. Stubbs's carry-all.

Well, let them come, thought Mrs. Dyer. It would just show Mr. Dyer she was right, and he didn't often find that out. She should be disturbed by them soon enough when they found out that there was not more than half a potato apiece, and like enough, not that. Pretty business of Mr. Dyer, to take to giving away, when he had not more than enough to put into his own mouth, to say nothing of Jedidiah's! So she went on darning and thinking. What was her surprise, all of a sudden, to hear only shouts of joy as the people returned round the corner of the house! Poor Mrs.

Jones's little girl gave a scream of delight as she held up her bag full of potatoes; the minister's son had hard work to push along his full wheelbarrow; rich Mr. Jones was laughing from the top of his piled-up cart; Tom Scraggs was trying to get help in carrying his baskets. Such a laughing, such fun, was never heard in Spinville, which is a sober place. And they all nodded to Mrs. Dyer, and gave shouts for Mr. Dyer, and offered Jedidiah rides in all their carts, those that had them, and asked Mrs. Dyer what they could do for her in Spinville. And Jedidiah tried to tell his mother, through the open window, how the more they took the potatoes out of the bin, the more there were left in it; and how everybody had enough, and went away satisfied, and had filled their pockets; and even one of the boys was planning a quill popgun for sliced potato, such as the worst boys had not dreamed of all summer. He was a bad boy from the Meadow.

"Well, Mr. Dyer!" said Mrs. Dyer, all day, and again when he came home at night.

Of course the Spinville people thought a great deal from this time of Mr. Dyer; and there was a town council held to consider what they should do to express their feelings to him. He had declined six times being made selectman, and he did not want to ring the bell as s.e.xton. There did not seem to be anything in the way of an office they could offer him that he would accept.

At last Mr. Jones suggested that the best way to please the father was to give something to the son. "Something for Jedidiah!" exclaimed Mr.

Jones. "The next time I go to New York, I'll go to a toy-shop; I'll buy something for Jedidiah."

So he did. He came home with the Noah's Ark. It was a moderate-sized ark, painted blue, as usual, with red streaks, and a slanting roof, held down with a crooked wire. It was brought to Jedidiah, one evening, just as he was going to bed; so the crooked wire was not lifted, for Mrs.

Dyer thought he had better go to bed at his time and get up early and look at his ark. But he could not sleep well, thinking of his ark. It stood by his bedside, and all night long he heard a great racket inside of it. There was a roaring and a grunting and a squeaking,--all kinds of strange noises. In the moonlight he thought he saw the roof move; if the wire had not been so crooked it surely would have opened. But it didn't, not till he took it downstairs, and Mrs. Dyer had got out her ironing-board, that the animals might be spread out upon it; then Jedidiah lifted the roof.

What a commotion there was then! The elephant on the top, and his trunk stretched out; in a minute or two he would have unfastened the wire; the giraffe's long neck was stretched out; one dove flew away directly, and some crows sat on the eaves. Mr. and Mrs. Dyer and Jedidiah started back, while the elephant with his trunk helped out some of the smaller animals, who stepped into rows on the ironing-board as fast as they were taken out.

The cows were mooing, the cats mewing, the dogs barking, the pigs grunting. Presently Noah's head appeared, and he looked round for his wife; and then came Shem and Ham and j.a.pheth with their wives. They helped out some of the birds,--white, with brown spots,--geese, and ducks. It took the elephant and Noah and all his sons to get the horses out, plunging and curvetting as they were. Some sly foxes got out of themselves, leaping from the roof to the back of a kneeling camel.