The Life of Nancy Part 12

"I don't know's I see any change to speak of," said Maria, bending over the coat.

"Lord bless you, an' Heaven too! I ain't eat no such pie as this sence I was a girl. Your rule, was it, or poor Mis' Haydon's?"

"I've always made my pies that same way," said Maria soberly. "I'm pleased you should enjoy it."

"I expect my walk give me an extry appet.i.te. I can walk like a bird, now, I tell ye; last summer I went eleven miles, an' ag'in nine miles.

You just ought to see me on the road, an' here I be, goin' on seventy-seven year old. There ain't so many places to go to as there used to be. I've known a sight o' nice kind folks that's all gone.

It's re'lly sad how folks is goin'. There's all Mis' Nash's folks pa.s.sed away; the old doctor, an' the little grandgirl, an' Mis' Nash that was like a mother to me, an' always had some thin' to give me; an' down to Glover's Corner they're all gone"--

"Yes, anybody feels such changes," replied Maria compa.s.sionately.

"You've seen trouble, ain't you?"

"I've seen all kinds of trouble," said the withered little creature, mournfully.

"How is your daughter to South Atfield gettin' along?" asked the hostess kindly, after a pause, while Polly worked away at the pie.

"Lord bless you! this pie is so heartenin', somehow or 'nother, after such a walk. Susan Louisa is doin' pretty well; she's a sight improved from what she was. Folks is very considerate to Susan Louisa. She goes to the Orthodox church, an' sence she was sick there's been a committee to see to her. They met, fifteen in number. One on 'em give her two quarts o' milk a day. Mr. Dean, Susan Louisa's husband, died the eighth day o' last March."

"Yes, I heard he was gone, rather sudden," said Maria, showing more interest.

"Yes, but he was 'twixt eighty an' ninety year old. Susan Louisa was but fifty-one in February last."

"He'd have done better for you, wouldn't he, Mis' Norris?" suggested Maria, by way of pleasantry, but there was a long and doubtful pause.

"I had rather be excused," said Polly at last, with great emphasis.

"Miss Maria Durrant, ain't you got a calico dress you could spare, or an ap.r.o.n, or a pair o' rubbers, anyways? I be extra needy, now, I tell you! There; I ain't inquired for William's folks; how be they?"

"All smart," said Maria, for the second time; but she happened to look up just in time to catch a strange gleam in her visitor's eyes.

"Mis' William don't come here, I expect?" she asked mysteriously.

"She never was no great of a visitor. Yes, she comes sometimes,"

answered Maria Durrant.

"I understood William had forbid her till you'd got away, if she was your own cousin."

"We're havin' no trouble together. What do you mean?" Maria demanded.

"Well, my hearing ain't good." Polly tried to get herself into safe shelter of generalities. "Old folks kind o' dreams things; you must excuse me, Maria. But I certain have heard a sight o' talk about your stoppin' here so long with Mr. Haydon, and that William thought you was overdoin', an' would have spoke, only you was his wife's cousin.

There's plenty stands up for you; I should always be one of 'em my self; you needn't think but I'm a friend, Maria. I heard somebody a-remarking that you was goin' to stay till you got him; an' others said Mr. Israel Haydon was one to know his own mind, and he never would want to put n.o.body in his wife's place, they set so by one another. An' I spoke a good word for ye. I says, 'Now look here! 't ain't 's if Mari' Durrant was a girl o' twenty-five; she's a smart capable creatur',' says I, 'an''"--

"I guess I've got an old dress I can let you have."

Maria Durrant, with crimson cheeks and a beating heart, rose suddenly and escaped to the back stairway. She left old Polly sitting in the kitchen so long that she fell into a comfortable drowse, from which she was recalled by Maria's reappearance with a bundle of discarded garments, but there was something stern and inhospitable in these last moments of the visit, and Polly soon shuffled off down the lane, mumbling and muttering and hugging the bundle with great delight. She always enjoyed her visits to the Haydon farm. But she had left Miss Durrant crying by the western window; the bitter tears were falling on Israel Haydon's old black coat. It seemed very hard that a woman who had spent all her life working for others should be treated as the enemy of kindred and acquaintance; this was almost the first time in all her history that she had managed to gather and hold a little peace and happiness. There was nothing to do now but to go back to her brother's noisy s.h.i.+ftless house; to work against wind and tide of laziness and improvidence. She must slave for the three boarders, so that her brother's wife could go to New York State to waste her time with a sister just as worthless, though not so penniless, as herself.

And there was young Johnny, her nephew, working with Mr. Haydon on the farm, and doing so well, he must go back too, and be put into the factory. Maria looked out of the window; through the tears that stood in her eyes the smooth green fields were magnified and transfigured.

The door opened, and Mr. Haydon entered with deliberate step and a pleasant rea.s.suring look. He almost never smiled, but he happened to be smiling then. "I observed you had company just now; I saw old Polly Norris going down the lane when I was coming up from the field," he said, and then stopped suddenly, and took a step nearer to Maria; he had never seen his cheerful housemate in tears. He did not ask the reason; they both felt embarra.s.sed, and yet each was glad of the other's presence. Mr. Haydon did not speak, but Maria brushed her tears away, and tried to go on sewing. She was mending the lining of the second-best black coat with most touching care.

"I expect I shall have to take that co't for every day now, an' get me a new one for best," he announced at last, because somebody had to say something. "I've about finished with this. Spring work is hard on an old co't."

"Your best one is gettin' a little mite threadbare in the back," said Maria, but it was hard for her to control her voice. "I'll put all your clothes in as good repair as I can before I go, sir. I've come to the conclusion that I ought to go back to my brother's folks, his wife wants to go off on a visit"--

"Don't you, Maria," exclaimed the distressed old man. "Don't talk that way; it's onreasonable. William has informed me about your brother's folks; what else may affect you I don't know, but I've made up my mind. I don't know why 't was, but I was just comin' to speak about it. I may say 't was for your interest as well as mine, an' with William's approval. I never thought to change my situation till lately. Such a loss as I've met ain't to be forgotten, an' it ain't forgotten. I'm gettin' along in years, an' I never was a great talker.

I expect you know what I want to say, Miss Durrant. I'll provide well for you, an' make such a settlement as you an' William approve. He's well off, an' he spoke to me about us; that we was comfortable together, an' he never wanted to see me left alone, as I was last year. How do you feel yourself? You feel that 't would be good judgment, now don't ye?"

Maria never had heard Mr. Israel Haydon say so much at any one time.

There he stood, a man of sixty-eight, without pretense of having fallen in love, but kind and just, and almost ministerial in his respectability. She had always followed a faint but steady star of romance, which shone still for her in the lowering sky of her life; it seemed to s.h.i.+ne before her eyes now; it dazzled her through fresh tears. Yet, after all, she felt that this was really her home, and with a sudden great beat of her heart, she knew that she should say "Yes" to Mr. Haydon. The sharp sting in the thought of going away had been that she must leave him to the ignorant devotion or neglect of somebody else--some other woman was going to have the dear delight of making him comfortable.

So she looked up full in his face, unmindful of the bleakness of his love-making, and was touched to see that he bore the aspect of a truly anxious and even affectionate man. Without further words they both knew that the great question was settled. The star of romance presently turned itself into the bright kitchen lamp that stood between them as Maria sewed her long winter seam and looked up contentedly to see Mr. Haydon sitting opposite with his weekly newspaper.

V.

Mr. Haydon owned one of the last old-fas.h.i.+oned two-wheeled chaises, a select few of which still survived in the retired region of Atfield.

It would not have suited him to go to church in a wagon like his neighbors, any more than he could have bought a rough working-suit of new clothes for every day. The chaise-top had always framed the faces of Mr. Haydon and Martha, his first wife, in a fitting manner not unlike a Friend's plain bonnet on a larger scale; it had belonged to their placid appearance of old-time respectability. Now that Maria, the second wife, had taken the vacant seat by the driver's side, her fresher color and eager enjoyment of the comfort and dignity of the situation were remarked with pleasure. She had not been forward about keeping Mr. Haydon company before their marriage; for some reason she was not a constant church-goer, and usually had some excuse for staying at home, both on Sundays and when there was any expedition on business to one of the neighboring towns. But after the wedding these invitations were accepted as a matter of course.

One Sunday afternoon they were bobbing home from meeting in their usual sedate and placid fas.h.i.+on. There had been a very good sermon, and two or three strangers in the congregation, old acquaintances who had left Atfield for the West, stopped to speak with their friends after the service was over. It was a lovely day, and there was the peacefulness of Sunday over the landscape, the wide untenanted fields, the woods near and far, and the distant hills. The old pacing horse jogged steadily along.

"I was thinking how your wife would have enjoyed seeing the folks; wouldn't she?" said Maria, with gentle sympathy.

"The thought was just dwelling in my mind," said the old man, turning toward her, a little surprised.

"I was sorry I was stand in' right there; they didn't feel so free to speak, you know," said Maria, who had accepted her place as subst.i.tute with a touching self-forgetfulness and devotion, following as best she could the humblest by-paths of the first Mrs. Haydon's career.

"Marthy and Mis' Ch.e.l.lis that you saw to-day was always the best of friends; they was girls together," said Mr. Haydon, swaying his whip-lash. "They was second cousins on the father's side."

"Don't you expect Mis' Ch.e.l.lis'd like to come an' take tea with you some afternoon? I always feel as if 't would be sad for you, such an occasion, but I'll have everything real nice. Folks seem to be paying her a good deal of attention," suggested Maria.

"And when anybody has been away a good while, they like to go all round and see all the places that's familiar, if they do feel the changes."

"Yes, I guess we'd better invite her to spend the afternoon," said the old man, and they jogged on together in silence.

"Have you got everything you want to do with?", asked Mr. Haydon kindly.

"Certain," answered Maria, with satisfaction. "I never was acquainted with such a good provider as you be in all the houses I've ever stopped in; I can say that. You've remembered a number o' things this past week that I should have forgot myself. I've seen what other women folks has to go through with, being obliged to screw every way an'

make up things out o' nothing, afraid to say the flour's gone or the sugar's out. Them very husbands is the ones that'll find most fault if their tables ain't spread with what they want. I know now what made your wife always look so pleased an' contented."

"She was very saving an' judicious by natur'," said Mr. Haydon, as if he did not wish to take so much praise entirely to himself. "I call you a very saving woman too, Maria," he added, looking away over the fields, as if he had made some remark about the gra.s.s.

The bright color rushed to Maria's face, but she could not say anything. There was something very pleasant in the air; the fields appeared new to her and most beautiful; it was a moment of great happiness.

"I tell you I felt it dreadfully when I was alone all that time. I enjoy having somebody to speak with now about poor Martha," said the old man, with great feeling.

"It was dreadful lonely for you, wa'n't it?" said Maria, in her sensible, pleasant, compa.s.sionate tone.

"People meant well enough with their advice, but I was set so cross-wise that it all seemed like interference. I'd got to wait till the right thing came round--an' it come at last," announced Mr. Haydon handsomely. "I feel to be very grateful. Yes, I want to have Mis'

Ch.e.l.lis come an' take tea, just as she used to. We'll look over what's left o' poor Marthy's little things, an' select something to give her for a remembrance. 'T ain't very likely she'll come 'way East again at her time o' life. She's havin' a grand time; it acts to me just like a last visit."