The Life of Nancy Part 11

"She was a good-feelin' woman; she did make him a good wife, if I say it that shouldn't o' my own sister," sighed Mrs. Stevens. "She was the best o' housekeepers, was Marthy. I never went over so neat a house. I ain't got the gift myself. I can clear up, Mis' Martin, but I can't remain cleared up."

The two sisters turned to their pathetic work of looking over the orderly closets and making solemn researches into the suspected shelters of moths. Much talk of the past was suggested by the folding of blankets; and as they set back the chairs, and brushed the floors that were made untidy by the funeral guests of the day before, they wondered afresh what would become of Israel Haydon, and what plan he would make for himself; for Mrs. Martin could only stay with him for a few days, and Mrs. Stevens was obliged to return as soon as possible to her busy household and an invalid daughter. As long as they could stay the house went on as usual, and Israel Haydon showed no apprehension of difficulties ahead. He took up the routine of his simple fas.h.i.+on of life, and when William asked if he should bring his team to plough, he received the surprised answer that all those things were settled when they talked about them earlier in the spring. Of course he should want potatoes, and it was high time they were planted. A boy arrived from the back country who had lived at the farm the summer before,--a willing, thick-headed young person in process of growth,--and Israel Haydon took great exception to his laziness and inordinate appet.i.te, and threatened so often to send him back where he came from that only William's insistence that they had entered into an engagement with poor Thomas, and the women's efforts toward reconciliation, prevailed.

When sister Martin finally departed, bag and baggage, she felt as if she were leaving her brother to be the prey of disaster. He was sternly self-reliant, and watched her drive away down the lane with something like a sense of relief. The offending Thomas was standing by, expecting rebuke almost with an air of interest; but the old man only said to him, in an apologetic and friendly way, "There! we've got to get along a spell without any women folks, my son. I haven't heard of any housekeeper to suit me, but we'll get along together till I do."

"There's a great sight o' things cooked up, sir," said Thomas, with s.h.i.+ning eyes.

"We'll get along," repeated the old man. "I won't have you take no liberties, but if we save the time from other things, we can manage just as well as the women. I want you to sweep out good, night an'

morning, an' fetch me the wood an' water, an' I'll see to the housework." There was no idea of appointing Thomas as keeper of the pantry keys, and a shadow of foreboding darkened the lad's hopeful countenance as the master of the house walked away slowly up the yard.

III.

It was the month of June; the trees were in full foliage; there was no longer any look of spring in the landscape, and the air and sky belonged to midsummer. Mrs. Israel Haydon had been dead nearly two months.

On a Sunday afternoon the father and son sat in two old splint-bottomed chairs just inside the wood-house, in the shade. The wide doors were always thrown back at that time of the year, and there was a fine view across the country. William Haydon could see his own farm spread out like a green map; he was scanning the boundaries of the orderly fences and fields and the stretches of woodland and pasture. He looked away at them from time to time, or else bent over and poked among the wood-house dust and fine chips with his walking-stick. "There's an old buckle that I lost one day ever so many years ago," he exclaimed suddenly, and reached down to pick it up.

William was beginning to look stout and middle-aged. He held out the rusty buckle to his father, but Israel Haydon sat stiffly upright, and hardly gave a glance at the useless object.

"I thought Elder Wall preached an excellent discourse this morning."

William made further attempt to engage his father's interest and attention, but without avail.

"I wish you'd tell me what's the matter with you, sir," said the troubled son, turning squarely, and with honest kindness in his look.

"It hurts my feelings, father. If I've put you out, I want to make amends. Marilla's worried to death for fear it's on her account. We both set everything by you, but you hold us off; and I feel, when I try to be company for you, as if you thought I belonged in jail, and hadn't no rights of any kind. Can't you talk right out with me, sir?

Ain't you well?"

"There! don't run on, boy," said the old man sadly. "I do the best I can; you've got to give me time. I'm dreadful hard pushed losin' of your mother. I've lost my home; you ain't got the least idea what it is, William."

His old face quivered, and William rose hastily and went a step or two forward, making believe that he was looking after his horse. "Stand still, there!" he shouted to the placid creature, and then came back and reached out his hand to his father.

Israel took hold of it, but looked up, a little puzzled. "You ain't going yet?" he asked. "Why, you've only just come."

"I want you to ride over with me to supper to-night. I want you to see how well that piece o' late corn looks, after all your saying I might's well lay it down to turnips. Come, father; the horse's right here, and 't will make a change for you. Ain't you about got through with them pies aunt Martin left you when she went away? Come; we're goin' to have a hearty supper, and I want ye."

"I don't know but I will," said Israel Haydon slowly. "We've got on pretty well--no, we ain't, neither. I ain't comfortable, and I can't make nothin' o' that poor shoat of a boy. I'm buying o' the baker an'

frying a pan o' pork the whole time, trying to fill him up. I never was so near out o' pork this time o' year, not since I went to housekeepin'."

"I heard he'd been tellin' round the neighborhood that he was about starved," said William plainly. "Our folks always had the name o'

being good providers."

"How'd your mother use to wash up the cups an' things to make 'em look decent?" asked Mr. Haydon suddenly; there was the humility of broken pride in his tone. "I can't seem to find nothin' to do with, anywhere about the house. I s'posed I knew where everything was. I expect I've got out all poor mother's best things, without knowin' the difference.

Except there ain't nothin' nowhere that looks right to me," he added.

William stooped to pick something out of the chips. "You'll have to ask Marilla," he said. "It mortifies me to have you go on in such a way. Now, father, you wouldn't hear to anybody that was named to you, but if you go on this way much longer you'll find that any housekeeper's better than none."

"Why, I've only been waiting to hear of a proper person," said Israel Haydon, turning an innocent and aggrieved countenance upon his son.

"My house is in a terrible state, now I can tell you."

William looked away and tried to keep his face steady.

"What do you find to laugh at?" asked the poor father, in the tone of a schoolmaster.

"Don't you know I spoke of somebody to you? I believe 't was the very day after the funeral," said William persuasively. "Her name is Maria Durrant."

"I remember the person well; an excellent, sensible woman, no flummery, and did remarkable well in case of sickness at your house,"

said Mr. Haydon, with enthusiasm, stepping briskly toward the wagon after he had shut and fastened the wood-house doors and put the padlock key in his pocket. "What of her? You said there was no chance of getting her, didn't you?"

"I was afraid so; but she's left her brother's folks now, and come to stop a little while with Marilla. She's at the house this minute; came last night. You know, Marilla's very fond of having her cousins come to stop with her," apologized the son, in fear lest his simple plot should be discovered and resented. "You can see if she's such a person as you want. I have been thinking all day that she might do for a time, anyway."

"Anybody'll do," said Mr. Haydon suddenly. "I tell ye, William, I'm drove to the wall. I feel to covet a good supper; an' I'm ashamed to own it, a man o' my property! I'll observe this Miss Durrant, an'

speak with her after tea; perhaps she'd have the sense to come right over to-morrow. You an' Marilla can tell her how I've been situated. I wa'n't going to have no such persons in my house as were recommended,"

he grumbled on cheerfully. "I don't keep a town-farm for the incapable, nor do I want an old grenadier set over me like that old maid Smith. I ain't going to be turned out of my own house."

They drove along the road slowly, and presently the ever-interesting subject of crops engaged their further attention. When they turned into William Haydon's side yard a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman, in a neat black dress and a big clean white ap.r.o.n, sat on the piazza with Marilla and the children. Israel Haydon's heart felt lighter than it had for many a week. He went and shook hands with Maria Durrant, with more than interest and approval; there was even a touch of something like gallantry in his manner. William Haydon glanced at his wife and gave an unconscious sigh of relief.

The next morning Miss Durrant helped with the early work, talking with William's wife as she went to and fro busily in the large kitchen, and listening to all that could be said of the desperate state of affairs at the old farm. The two women so doubled their diligence by working together that it was still early in the day when Maria, blus.h.i.+ng noticeably, said that she thought there was no use in waiting until afternoon, as old Mr. Haydon had directed. There must be plenty to do; and the sooner the house was put to rights and some cooking got under way the better. She had her old calico dress all on, and she deemed it best to go over and go right to work.

"There! I don't know what to say, Maria," said Marilla Haydon doubtfully. "Father Haydon's such a set person."

"So be I," rejoined Maria. "And who knows how bad those rooms need airing! I've thought of twenty things that ought to be done right off, before night. Or I could work a spell in the gardin if he don't seem to want me in the house. Now, wa'n't it affectin' to hear him let on that he'd gone an' made poor Mis' Haydon's flower gardin same's he'd always done? It showed real feelin', didn't it? I am goin' to take holt over there as if 't was for her as well as for him. That time I was here so long, when you was so sick, I did just admire Mis' Haydon.

She was a beautiful-looking woman, and so pretty-behaved; quiet, but observin'. I never saw a man age as William's father has; it made my heart ache when I first caught sight of him driving into the yard last night."

"He revived up conversin' with you an' makin' such a good hearty tea,"

suggested Marilla, disappearing in the pantry. "I ain't never felt free with father Haydon, but I do respect him," she added presently.

"Well, now, go right over, Maria, if you feel moved to. I don't know but what you're wise. P'r'aps William an' I'll walk over, after supper's put away. I guess you've got a busy day before you."

She stood at the open door and watched Maria Durrant go away, a few minutes later, with a plump bundle under one arm.

"I should think you were going to seek your fortune," she called merrily, as the good woman turned into the road; but Maria wagged her head with a cheerful nod, and did not deign to look back. "I ought to have given her some bread to tuck under the other arm, like the picture of Benjamin Franklin. I dare say they do need bread; I ought to have thought of it," said Marilla anxiously, as she returned to the pantry.

"But there! Father Haydon's got as far along in housekeeping as stopping the baker; an' he was put out because I sent things too soon, before aunt Martin's provisions were gone. I'll risk cousin Maria to get along."

The new housekeeper trod the little footpath at the road edge with a firm step. She was as eager and delighted as if she were bent on a day's pleasuring. A truly sympathetic, unselfish heart beat in her breast; she fairly longed to make the lonely, obstinate old man comfortable. Presently she found herself going up the long Haydon lane in the shade of the apple-trees. The great walnut-trees at the other side of the house were huge and heavy with leaves; there was a general floweriness and pleasantness over all growing things; but the tall thin spruce that towered before the front door looked black and solitary, and bore a likeness to old Mr. Haydon himself. Such was the force of this comparison that Miss Durrant stopped and looked at it with compa.s.sion.

Then her eyes fell upon the poor flower bed overgrown with weeds, through which the bachelor's-b.u.t.tons and London-pride were pus.h.i.+ng their way into bloom. "I guess I'll set a vine to grow up that tree; 't would get sun enough, an' look real live and pretty," she decided, surveying the situation; then she moved on, with perhaps less eagerness in her gait, and boldly entered the side door of the house.

She could hear the sound of an axe in the shed, as if some one were chopping up kindlings. When she caught sight of the empty kitchen she dropped her bundle into the nearest chair, and held up her hands in what was no affectation of an appearance of despair.

IV.

One day in May, about a year from the time that Martha Haydon died, Maria Durrant was sitting by the western window of the kitchen, mending Mr. Haydon's second-best black coat, when she looked down the lane and saw old Polly Norris approaching the house. Polly was an improvident mother of improvident children, not always quite sound in either wits or behavior, but she had always been gently dealt with by the Haydons, and, as it happened, was also an old acquaintance of Maria Durrant's own. Maria gave a little groan at the sight of her: she did not feel just then like listening to long tales or responding to troublesome demands. She nodded kindly to the foolish old creature, who presently came wheezing and lamenting into the clean suns.h.i.+ny kitchen, and dropped herself like an armful of old clothes into the nearest chair.

Maria rose and put by her work; she was half glad, after all, to have company; and Polly Norris was not without certain powers of good-fellows.h.i.+p and entertaining speech.

"I expect this may be the last time I can get so fur," she announced.

"'T is just 'bout a year sence we was all to Mis' Haydon's funeral. I didn't know but that was the last time. Well, I do' know but it's so I can accept that piece o' pie. I've come fur, an' my strength's but small. How's William's folks?"

"They're smart," answered Maria, seating herself to her work again, after the expedition to the pantry.

"I tell ye this is beautiful pie," said the guest, looking up, after a brief and busy silence; "a real comfortable help o' pie, after such a walk, feeble as I be. I've failed a sight sence you see me before, now ain't I?"