u\
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 WHEREIN IS WRITTEN THE HISTORY OF HER 
 "DOORSTEP BABY," A FANCY WHICH IN 
 TIME BECAME A FACT AND CHANGED A LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 ALYN YATES KEITH 
 
 BOSTON 
 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 
 
 10 MILK STREET
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 WHEREIN IS WRITTEN THE HISTORY OF HER 
 "DOORSTEP BABY," A FANCY WHICH IN 
 TIME BECAME A FACT AND CHANGED A LIFE 
 
 ALYN YATES KEITH 
 
 BOSTON 
 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 
 
 10 MILK STREET 
 1895
 
 COPYRUJHT, 18!, BY LKE AND SlIKF 
 
 Alt Right* Reserved 
 
 A SPINSTKR'S LEAFLETS 
 
 Ki.KCTR<rmiK IIY C. J. PETERS & SON 
 I'KEKKWOBK iiv K<K:KWKI.I. * CHI -WIIII.L
 
 OXE WHOM THE OLD HOUSE 
 SHELTERED
 
 THESE LEAFLETS AKE REPRINTED THROUGH THE COURTESY OF THE 
 NEW YORK EVENING POST 
 
 Hi WHOSE COLUMNS THEY FIRST APPEARED
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 MY neighbors will tell you if you inquire of them, 
 and possibly if you do not, that I live quite alone, 
 
 which is not 
 Primarily I 
 house, which 
 the shell is 
 It is a very 
 as old, in 
 
 i: 
 
 strictly true, 
 have my 
 is to me what 
 to the turtle, 
 old shell 
 fact, as the 
 
 independence of my country. I speak of 
 it with respect as the Century House, 
 which is not literally true without the 
 preface of a plus 
 sign. Its roof is 
 mossy, and the shin- 
 gles that protect its 
 sides curl and fringe raggedly at the edges. I have 
 seen the shell of a turtle bend along the thin margin 
 when exposed too long to wet weather. 
 
 But if the house is not young neither am I, and we 
 fit each other without a wrinkle. 
 1
 
 2 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 The sun looks in at my kitchen-porch punctually 
 every morning, without discredit to the almanac over 
 the mantel, and hangs on the horizon with raised eye- 
 brows for a last look at my bedroom window, where the 
 morning-glories make a summer show that it would be 
 hard to surpass. My sitting-room, lifted one step above 
 the kitchen, like a sort of higher life, holds my fireplace, 
 my cat. my corner cupboard, and my books. I name 
 my fireplace first, because fire is to me a symbol of all 
 life. When I draw the curtain of an autumn evening 
 and light my fire, my world is at once peopled. 
 
 My cat is a link between the past that lives vigorously 
 in my thoughts and the realm of books wherein the 
 physical life is often lower than the spiritual. My 
 books belong to the world of fancy, of faith, and of 
 hope. But my cats are present realities for they are 
 in the plural though I named but one that keep me 
 close to the life of Nature who clothes her children 
 according to her unadulterated taste. Mine are yellow, 
 with a vigorous hue that suggests autumn in its prime. 
 People who admire safrano roses have a way of cavil- 
 ling at yellow cats, as in the last generation it was the 
 custom to raise frivolous objections to red hair. 
 
 My cats are named Kittery and Cattery. The first 
 was suggested by Joe, the little man who brings my 
 daily half-pint of milk. He has just begun school, and 
 geographical names take possession of him. Following
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 3 
 
 his suggestion I named the mother cat. She was simply 
 That Cat before Joe's day; that is, the day of my 
 obligation to him. She is the progenitress of many 
 families, now scattered : a cat fond of her ease, of her 
 will, and of mice catched for her in traps. 
 
 Once I tried to lose her, and hired Joe to cany her 
 five miles away in the milk-wagon, and drop her near 
 a good barn where she could make a living if she would. 
 But she was back before him, with such a look of for- 
 giveness 011 her hungry face that I took her in and went 
 without milk in my tea. Three weeks afterwards Kit- 
 tery was my abundant reward. She was a triplet ; the 
 others I do not speak of. 
 
 Kittery is another kind of cat. She is not only a fine 
 mouser, but she can pounce upon a rat and kill it 
 quicker than an authorized terrier; and she goes out 
 at night, like a nineteenth-century Donna Quixote, to 
 right the wrongs of the neighbors and mount guard 
 over their corn-bins. In the morning, when her watch 
 and ward are over, she comes and taps three times on 
 my window, and I rise and take her in for a nap on the 
 warm foot of my bed, at a little personal inconvenience. 
 It is but a small reward for her scientific services, and 
 a cheap way of showing regard for my townsfolk. I 
 have known scores of human beings who were less 
 neighborly and infinitely less interesting as individuals 
 than she.
 
 4 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 At table I set a chair for her. and she waits with 
 composed dignity and the air of a trusted serving-maid 
 until I push back my own chair and serve her myself 
 bv the kitchen fire. Occasionally she so far forgets her 
 manners as to put up a beckoning paw which never 
 touches the table ; but one shake of my head reminds 
 her that she holds her place for life subject to good 
 conduct. And so she stands, or rather sits, just behind 
 me. alert but not eager, biding her time. With Cattery 
 it is far otherwise. What she cannot effect by stealth, 
 she accomplishes by effrontery. Not a window, not a 
 door, escapes her stretched neck and prying claws. She 
 demands admission in a poor-relation sort of way, and 
 takes it when refused even if her progress be partly 
 stopped with the broom ; a humiliation that she never 
 recognizes nor resents. 
 
 But what can you expect of a cat in the first genera- 
 tion ? She came to me a tramp, and insisted upon her 
 rights with the level front of a Roman citizen. She 
 snatched at bones, watched the pantry-door as a well- 
 bred cat watches a mouse, and was forever laying plans 
 to enter it ahead of me, her mistress by compulsion, and 
 steal whatever her paws could compass without detec- 
 tion. Broken china caused her no pangs but physical 
 ones. Her sense of honor was wholly in abeyance. 
 
 I must here confess that I was positively if not sin- 
 fully glad when she set her foot on a crystal heirloom
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 5 
 
 as she was investigating a tempting sweetbread that 
 stood just above reach, and was laid up in sticking- 
 plasters for a Aveek. Once I had the misfortune to shut 
 her paw in the crack of a door where she had insinuated 
 it in the vain hope of being wanted within. When I 
 hurried to release her she took advantage of my weak 
 compunction, darted in, flew to the sitting-room, and 
 covered my company easy-chair cushion with yellow 
 hairs before I could overtake her. She is always setting 
 traps for me that I fall into innocently. But my well- 
 bred Kittery has educated me to think nobly of her 
 race ; and for her sake I tolerate the plebeian mother 
 whom I never invite to my sitting-room, though I often 
 find her skulking under my chair at table-time, which 
 she calculates with the accuracy of a mathematician. 
 One night she eluded me, usurped Kittery's chair, put 
 out one thieving paw while I was blindly saying grace, 
 and dragged from the platter my supper of broiled 
 chicken-wing, which left a brown trail on my freshly 
 ironed tablecloth ; then, darting out to the kitchen like 
 a yellow streak of light, she found the wood-house door 
 in collusion, dashed through, and so out to the bound- 
 less universe. 
 
 I gave Kittery the remnant of my supper, by way of 
 amends, put a chestnut-stick 011 the fire which had 
 burned low with the unusual draught, and swallowed 
 my cold tea and my chagrin with an effort. White
 
 6 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 birch burns, singing us it consumes, with a gentle, lady- 
 like flame creeping along the pretty bark speckled like 
 a woodthrush's breast, daintily courtesying to every 
 breath of air. and sending stars in advance up the black 
 chimney throat to show the way. It makes a lovely 
 fire to sit by with books or work. But if your spirit is 
 'riled." a stout chestnut-stick is best. It growls and 
 sputters and refuses to burn till you believe it and 
 start for a bit of pine to help it along, when it snaps 
 out some hidden live coal with such vigor that you 
 lose sight of your grievance in lively concern for your 
 property.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 IT 
 
 BACKED into the 
 north-east angle of my 
 sitting-room stands my 
 good corner cupboard. 
 I use the adjective with 
 discrimination. The 
 gr~~ knight of old was proud of his 
 good sword, which was probably 
 rusted with human blood. 
 
 My good cupboard speaks to me only 
 of peace and good cheer, and on its venerable shelves the 
 past lives in unforgetting youth. All that I most prize 
 of memory or tradition is stored here ; all that I can be- 
 stow by will. But upon whom ? I wish I knew. On 
 the top shelf, beyond tip-toe reach of any chance sneak- 
 thief, six solid-silver teaspoons lie rolled in fine old 
 homespun linen, each marked " N. B." for my mother's 
 grandmother. The rest of her silver was apportioned 
 to kindred of differing degrees, as good English gold is 
 doled out to ramifying branches of the Queen's family. 
 Six other spoons, marked " T. C." for my father's
 
 8 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 mother, who was named Thankful in an age when 
 people had little material good to be thankful for, lie 
 beside the first, in a box whittled from pine by some 
 ingenious jackknife of unknown ownership. 
 
 Twelve smaller spoons, worn on the right-hand edge 
 of the bowl and marked U A. N. It." for my own 
 mother, I keep subject to call in a small japanned trap 
 that I coveted in my childhood, and with them six 
 tablespoons that were laid up for company as far back 
 as I can remember, and which it seems almost sacri- 
 legious to use commonly now. Beside these stands a 
 notably ancient tea-caddy, unmarked, which I like to 
 fancy came over in the Mayflower with the Aldens, who 
 were in some unknown way connected with our family. 
 I may have dreamed it, but there is in my mind a fading 
 impression that my grandmother told me something of 
 the sort in the days when I used to sit in her lap and 
 wonder at everything. 
 
 The lowest shelf holds my china heirlooms, not a 
 piece of which is nicked or cracked, although in daily 
 use. My platters and dinner-plates of bright brown- 
 and-white were a romance in crockery to my tender 
 years, with their pictured lakes, whereon swans curved 
 their poetic necks and waited to be fed by highborn 
 ladies in ruffs and hoops, who were on the point of 
 stepping out of a dozen summer arbors, all of the same 
 pattern. Behind these are ranged for ornament my
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 9 
 
 grandmother's Lafayette plates in darkest blue and of 
 most melancholy design, and a tall decanter of old 
 Madeira wine long laid up for sickness. 
 
 My mother's cherished tea-set in gilt with pink sprigs 
 looked so coquettish, so girlishly conscious beside this 
 solemn array that I moved it some years ago to the 
 shelf above, and spread it out to fill the space and to 
 have the gayety all to itself. Old and young often do 
 best apart. When the light at evening flickers on the 
 little cups with their elbows out, I think of figures in a 
 minuet. Above these and below the top shelf I have a 
 curious array of useless old relics : pitchers with broken 
 noses to the wall, vases that no longer hold water, 
 cracked cups and cemented platters, and in the place 
 of honor, the exact centre, a quart pewter tankard of 
 incredible age. Most country-towns have a legend of 
 some unhappy child small enough at birth to be put 
 into a quart tankard. 
 
 But I stop the ears of my mind to any improbable 
 stories of this kind. 
 
 On zero nights I even refuse to think of them ; for 
 I have learned that one's thoughts can be controlled, 
 not by thinking of all the Johns one ever knew, or 
 reciting the alphabet backwards, or counting to one 
 hundred, but simply by fixing them on some unalter- 
 able point too small to invite speculation. 
 
 My mythical babe in the tankard reminds me of my
 
 10 A SPIXSTEll'S LEAFLETS 
 
 dream that began years ago, when I thought I heard a 
 child's cry in the night. I got up, lighted my bedroom 
 candle, put on slippers and dressing-gown, and went to 
 the doorstep where I had often read of babes being left, 
 and with a reasonable expectation of finding one ; but 
 no such good fortune was in store for me. 
 
 It set me dreaming though, and I often waked 
 suddenly, listening for the cry. I think now it was 
 only wandering cats, that often give out a pathetic, 
 human note in the night. Cattery often does it, though 
 there isn't a hair of pathos in her whole make-up ; so I 
 am no more disturbed by sentimental pities. In time 
 my dreams about babies ceased, and then began my 
 day-dreaming. 
 
 Five years ago, when I went fourteen miles to town 
 for a winter cloak at a time after midwinter when 
 cloaks were low in price, I found a left-over Christmas 
 card that I brought home and stood on my sitting- 
 room mantel, where it is always before my eyes. I 
 think that was really the beginning of my definite 
 hopes, rather than the cry in the night. At least I 
 prefer to think so. It is the picture of a yellow-haired 
 little fellow standing in his nightgown before the fire. 
 His profile shows against the dark wall, and the firelight 
 is full in his face. He is holding both chubby hands 
 out to the red warmth. Behind him a freezing moon 
 looks through a diamond-paned window with holly
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 11 
 
 twigs above it, and makes the back of his little night- 
 gown blue. The front of it is as yellow as the light on 
 his face. I always long to gather him up in my lap 
 and tuck my apron around his cold back and warm his 
 pink little bare toes in my hands. 
 
 To me he is always " Philip, my King." If I ever 
 find a baby on my doorstep, he shall be Philip. We 
 read now and then of children deserted in the night and 
 never called for. George MacDonald has a lovely 
 story of a child found in that way. 
 
 I have even thought that some poor mother might 
 come here with a child and die, and I could rescue the 
 little creature from the town. Still that would not 
 seem so personally providential as a baby left on one's 
 own doorstep. There could be no question about that. 
 But no one seems disposed to leave children in our 
 town ; and if any one should do so, the child might 
 prove too old. A " long baby " is my heart's desire, 
 and I need not scruple to say that I lay up all sugges- 
 tions from mothers with regard to the cut and material 
 of small clothing. My own " amber gods " were long 
 since bleached and laid aside in my choicest drawer 
 with the slips and petticoats of dead generations. I 
 treasure rolls of soft flannel, and some years ago I 
 bought yards of pretty muslin, pretending it was for 
 aprons for myself. But it has grown yellow, and I 
 shall not bleach it yet.
 
 12 A SPIXS TE R 'S LEA FLE TS 
 
 There have been times when living alone was less 
 easy than it is now. Once the scamper of a mouse 
 overhead would freeze my blood, and for years I had 
 a feeling that I might surprise a burglar behind my 
 pantry-door, or walk through a ghost in the garret of an 
 evening at any time. 
 
 Those who always swing in rocking-chairs don't 
 know the feel of a good, sturdy back leaning on its 
 own muscles. Neither do they know the pain of attain- 
 ment. I have noticed that I can't empty all the wine 
 out of a decanter, or all the gravy off a platter even. 
 A little runs back and keeps the old flavor. So I think 
 when we are emptied of ourselves, we often find a drop 
 or so left to start with again a something with the 
 properties of " mother " in vinegar to give tang to the 
 weaker juices of human nature.
 
 A SPINSTER '8 LEAFLETS 
 
 13 
 
 III 
 
 ]g MY well is one of my proudest pos- 
 sessions. To me it is like nothing in 
 nature so much as a humming-bird's 
 nest. In reality, it is like a deep cup, 
 lined from top to bottom. But its lin- 
 ing is the softest of green, living moss, 
 with ferns tender and fine waving out 
 all along the sides and leaning over to 
 see themselves in the water. Only a 
 wide, irregular strip of trampled turf, 
 a picket-fence falling into 
 decay, and three sunken 
 stone steps separate it from 
 'the highway; and day after 
 day travellers see the sign, a 
 
 tin cup hanging on a stout nail at the spout, and turn 
 in to drink. Many a moonlight night when half 
 asleep have I heard the creak of the well-sweep, bal- 
 lasted with its three great stones, and the plash of the 
 mossy bucket in the sweet, cold water, and felt a thrill 
 of satisfaction at the thought of the Bible blessing 
 implied. It is the most I have to give, and no one is
 
 14 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 ever turned away. It may have kept more than one 
 disgraceful tramp from the tavern at The Corners by 
 forestalling thirst on the way. 
 
 Back of my kitchen and the wood-house, a one-story 
 room which turns its face to the west and is blind on 
 the street side, lies my small garden-plot. In my young- 
 days there was an outlying farm belonging to us which 
 Squire Vann has owned for a generation. The fence 
 has contracted like the famous walls of the prisoner in 
 Poe's tale ; but unlike those it leaves me fair breath- 
 ing-space, and nobody can take from me the memory of 
 what has been. I can still go out under my grape-vine 
 arbor at the garden-gate to South Pond, across the 
 Squire's pasture, by a footpath as devious and charming 
 as John Burroughs's. Creeping through the worm- 
 fence that makes corner thickets for loveliest spring 
 flowers to hide in, I follow a wavering, damp line 
 along the edge of woodland that stretches for hundreds 
 of acres to the north. It is worth while to come here 
 an hour in advance of the sun, to hear the birds tell 
 eacli other of their happy fortune in their own freehold. 
 There is a dewy quality about their song then, as if 
 they dipped their bills in the leaf-hollows and moist 
 grasses to clear their throats after sleep. 
 
 South Pond hides behind the woodlands which send 
 down many a springy trickle to help the spring freshets. 
 Lily-pads spring up in a little bend that starts to make
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 15 
 
 acquaintance with the woods, but soon thinks better of 
 it and turns again to the sun. Half a mile away the 
 pond itself loses its holiday look, and goes sputtering 
 and protesting over a rocky ledge of a dam to work the 
 wheels of the big paper-mill below. After that it sal- 
 lies low-spiritedly through the village, lingers a little 
 back of the new South Church to let bare-legged ur- 
 chins wade its shallows in summer-time, narrows again 
 with important business ahead, and slips into the harbor 
 a mile off with as much haste as if it had not loitered by 
 the way, insisting noisily like a belated school-boy, that 
 it got here just as quick as ever it could. 
 
 A turn in the road hides my nearest neighbor from 
 view, but scarcely from call. He is an old man, bent a 
 little from his mature height by the heavy weight of 
 eighty years. Twenty years ago the church and par- 
 sonage made a little centre of interest on Woody Hill, 
 but when the church was burned, by one of those 
 strange accidents that occur sometimes at spring clear- 
 ings, the society decided to build at South Falls, which 
 had just sprung up like a cluster of mushrooms in the 
 breeding moisture of the new paper-mill. 
 
 The younger people wanted a new minister to har- 
 monize with the church. So Mr. Craig came, fresh 
 from the seminary that each year turned loose a score 
 or two of young men with young ideas, and Mr. Timloe 
 stayed on in the old parsonage which the society gave
 
 16 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 him to heal his wounded spirit. It was an old house, 
 sadly out of repair ; but the old minister and his wife 
 were in the same condition, and all the money that 
 could be begged or borrowed went to make the new 
 parsonage smart. 
 
 Mr. Timloe was a quiet, old-school gentleman, whose 
 wig, like his creed, was a little rusty with service, yet 
 sat on him awkwardly as if willing and waiting to be 
 exchanged for something better. His mind lingered in 
 the suburbs of modern thought, dreading the rush and 
 crossed swords in the open of large centres of intelli- 
 gence. And though he pricked up his ears like a met- 
 tled war-horse at every new battle-cry, he lagged a bit 
 in action, like one stiff in the knees from long service, 
 and constrained to limp a little in the rear of hasty con- 
 clusions. 
 
 He was a spiritual man, and often absent from the 
 body, to which his practical wife recalled him without 
 ado. He would sit for hours by my fireside, discussing 
 grave problems of this life and the next with such ab- 
 sorption that he often forgot to remove his hat until he 
 reached the door, when he would carry it home like 
 an expectant contribution-box and meekly receive the 
 rebuke that lay in wait for him. The umbrella that his 
 wife put into his hand he would open on a dry day be- 
 tween himself and the cold wintry sun, but use it as a 
 staff in a sudden summer shower; and the Vaiin boys
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 17 
 
 insist that they have seen him in a sprinkle holding his 
 cane above his high silk hat. But the Vann boys are 
 untrustworthy as news-venders, because always on the 
 lookout for something funny. 
 
 Mrs. Timloe, a large, decided woman, had her mind 
 fully made up on all subjects, which were ticketed and 
 kept in tidy compartments. She had no feminine fear 
 of long rains and spring freshets, because the Bible had 
 said once for all that the world was to be burned up. 
 
 She held her small court in a bedroom just off the 
 large sitting-room which was the centre and pivot of 
 the house. For several years she had kept watch and 
 ward from her chimney-corner, never moving from it 
 except at meal times, when black Chloe dragged her, 
 chair and all, to the table, that she might comment on 
 the manners of her household. A little fire smouldered 
 on her hearth, and a pot of some sort of herb-tea was 
 always brewing on the raked-out embers. The room 
 had a compound flavor of liniment, camphor, dead air, 
 hot flannel, and herbs. Here little Timmy Brock came 
 at night to say his verses and his prayers, and to report 
 progress and conduct at school ; and here he stood, like 
 a little man, when damp feet were suspected, and took 
 his boneset tea made from herbs he himself had gath- 
 ered a refinement of cruelty, like that of sending a 
 boy to cut the birch-stick for his own flogging. 
 
 Sometimes he walked out with his grandfather like a
 
 18 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 living illustration of the seasons ; a sorry little figure 
 in home-made clothes large enough for next year, which 
 lie never seemed to grow to. His soul must have 
 shrunk within him at their bagginess, but he was a 
 child, and helpless. 
 
 Sometimes as a privilege he was allowed to sit up 
 away past seven o'clock and go with his grandfather to 
 a neighborhood prayer-meeting, the one dissipation of 
 his evenings. 
 
 Mr. Craig was busy with the young people's affairs 
 in the South Parish, so this special prayer-meeting was 
 given over to Mr. Timloe, a few elderly men and 
 women, and his former deacons, who had been retired 
 with their pastor, but retained their titles emeritus.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 19 
 
 IV 
 
 DEACON THADDEUS and Dea- 
 con Noadiah are distant cousins 
 with the same family name, 
 which they lost by having too much of it, so that for 
 years they have been sufficiently specified as Deacon 
 Thad and Deacon Diah. Deacon Diah, who has a 
 sheep-farm, would sooner break a small commandment 
 than laugh on the Lord's Day, and has lived for up- 
 wards of eighty years with no more sense of humor 
 than one of his own Southdowns ; while Deacon Thad, 
 who is the soul of loving-kindness, sees life itself in the 
 light of a joke. 
 
 Deacon Diah is a long, leathery, sun-dried man, so 
 well preserved that he seems capable of wearing out the 
 half of another century in addition to his inroads on this. 
 He delighted always in sounding Bible phrases, and 
 rose every week in his appointed place at the prayer- 
 meeting to exult in the terrors of the Lord, the clouds 
 and darkness round about the Throne, and the thunders 
 of Sinai. He was fond of representing the Lord as 
 riding upon the whirlwind, with garments dyed in blood, 
 terrible in righteousness, powerful to save. Sometimes
 
 20 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 in a wild, prophetic outburst he would cry : " Moab is 
 my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe;" 
 which made unscriptural pictures in the worldly mind. 
 Again, in a warlike spirit, he would shout in a voice 
 that quavered and broke : " Through God we shall do 
 valiantly : for He it is that shall tread down our ene- 
 mies." Now Moses would have been aggressive by 
 comparison with Deacon Noadiah, who was the meek- 
 est of mankind and incapable of making an enemy. 
 " My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn " 
 lost all spiritual meaning, for the Deacon is very deaf 
 and carries a large ear-trumpet, which fact caused me 
 anguish when he hit upon this special quotation, and 
 deep compunction in the reflective home hours when 
 there is no temptation to smile. But it was almost 
 impossible to follow him and at the same time resist the 
 Evil One's temptation to literalness. " My days are 
 like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like 
 grass. I am tossed up and down like the locust. My 
 knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh faileth of 
 fatness. The ploughers ploughed upon my back : they 
 made long their furrows." But after the breathless 
 suspense, the fear of some strange passage of peculiar 
 application, came always the sublime climax : " The 
 Lord is my light and my salvation ; whom shall I fear ? 
 The Lord is the strength of my life ; of whom shall I 
 be afraid ? And blessed be His glorious name forever,
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 21 
 
 and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen 
 and amen." 
 
 Deacon Thad, on the contrary, who is the jolliest 
 soul in town, subdued the natural man, and prayed in 
 a tone of deep despondency that we " might be kep' 
 from whatever we ough' to be kep' from;" that we 
 " might be truly thankful that it was as well with us 
 as it was; " that "our unworthy lives as mere worms 
 of the dust was spared to see the close of another 
 day;" ending with a mild petition that "the Lord 
 would bless all those whom we ough' to pray for, 
 and keep us to see the light of another morning." 
 It was a relief to see once more the old twinkle in his 
 eye as he greeted Sister Parson or Brother Wray at the 
 door, and joked in an every-day tone on the "sort of 
 weather we was gettin' to pay for the wet spell." If 
 little Joe chanced to be with him, he rubbed the boy's 
 hair the wrong way as he talked, or thumped him on 
 the head as if he had been a big dog. He was fond of 
 saying that Joe was his rowen crop, real green after all 
 the rest had been gathered in. 
 
 Sisters and brothers came home yearly to Thanks- 
 giving with always a new baby among them ; but for 
 the rest of the year Joe's was the only young life in the 
 house. His mother had been an invalid since his birth, 
 and latterly shut in a darkened room ; but after her 
 death a step-sister came, and Joe saw sunnier days. In
 
 2-2 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 an unconscious moment Deacon Thad introduced the 
 new-comer as his half-wife's sister. She was a kindly 
 creature of no more than forty autumns, who tempered 
 little Joe's sore mourning for his mother with unselfish 
 tenderness, and so wholly won my heart. In time she 
 came to be his second mother, a position I could have 
 accepted with gratitude but for the encumbrance it 
 implied. 
 
 Deacon Thaddeus is a good man and true ; but the 
 year I bought my Christmas card, I took pains to get 
 back all the memories of my one homesick year at 
 boarding-school. The house itself had disappeared, I 
 walked a mile to see : but the people it once held all 
 lived again for me. They crowded the train as I came 
 home at night. The faces of the college boys who used 
 to meet our prim procession even in recitation hours, 
 and who would walk home with the teacher at our head 
 for the privilege of opening the gate at the seminary 
 and holding it till the last one had passed in, stand out 
 as plainly as faces carved on cameos, and with the same 
 sharpness of outline. But that is too dead a comparison, 
 and they are alive, every one. They simply are. I 
 hear their voices. I see the young light in their eyes. 
 I do not need to remember. I only see and hear. One 
 face I specially recall that makes the thought of Deacon 
 Thad ludicrous. So I smile with a mist before my eyes. 
 
 He married and was killed in the war Joe always
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 23 
 
 asks what war, when I tell him stories about our brave 
 soldiers, and thinks it may have been the war of the 
 Revolution. One day I heard that his boy, whom he 
 never saw, was professor of something or other in the 
 college. It can't be possible that he is old enough! 
 Neither can I fancy him as a freshman even, shouting 
 Lau-re-yare Ho-rat-e-oos in a tongue strange to his father. 
 Singular, that one man, and he not a beauty, should 
 make all others look plain forever after. But I was 
 very young then, and all things partook of the nature 
 of miracles. I wish men and women seemed half as 
 supernatural now. 
 
 Deacon Thad never lifted his hat to a woman in his 
 life, and I doubt if he ever thought quick enough to 
 open a gate for one. He has probably always gone first 
 through doors and gateways ; yet he was far more of a 
 hero when he shut himself away from his family and 
 watched day and night with black Chloe's husband, who 
 died of small-pox, than the man who galloped to his 
 death at Shiloh. But the glamour is lacking, and we 
 are fearfully and wonderfully made as to our minds and 
 hearts. 
 
 Sometimes when Joe brings the milk at night I coax 
 him in to stay awhile, and toast his cold fingers and 
 toes at the kitchen fire. He says he doesn't mind a bit, 
 but for all he is so brave I know how half-frozen fingers
 
 24 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 feel. One night it was snowing fast, and he looked like 
 a small Santa Claus as he came through the wood-room 
 door with both cats at his heels, Cattery leading, of 
 course. I shook him off and took the broom to him, 
 and then it occurred to me that it would be nice to 
 keep him to tea. 
 
 He said it would be jolly to stay all night and shovel 
 me out in the morning, but Pa and Aunt Marty would 
 be scared to death if he didn't come home. 
 
 " Tell ye what," he added, " I'll skit home 'cross the 
 pond and tell 'em." 
 
 He was generous to all my thoughts. 
 
 " Across the pond in the dark, Joe ? " 
 
 " Ho ! I ain't afraid o' dark ! " and off he went. 
 
 I hung the lighted lantern in the wood-house, but it 
 was like a spark on a cotton string in the whirl of snow. 
 Thoughts of treacherous holes in the ice made me re- 
 pent that I had asked the child ; and for half an hour 
 I knew how nervous mothers feel. But in thirty-five 
 minutes he was back, with both cats tagging again. Pa 
 had come with him to the fence, he said. Then he 
 picked up Kittery " Kitzy, my darling," he called 
 her to warm her cold paws in his colder ones, before 
 his overcoat was off. Kit accepted invitations, but 
 never presumed ; and we three sat down before the fire 
 after the wet things were shaken and hung up by the 
 bellows to dry.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 25 
 
 Aunt Marty had rolled up warm woollen stockings 
 and felt slippers with the flannel night-gown, just as a 
 mother would, so it was now a delight to hear the snow 
 dash against the windows. " Knock away, you can't 
 get in," said Joe with a sense of shelter and comfort. 
 The wind rose, and we could hear wild whirls of snow 
 and a rushing sound in the trees. 
 
 "What shall we have for tea, Joe?" I asked, when 
 the chill was taken off him. 
 
 " What ye got ? " he asked. 
 
 There was no round-aboutness with the boy, nor any 
 uncomfortable self-consciousness. 
 
 " Would milk toast do ? " 
 
 " Baby mess," he said frankly, but added generously, 
 " You can have it if you want to." 
 
 " I don't, Joe." 
 
 " I'm hungrier '11 two cubs," he said ; " les' have 
 some thin' fillin'." 
 
 " Cold chicken pie and potatoes roasted in the 
 ashes ? " 
 
 "That's good far's they go," Joe said, looking 
 thoughtfully into the fire. 
 
 " Hot buckwheat cakes and maple syrup ? " 
 
 "Jolly! What next?" 
 
 " Crullers and raspberry jelly, and a little piece of 
 mince-pie to make us dream ? " 
 
 "I guess so," said Joe. with his mouth watering.
 
 26 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 " And after supper I wonder if you couldn't crack 
 some walnuts for what do you guess? " 
 
 " Dunno." 
 
 " Ever make candy at your house ? " 
 
 Joe shook his head. " Don't know how." 
 
 " But I do." 
 
 So while I washed the supper dishes, after Joe had 
 eaten all that is possible for a boy, he cracked the nuts, 
 and we picked out the meats together, and then made 
 molasses candy in a spider over the kitchen coals. We 
 both watched it, but Cattery was distracting ; and with 
 all our cold iron spoons at hand, it would rise now and 
 then like lava from an active volcano, and pop its bub- 
 bles at us in an alarming way. 
 
 At last it was done, poured foaming into an earthen 
 bowl, covered, and set ont in the snow to cool. Cattery 
 had to be banished to the woodshed to keep her prying 
 paws from being scorched. Joe was sure she couldn't 
 push the cover off, but experience had taught me wis- 
 dom. She was a cat of infinite resources. At last the 
 bowl sank to its edge in the snow, and I braved the 
 whirling storm again to bring it in. There was a great 
 clatter of unlatched doors, for the storm was at its 
 height. I made a tempting basin of warm soapsuds, 
 under the impression that boys, like cats, avoid water 
 by instinct ; and Joe was caught in the snare and 
 scrubbed manfully, leaving only a little dark scallop
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 27 
 
 around his thumbs, which didn't matter. I expected 
 him to eat most of the candy. Then we buttered our 
 hands well, and took up the mass which was still hot in 
 the middle after the nuts had been stirred in. Just as 
 we had it well stretched, and were folding it for a sec- 
 ond pull, with the light making silvery streaks on it, 
 Joe cried, 
 
 " There's that cat in again, with her head in the 
 bowl ! " 
 
 'Never mind," I said; "she can't eat it, and it isn't 
 hot enough to burn her nose." 
 
 u But now she's licking the butter," said Joe, who 
 faced the table. 
 
 She had caught us both in a trap. I backed up and 
 reached the table, pulling Joe after me, and elbowed 
 the creature off. She pushed as hard as if she had been 
 a good-sized boy, and was back again, ready for another 
 spring, before I could tip over the chair she stood on. 
 But Joe had a practised foot, being a boy, though a 
 small one, and she recognized a masculine element un- 
 usual to the house, and skulked behind the wood-basket. 
 
 " Come on," shouted Joe ; " it's empty, and I'll catch 
 her in it ! " 
 
 So, hampered as we were by the sticky stuff pulling 
 at the ends of our fingers, we made a sortie and Joe 
 actually kicked the bushel basket over her. For the 
 first time in my experience Cattery was entrapped.
 
 28 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 Her yellow tail waved angry defiance under the rim 
 of the basket, which did not lie close to the floor on 
 account of its handles, and her searching paws appeared 
 on all sides, to Joe's great glee. Not until the candy 
 was drawn and out off in fancy twists did he release 
 her. But as usual her anger did not burn. She for- 
 gave us at once, and jumped for my lap as soon as I sat 
 down, and there was no peace until the wood-room door 
 was firmly latched between us and her.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 29 
 
 V 
 
 WE took our candy into the sitting- 
 room, and drew up our chairs before the 
 fire which curled over the white birch 
 Mogs, while the storm whistled and roared, 
 and the snow fell down the chimney and hissed as it 
 turned into steam. Joe spoke up suddenly. 
 
 k * What's the matter o' that Timloe feller? Don't he 
 never come here ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," I said ; " he comes and reads his Latin to 
 me. He studies with Mr. Craig, you know.'' 
 
 " Yes, I know," Joe said, and added after a moment, 
 " I wish I knew about Latin." 
 
 " I'll teach you," I said. 
 
 " You ! " Joe's eyes were round, and so was his mouth. 
 "I didn't know's old maids could talk Latin." 
 
 " It's true, Joe, that I don't say Kizer and Kickero 
 like Timmy ; but I know the old-fashioned kind, and if 
 you want to learn we'll get him to come in and tell us 
 the new fashion." 
 
 ' Bully for you ! " said Joe encouragingly. *' But I 
 didn't s'pose "- 
 
 " Now, Joey, don't call me an old maid again. I
 
 80 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 used to be as young as anybody as young as you 
 are." 
 
 -Really?'' asked Joe \vith interest and a frank dis- 
 regard of my possible feelings. And then his mind 
 wandered to the Timloe feller'' again, and I had to 
 explain that his name was really Timloe Brock, and 
 that his mother had been a little girl when I was, and 
 my very best friend. I said that all the other children 
 had died years ago. that Timmy did not remember his 
 mother, and that he came to live with his grandfather 
 when Mr. Brock married again. 
 
 " But what ails him?" Joe urged. " He don't never 
 have any fun like other fellers. We all love to get a 
 clip at *im with a snowball, to see 'im dodge. Why 
 don't lie go to school ? No fun in bein' head all the 
 time. Fun's in spellin' down a whole row." 
 
 How could I tell the child that poor Timmy's life 
 was nothing but a little pinched page of minus signs : 
 that lie had to pay pitiless tithes of mint, anise, and 
 cummin all his melancholy days ; that it was always, 
 " Come in or you'll get hit ;" k Don't go near the water 
 and then you won't get drowned ; " " Boys that skate 
 almost always get in. and we don't want a funeral 
 here ; " " Don't ever try to pull anybody out, you'd get 
 in yourself ; " " Keep clear away ; " u Don't say a word 
 when boys shout at you ; " " Don't climb trees and tear 
 your clothes." Yet with all this hen-care, I doubt if he
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 31 
 
 ever got any real wing-brooding. The good old grand- 
 father used to stroke his hair and teach him Bible 
 verses, but never got so far as " He that saveth his life 
 shall lose it." 
 
 Joe was looking straight through the fire into some 
 dreamland beyond. I had been as far away. Then we 
 both came back to our candy, and I said, 
 
 ' Joe, I wouldn't snowball him if I were you ; he's a 
 lonesome little fellow. What if you had to catch a live 
 mosquito in summer-time, and take it up to your room 
 for company to sing to you nights ? " 
 
 " He didn't do that ! " Joe said with incredulity. 
 
 " He told me he did, and I believe him. Maybe 
 you'll be in college together, in the same class ; who 
 knows ? and I shall want you to be good friends so 
 that I can be proud when you both graduate. For I 
 couldn't go twice at my age. I shall be an old woman 
 then." 
 
 " Jiminy ! " said Joe. " College ! " and then he 
 whistled. 
 
 No doubt Paradise seemed as far off to him, and as 
 unattainable in his mortal state. Now I was very 
 anxious to have Joe go to college. It would mean 
 more to me than he could ever know. If that baby 
 should be left at my door it would go to college. I 
 said nothing more. Sometimes I have noticed if you 
 put a seed into good ground and let it alone, it gets a
 
 32 A SPIXSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 start before you know it ; but if you potter around it, it 
 gets discouraged and dies without coining to anything. 
 
 When it was bedtime. I sent Joe up into the north 
 garret for the warming-pan, and while he was undress- 
 ing by the tire I had it tilled with coals, and the chill 
 taken off his bed. 
 
 Oh, how hot it does feel ! " he sighed contentedly, 
 cuddling down and looking around the room. " Whose 
 room is this ? " 
 
 " My little boy's." 
 
 k> You haven't got any little bov."' 
 
 " You're mine to-night." 
 
 "Oh-li! I thought you was jokin". Whose rockin'- 
 chair's that?" 
 
 " Mine, when I was a little girl. That will be my 
 boy's too." 
 
 "That desk too?" 
 
 - Yes." 
 
 " I know you've got rag babies somewheres." 
 
 " Yes ; want one to sleep witli you ? " 
 
 "Gracious, no ! I'm too big. Last year I was littler," 
 he said after some truthful thinking. " When I've said 
 my prayers, don't you wan' to stay an' talk with me ? 
 I'll cover you all up jest as I do Aunt Marty, so's you 
 won't l>e cold." 
 
 I said I would stay, though we had most of our talk 
 out down-stairs.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 33 
 
 " Now I'll say 'em," he said, and moved to get up. 
 
 'Can't you kneel in my lap? It's so cold," I 
 added doubtfully, for I didn't know anything about 
 boys. 
 
 " Yes, I s'pose so;" and two strong little arms went 
 around my neck. 
 
 This was Joe's prayer, the first sentence in a whisper : 
 
 "God bless my dear up in heaven, and Pa, arid 
 Aunt Marty, and all the folks in this house, and 
 everything, and please make it snow all night and all 
 to-morrow, for Jesus' sake. Amen." 
 
 " What did you mean by ' everything ' ? " I asked. 
 
 " I meant Kitzy, an' the old cat too, 'cause she needs 
 it, and 'cause she's Kitzy's mother ; but I didn't know 
 'twas right to say it. I guess God'll understand, don't 
 
 " Yes," I said ; " He always understands." 
 
 " Do you s'pose it'll snow to-morrow ? If I owned 
 the sky, I'd send down snow every day." 
 
 " Why do you want it to snow all to-morrow ? We 
 should be shut up here like mice in a trap." 
 
 " I know it ; but 'twould be such fun to stay here all 
 day." 
 
 " So it would, Joe, for me ; but how about school ?"' 
 
 " Oh, teacher wouldn't mind. She's got a lot of big 
 boys, and they'd shovel paths." 
 
 " But how should I get to my well ? "
 
 34 A SPIXHTKR'S LEAFLETS 
 
 Joe winked and thought. He had long eyelashes, 
 and they twinkled fast with his thinking. 
 
 -Tell y' what, we'll shovel, both of us if it's real 
 deep. You don't mind do you ? I'll push the shovel 
 in. an' you can lift it up. Goiu" now? " 
 
 Yes: it's my bedtime too." 
 
 Ain't you goin' to kneel down 'side the bed? Aunt 
 Marty does." 
 
 There was no denying Joe. 
 
 Why didn't you say it out loud? Didn't you want 
 anything?" 
 
 ' Next time.'' I said with guilty evasion, and gave a 
 final tuck to the blankets. 
 
 ' Why, you forgot to kiss me ! " lie said, rising on 
 one elbow in surprise. " You haven't got a bit good 
 remembery, have you ? " 
 
 It was a bitter cold morning, and snow fell at inter- 
 vals. Before I had started my kitchen fire Joe called, 
 so I touched a match to the pine kindlings and hurried 
 uj)-stiiirs, fearing lie might be ill. But before I reached 
 the top he shouted again. " Oh, quick, quick ! hurry up 
 an' see all these fat alligators ! " 
 
 A shivering little barefoot figure stood by the win- 
 dow, and just outside the great Norway spruce held 
 loads of damp snow, each branch with a broad white 
 Iwtek and funny green feet crawling back and forth in 
 the bree/e-
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 35 
 
 " Scamper to bed," I said, " and you shall have a 
 little fire of your own to dress by." 
 
 So Joe scampered with his teeth chattering, and I 
 lighted the wood that is always laid in Doorstep-Philip's 
 small fireplace, and brought up a pitcher of hot water, 
 as if Joe had trul} r been Philip, my King, and I his 
 handmaiden to command. 
 
 The storm was a memorable one, and we were snow- 
 bound. Joe had a glorious time in the garret, setting 
 traps, rummaging barrels and boxes, rocking Kittery in 
 the wooden cradle where I spent so many seasick hours 
 in helpless infancy ; whirring the spinning-wheel, buzz- 
 ing the reel, rolling cheese hoops down-stairs, till Cat- 
 tery of her own accord took refuge in the wood-house. 
 He came down to dinner, grimy and happy, with his 
 hair on end. 
 
 " I've brushed and brushed," he said, " and smoothed 
 it with my hands, but I can't make head nor tail of it. 
 The more I brush the more it won't lie down. Aunt 
 Marty says it's all full of something like like 
 lightning." 
 
 After dinner we had quiet little games, Nine-Men- 
 Morris, and Fox-and-Geese, played with corn kernels on 
 the bootjack, where my father made a diagram for the 
 chase when I was a child. 
 
 About three o'clock the snow stopped falling, and 
 Deacon Thaddeus, with a face as beamy as the rising
 
 36 A SPISiiTEK'ti LEAFLETS 
 
 sun's own in my kitchen almanac, came over in top- 
 l>oots to shovel me out and take my boy home. As the 
 little fellow sat astride his father's broad shoulders 
 when my paths were dug, I looked after him with 
 regret, and spoke unadvisedly with my lips concerning 
 the joy it would be to keep him always. 
 
 And so you might." said the Deacon cheerfully, 
 so you might ; but there's conditions, you know. 
 Mebby you never heard o' the woman that asked the 
 l>est-lookin' one o* the Siamese twins to stay to dinner 
 one time." 
 
 I said the story was new to me. 
 
 " Oil, 'tain't much of a story." said the Deacon with 
 a twinkle ; " but she had to put on two extry plates." 
 
 Yet even then I suspect the half-wife's sister had 
 l>een spoken to, for they were married when the daf- 
 fodils came out in the spring. I sent them a great 
 pitcherful. 
 
 Joe will never be my boy. Perhaps there is still a 
 doorstep baby in reserve for me. But how could I, 
 who know so little how to order my own life, think of 
 directing that of any human being? Poor thing! I 
 thought of what Joe called me, when I said I never had 
 a little boy. " But p'raps you will up in heaven 
 \toor thing ! " Mother-nurture may grow, like mother- 
 love. But I cannot reason about it. If it is to 1>< -. I 
 shall find a way. It might not l)e a bad plan to watch
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 37 
 
 the development of a little life as I watch the growth 
 of my plants. If they have plenty of sunshine and pure 
 air, they do well. And any one who watches them 
 can't help keeping bugs and beasts at a distance. Even 
 a few weeds may grow up along with them without 
 harm. I think sometimes they shade them from too 
 hot sunshine and keep them from wilting. 
 
 Perhaps mothers bend, and straighten, and snip off 
 too much, and pull up weeds so fast and so jerkily that 
 the roots are disturbed and discouraged. There may be 
 a parable from nature here, that even an old maid can 
 comprehend. I should try to be a far-sighted mother, 
 and look away over and beyond some things that I 
 couldn't help nor hinder, to the greater things that go 
 to make a man. Near-sighted views may be correct in 
 detail, but are apt to be pinched. 
 
 My Philip shall be good because he loves goodness, 
 not because he hates evil. His life shall be filled so 
 full that there shall be no room for badness. When a 
 tramp at my well overflows the cup with pure spring 
 water, there is no room on top for whiskey. There are 
 plenty of people who use evil as a scarecrow, and 
 always keep it in sight for moral purposes. They 
 believe in the lash at the start, not the laurel at the 
 goal. I want my boy to believe wholly in heaven, and 
 waste very little time thinking about hell. 
 
 When my Knight Philip starts for the Holy Grail, he
 
 38 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 shall not be dropped into a sewer first, to find out about 
 the world. It shall be high and deep to him, if not 
 broad. A joke and a world may be too broad. Longi- 
 tude is every bit as true as latitude, and the path of the 
 heavenly bodies worth as much study as the lives of 
 the demi-monde in fitting a soul for its place in this 
 world even.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 39 
 
 VI 
 
 SQUIRE VANN came of Scotch ances- 
 try on the mother's side. His Highland 
 forbears were born without pockets, 
 those inducers of civilization in man, 
 and the Squire himself was by he- 
 redity the sworn enemy of that 
 social amenity, the pocket-handker- 
 chief. Neither 
 handkerchiefs nor 
 tooth-brushes were 
 classed as staple ar- 
 ticles on his shop- 
 ping-list, and the boys emulated his example with a 
 zeal which did not extend to his moral qualities. 
 These were perhaps more showy than abundant, but 
 what they lacked in number was made up in strength. 
 To be sure they had been kept in abeyance in youth, 
 but none the less he expected his children to put in 
 practice his theories at an early age, and was both 
 surprised and furious when they failed to do so. The 
 pranks he had joyfully played in his youth were still 
 as sweet morsels to his tongue ; but when the boys
 
 40 A SP IX STEM'S LEAFLETS 
 
 unwisely attempted to repeat his successes, he took 
 them one by one to the barn, while their soft-hearted 
 mother wept behind the window-curtain. 
 
 Square Vann. as his compeers called him. prided him- 
 self upon his freedom of speech ; but his wife looked 
 as if a modest slavery in that respect would be more 
 acceptable at home, especially in the presence of others. 
 If he thought his boys in the wrong, he kicked them 
 frankly before any one parson, deacon, or lay-mem- 
 ber with the promptness of Sparrowgrass's man who 
 pulled trigger tirst and made inquiries afterwards. If 
 the boys could prove that they were innocent of offence, 
 the Squire would say cheerfully, "Credit you one then. 
 Remind me of it next time." But there was scant 
 time for reminder when the Squire's wrath was hot. 
 His foot was heavy and his memory short, so it was 
 long credit and no balance ever struck. 
 
 The house, large and pretending, somewhat overbear- 
 ing in fact, like its owner, was fine witli velvet carpets 
 and glowing upholstery the cost of which the whole 
 town knew to a penny. It was a doubtful pleasure to 
 be asked to take tea with Mrs. Square Vann, as the 
 neighbors respectfully called her, for something always 
 went wrong. The Head was never ready to take his 
 place, but would look inside the door when the visitors 
 were seated to suggest that we go ahead with the gim- 
 cracks while he helped himself to cold pot-luck in the
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 41 
 
 butter v. If he came in coatless, slamming doors and 
 still ruminating, in the middle of the meal, it was only 
 to fill even* body with unrest and his wife with appre- 
 hension. If ever a woman's chair was cushioned with 
 thorns, she was that woman. If it was summer-time, 
 his grievance might be that the cat had been in the 
 cream, and probably tasted of everything else a fact 
 or even fiction that was malappetizing to guest and 
 hostess. If in winter, somebody had left some door 
 open and frozen something ; and poor Mrs. Vann 
 colored, and looked miserable when he asked gruffly, 
 " Where's them boys ? " 
 
 A spinster has the advantage over a Squire's wife 
 even, at times. 
 
 Adam Vann's manners were original, and drawn from 
 his every-day habit of mind. If one sinner destroyeth 
 much good, it is equally true that one perverse good 
 man can sow the seeds of generations of unpleasant- 
 ness, whose name in capitals is Disgust. If I had boys 
 that said " Father does," when I reproved them for boor- 
 ishness, I am sure I should reply, with small regard 
 for immediate consequences, that that was because his 
 mother didn't kill him when he was little. One must 
 have mercy on future wives, as well as loyalty to pres- 
 ent husbands and past mothers. 
 
 The Squire had a tolerably kind heart when there 
 was special occasion to call its faculties into use ; but
 
 42 -I SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 his sympathies were not broad nor his griefs deep. 
 When he caught the boys quarrelling, which is a mild 
 word for their fracases, he whipped them both, soundly 
 and impartially, and forbade them to go whining to 
 their mother, who loved them at such times not wisely, 
 but too well. 
 
 One day in the early spring, he sent the youngest to 
 school when the child was shaking with the chill that 
 precedes scarlet-fever, and blamed his mother openly for 
 coddling him ; but he sat up with him night after night 
 until the danger was over, when he realized his mistake. 
 The neighbors tired in time of the oft-told tale of his 
 sleepless nights. It never occurred to him to worry 
 over the fact that my Joe nearly died of the same fever, 
 or that the school was broken up for weeks because 
 Mrs. Vann was not allowed to use her own judgment. 
 
 He never failed to go to church twice on Sundays, 
 nor to pay liberally for the preaching, Avhich he said 
 cost more than it come to ; but he wondered not a little 
 why his boys didn't seem to enjoy an article that was so 
 expensive. Sunday illnesses received no quarter from 
 him ; and after the victim of a sudden toothache at 
 l>ell-ringing time had enjoyed home privileges for the 
 morning, it was no fun to be put to bed and fed on 
 water gruel while the family feasted on fat things. 
 
 In an unwise moment I had once suggested the 
 worth of education to boys ; but the Squire impressed
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 43 
 
 upon me the fact that he didn't want no algebray nor 
 Latin talk 'round his place to scare the cattle. United 
 States speech was what he made his money by, and 
 what was good enough for him they'd have to put 
 up with. 
 
 It was of no use, and very likely the boys were not 
 worth it ; but I did venture to say that I had often 
 heard him calling his cows in Latin, and thought the 
 boys had the same habit. He looked at me blankly, 
 but I knew he was not capable of humiliating himself 
 so far as to seek an explanation from a woman. Indeed, 
 it seemed to give me a certain laughable title to regard 
 from him. Here was a woman who had dared answer 
 him back. 
 
 Often as I sit musing before my fire, I arrange 
 the room to suit my Philip, whose tastes will be new- 
 fashioned. I fancy a real Turkish rug in place of 
 my home-braided one, and silken pillows on the wide 
 old lounge. There must be pretty draperies at the 
 windows too, and perhaps a portiere before my bed- 
 room door. My books I must add to, for though I 
 get many new ones from the village library, one must 
 have a good stock of old friends on hand. My boy 
 shall not be ashamed when he brings home his college 
 friends. No doubt I need a good deal of brushing up 
 myself. To one who has never been twenty-five miles
 
 44 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 from home, the world seems as curious and unreliable 
 as when it was flat, and stood on the backs of tortoises ; 
 and kings and queens as unhuman as griffins. One 
 needs to travel a little in order to get into just relations 
 with things : to be able, for instance, to think of royalty 
 as sometimes caught on Monday mornings with its 
 crown off and its sceptre behind the door, and there- 
 fore subject to the accidents and mortifications of our 
 common humanity. 
 
 Therefore my boy shall travel. He shall go and 
 come as he pleases to and from his home. If love 
 for me doesn't draw him, he shall stay away. He 
 must have a bank account, and I shall not ask to 
 see his book. But lie will tell me because I love 
 him, and because I would go cold and hungry to give 
 his young life a chance. I shall surely trust him, and 
 if he prove unworthy, why, so much the worse for me. 
 
 But what if he were really to prove a prodigal, and 
 fond of husks? I wonder if I couldn't win him back 
 in time with turkey and plum pudding and love. It 
 was grand Robert Collyer who loved to say, " The first 
 man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord 
 from heaven."
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 45 
 
 VII 
 
 ONE morning in the spring, 
 soon after Joe ceased to be 
 motherless, I was down on 
 my knees among my tulips, 
 which grow in a bed that 
 reaches from the wood-house nearly to the well, when 
 Squire Vann's hard " Hello ! " brought me to my feet. 
 He stood in the roadway, dangling a yellow cat by the 
 tail. But it was not Kittery. 
 
 " Ketched for sure in my rat-trap," he called hilari- 
 ously across the fence. " Guess she used to be your 
 yaller cat before she left for parts unknown," he added 
 wittily ; " an' if you're agreeable, I'll jest heave her over 
 the stun wall. Help make grass grow." 
 
 I nodded, for there is never any temptation to con- 
 tinue conversation with Squire Vann, especially at such 
 a distance ; and when Joe came in the afternoon for 
 it was Saturday and a half-holiday, I gave him a dime 
 to find Cattery and give her decent burial in the garden. 
 He rolled the poor defeated thing carefully in a news- 
 paper, and dug a grave as deep as he could with my 
 trowel. It was his plan to station Kittery at his side as
 
 46 A SPINSTER '8 LEAFLETS 
 
 chief mourner, with a black ribbon around her neck ; 
 but the programme failed at the critical moment, as Kit 
 caught sight of a squirrel, and we saw her no more for 
 an hour. 
 
 After the grave was covered and a few flowers laid 
 on it Joe chose yellow tulips the child sat down 
 on the doorstep with his chin in his hand. I thought 
 at iirst he was chief mourner. But it was only that 
 '* genius burned " just then, and he was devising an 
 epitaph. 
 
 " She wasn't much of a cat," he said thoughtfully, 
 " but she was a mother. First thing I thought I'd get 
 you to help me print it on a board, and we could call it 
 a tombstone. 'Twouldn't be but then " 
 
 ' What were you going to print, Joe ? " 
 
 Joe, still intent on the future, lined out slowly : 
 
 " Here lies 
 That cat, 
 Killed by 
 A rat 
 Trap. 
 
 " But I don't b'lieve I'll do it," he added. " Seems 
 jest 's if Kitzy'd know it, and feel bad." 
 
 Life seemed less intricate with Cattery under ground 
 and no good qualities left behind her in memory. And 
 yet I sometimes found myself wondering if I hadn't 
 been too ready with the broom the only argument
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 47 
 
 she ever understood. Memory and regret are twin 
 sisters. 
 
 It began to rain about eight o'clock, so I laid two 
 sticks together and drew my stand of books before the 
 companionable blaze. In a previous state of existence 
 I must have been a lire-worshipper. 
 
 There are times when Victor Hugo and Dickens 
 torment me with their tales of horror. This was one 
 of the times : and I rose and turned their backs to the 
 wall. But once set apart in this way, I could not for a 
 moment forget them, and the firelight flashed twice as 
 often on them as usual, so that I had to cross the room 
 again and turn them back. After that it was hard to 
 keep my mind off them. So I thought it a good time 
 for a little visit with cheery Howells, who brings a fresh 
 breath of air along with him. I laid him above 
 Emerson and Lowell, and mused awhile over the open 
 book. A fire tempts one to " busy idleness." Some- 
 times as I sit looking into the heart of it, with rain or 
 sleet insisting at the windows, George William Curtis 
 slips into the easy-chair opposite my low rocker, in- 
 finitely wiser and handsomer than the young Apollo 
 of the Potiphar Papers, and lends dignity and gracious- 
 ness to the chimney corner. And presently the Farmer 
 of Edgewood saunters in with a tolerant smile on his 
 patrician face, and Whittier rests his head on one long, 
 thin hand, and watches the birch wood flame silently.
 
 48 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 My blue-eyed Philip leans his golden head against 
 my sombre knee, until Tolstoi shambles in with Walt 
 Whitman, when I send him out to play with the kitten. 
 The unkempt Russian does not see me, and I shrink 
 away from the tire as he draws nearer, his eyes like 
 dead craters where awful and unlawful fires have burnt 
 themselves out. Whitman looks over the group, pulls 
 on his hat hard, and shuts the door decidedly, as he 
 goes. 
 
 It opens again, and Dr. Holmes comes in. His face 
 is sunny with the eternal youth of his soul ; but shall 
 we ever again see " the light that in his eye he bore " 
 when he thought out his immortal Ode to Bryant ? 
 
 I doubt if he would recognize Tolstoi's homoeopathic 
 cure for life's ills fighting vice with vice. The 
 Russian says, in the telling words of a wise critic, " I 
 am your brother, therefore I will go down into the mire 
 with you. Christ says, ' I am -your brother, therefore 
 come up higher with me.' " Tolstoi fades away like a 
 burnt cinder ; and as he passes from sight I remember 
 one little scene in "Anna Kare'nina," the only thing I 
 wish to remember the one sacred thing in the book to 
 me, when the mother, after months of desertion, comes 
 back before daybreak to look once more at her boy, and 
 sees how long his little legs look below his nightgown, 
 as he springs up half asleep to hug and kiss her and 
 sol) out his happiness. This alone moves me.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 49 
 
 The close, heavy air grows fresh again as Howells 
 appears Howells, whose scalpel cuts clean down to 
 the conscience, even if he "keep his feet" but indif- 
 ferently " among his shalls and wills." It is a pity, 
 though, that he should have known so many rudimen- 
 tary women. One doesn't mould a heroine from putty, 
 nor change a butterfly into an eagle by any process of 
 reasoning. 
 
 The women of the western hemisphere owe much to 
 the Norman-Saxon strain of blood that runs deep, but 
 puts duty before pleasure, others before self. That 
 which comes of Puritan blood is not a colorless life. 
 
 The scene changes, and my dreaming takes on another 
 phase. My thoughts go straying down the spring foot- 
 paths of the past, in the young days when Rachel Timloe 
 was my best and only friend. The apple-tree where we 
 climbed to study our lessons among the leaves, the 
 willow where we swung on happy Saturdays, waved 
 and drooped in memory till I could hear the wind in 
 their leaves, and the sound of Rachel's high-keyed 
 voice as she dared me to swing higher. And within 
 call of this very house was her child, the only one left 
 of six. With her dying breath she had given this puny 
 babe, who could not remember his mother's face, to the 
 care of two old people who knew no more about the 
 nurture of a child than if he had been a new Triptole- 
 mus.
 
 50 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 He was not an engaging boy, but I pitied him with 
 all my heart. Only two weeks before he had played 
 truant and fallen into the river in a vain attempt to 
 catch a fish and enjoy himself after the manner of 
 secular boys. Of course Deacon Thad, everybody's 
 guardian angel, was crossing the bridge to his up- 
 meadow at the time always Deacon Thad ! and lie 
 plunged in, boots, coat, and all, for the little fellow had 
 gone down for the last time. He carried him to his 
 own house in his arms, and then sent for me. " Aunt 
 Marty,"' in lilac muslin with soft lace at the throat and 
 wrists, was calm and ready as usual, and had hot 
 blankets to wrap him in, and a roaring fire on the 
 hearth. The sunshine lay in a yellow square on the 
 floor, whose clean-' whiteness was tracked with wet boots 
 and puddly with dripping garments. In a very little 
 while we brought him to, rubbed him red, and dressed 
 him in Joe's clothes, while I took upon myself the task 
 of telling the family that he wasn't well, and that I 
 should like to take care of him that night. 
 
 He begged that I wouldn't tell what had happened, 
 and I promised willingly enough. My conscience was 
 clear, for it was not I who had tempted him to disobe- 
 dience, and as both Mr. and Mrs. Timloe were ailing, 
 with symptoms of influenza, I had no difficulty in keep- 
 ing him. 
 
 That night a fever set in, and he was holding
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 51 
 
 imaginary conversations with his grandmother at in- 
 tervals all through the night. 
 
 " Am I sorry ? No* in, not one bit." " Ever do it 
 again? You bet I will!" "No, it doesn't make you 
 feel bad. Not half so bad as you always make me 
 feel." " A pretty sort of a boy I am ! And you did 
 it." The old Adam within me was gratified ; for I was 
 not responsible for the child's conscience. 
 
 Here was a gentle soul unconsciously at bay ; and we 
 poor human creatures don't know what to do with such. 
 So I " abandoned him to Providence," and dried his 
 wet clothes. It would be an easy matter to make 
 headstrong little Joe see the right and wrong in such 
 a case ; but he had been developed by love, and so 
 law had a controlling power over him. Even physical 
 vision comes from crossed lines. 
 
 And yet we speak of a " boy " as if we had fully 
 accounted for the species. 
 
 Tim my was better in the morning, and as it was 
 Saturday he played about the garden and woods, and 
 probably went to the river. I shall never inquire. Mr. 
 Timloe grew worse, and the child stayed on, so the fact 
 of his truancy did not appear. 
 
 He was an elfish little fellow. After school he would 
 curl up on the lounge and read his heart out. Walter 
 Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, fairly melted away before 
 the light of his eyes. When supper was ready he came
 
 52 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 as from a far country. like Eve from Paradise, his 
 soul still with his books, and not a word could I get 
 from him. I used to wonder whether he thought me 
 capable of betraying him, or whether he simply never 
 looked off his books long enough to think of me at all.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 53 
 
 VIII 
 
 I HAD felt for some 
 months that Squire Vann 
 was a little " near " when 
 he bargained for my last 
 strip of salable land and 
 got it at his own valuation, 
 and the impression was 
 strengthened when, three 
 days before Thanksgiving, 
 he sent me a fine, large, 
 green goose. But it is 
 unneighborly to look 
 even a gift goose in the 
 mouth, so I accepted it with proper thanks and invited 
 dinner company. 
 
 For years before I had been quite alone. There was 
 a time when the minister said grace at my board after 
 the church service on Thanksgiving Day ; but for many 
 years Mrs. Timloe has been an unwilling guest in her 
 own house, and her husband could not leave her alone 
 on the special New England at-home day of all the 
 year.
 
 54 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 Other people gathered children of the second and 
 third generations to help them eat, drink, and be merry; 
 and though invitations to go abroad in the neighborhood 
 were not lacking, I knew the good housewives would 
 not be offended if I declined with thanks to " make a 
 crowd " at the family circle. Some go out into the 
 highways and hedges, and compel people. But there 
 are no poor in our town. So instead of spending on 
 luxuries, I am adding to my bank account. Sometimes 
 I am afraid that I too am growing 4i a little near " in 
 my zeal to lay up for Philip the loiterer. 
 
 But after my green goose came, it suddenly occurred 
 to me that Deacon Xoadiah and his elderly daughter 
 Mercy Jane had no one to come home this year. Death 
 had been looking in at doors and windows here and 
 there, where their earthly treasures were, until this year 
 his hands were empty. It was a real joy to prepare for 
 the feast and to know how it would be appreciated by 
 people who took more thought for the morrow than for 
 the present dny. Mince, pumpkin, and tart pies, cran- 
 berry sauce, and Indian pudding kept me busy and 
 merry; and when my goose was beginning to brown 
 beside the chicken-pie, I put on my bonnet, locked my 
 door, and started for the " meetin' 'us," as the old folk 
 styled Mr. Craig's modern church, which was quite a 
 proud edifice for South Falls. 
 
 As a loyal descendant of the Pilgrims, it was a duty
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 55 
 
 to listen to the long sermon and join in the singing of 
 psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, while the dinner, 
 left to its own watch and ward, did as well as most 
 trusted things do. A modern housekeeper knows none 
 of the joys of an old-fashioned brick oven well heated, 
 which holds enough to last a good-sized family for a 
 week, and attends to its own business in a leisurely, 
 assured way that could not be hindered nor hurried if 
 all the political systems of the universe should collapse. 
 Trust a boy and a brick oven, and you have my word 
 that the result will be satisfactory. 
 
 My mind was at rest about my dinner, and the table 
 was set. I had decided to ask the Deacon to say grace, 
 but to do my own carving, as the choice between white 
 and dark meat would not be clear without the interven- 
 tion of the trumpet, which would seriously interfere 
 with the carvers and various required tools. The fire 
 was laid, and the mug of cider drawn and set away by 
 the cool pantry-window. So we jogged slowly home 
 from meetin', Mercy Jane taking her father's arm, and 
 nodding vigorously as he commented on several p'ints 
 in the sermon which he thought quite good for a man 
 of Parson Craig's tender years. 
 
 But as we drew near the house which stood full in 
 the clear, cold sunshine, something strange caught my 
 eye and set my pulses hammering so that I walked like 
 one in a treadmill. There was a something on the
 
 56 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 doorstep, and it had the form of a basket. A basket 
 with the cover tied down. Mercy Jane looked up sud- 
 denly and saw it too. She had just dropped her 
 father's arm to open the gate for him. I was inhospit- 
 ably behind them, urging my feet to do their duty. 
 
 1 guess Tamar's girlses fetched home your washin' 
 before meetin'," Mercy Jane said. k * They was late, I 
 noticed." 
 
 How I blessed Tamar's girlses ; for my conscience 
 was in a flutter as well as my pulses, and needed time. 
 Why, oh why, did I invite company on this day of days 
 my own supreme Thanksgiving Day ! For it was 
 unmistakably a basket ; a basket with its cover tied 
 down. This was no delusion, no false alarm of some 
 materializing Cattery. 
 
 I pulled out my key at the top of my stone steps, and 
 turned my pocket wrong side out. Mercy Jane, who 
 had waited for me, picked up my handkerchief which 
 had followed my purse. 
 
 " My ! " she said, " you're losing all your things." 
 
 She waited for me to open the door. What if she 
 should pick up the basket in a neighborly zeal to be of 
 use? My heart was moved out of its place. How 
 should I account for that basket? It was none of 
 mine, and they would discover the fact. Country people 
 have sharp eyes. Besides, my washing always came 
 home on Tuesday, and Mercy Jane would remember it.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 57 
 
 In dearth of general news, small facts are made to do 
 service in the small talk of families, even through the 
 medium of a trumpet. 
 
 I opened the door in haste, rattling the key in the 
 lock. 
 
 " What a Thanksgivingey smell ! " said Mercy Jane 
 appreciatively. 
 
 4> Got something good, I guess," said the Deacon, 
 under the impression that he had opened the conver- 
 sation. He spoke more wisely than he knew. Yes, 
 the one, real prayed-for good of my life. Oh, for one 
 moment of aloneness ! 
 
 I set the basket behind the door, listening fearfully, 
 and made haste to establish the Deacon by the fire which 
 I kindled tremblingly, and to take Mercy Jane to the 
 bedroom beyond, where she could lay off her things. 
 I even remembered to set the mug of cider to warm on 
 the hearth for the Deacon's satisfaction. I went down 
 the steps into the kitchen and opened the oven-door for 
 purposes of deception, and let out a delightful odor of 
 green goose. Then I picked up my basket with both 
 hands, and, glancing timidly behind me, took it into the 
 wood-house and latched the door. I went down on my 
 knees beside it and tried to say a prayer, but my chat- 
 tering teeth confused me, and my dry lips were dumb. 
 My heart was going like a windmill, round and round. 
 
 What if it should stop ! Would they dare put my
 
 58 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 baby m y baby on the town? 1 knew that Mercy 
 .Jane had her things nicely folded by this time and laid 
 on the bed, her gloves in her bonnet and her front hair 
 put up, and that the Deacon would be drumming on the 
 chair-arms and wondering what the posset kept me so 
 long. How could I explain, and at the same time prove 
 my sanity? How could 1 walk in sensibly, and shout 
 into the Deacon's trumpet, ''I've got a baby!" It was 
 a trumpet that often gave an uncertain sound, and the 
 Deacon, with his mind on mutton, was liable to answer, 
 " You do, do ye ? Fore quarter or rack ? " 
 
 Heaven knows I had all the rack I could stand. It 
 was supreme torture. Why wouldn't those people go 
 home? How dare they stay? I went back to the 
 kitchen and took off my bonnet and cloak, which I had 
 kept on unconsciously. Mercy Jane was still in the 
 bedroom, taking a last look at herself in my divided 
 glass. Her eyes came above the line of moulding, for 
 she was taller than I, and it gave a sinister expression 
 to her face. 
 
 "Land!" she exclaimed, "you haven't got your 
 things off yet. I thought I heard you at the oven." 
 
 " Yes," I said guiltily, " I just looked in to see how 
 things were doing. If you'll excuse me, I'll run out 
 now and get the dinner on the table." 
 
 " Oh let me help ! " she said cordially. " Do. I 
 brought my apron a-purpose."
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 59 
 
 ' But I refused with the best grace I had at command, 
 on the wicked plea that she might get something on her 
 dress, and begged that she would entertain her father 
 instead. It was impossible to keep this up. I should 
 go mad. All the hard discipline of my life came near 
 going for nothing in those strained moments. A thought 
 of cats flashed over me, though I had carefully shut the 
 two doors. I went softly to the wood-house, making no 
 jar to attract the notice of my silent guests. Yes, a 
 strange cat was at the basket. Her claws were on the 
 reeds, her nose at the cover. It might have been Cat- 
 tery's ghost. For the first time in my life I was in full 
 sympathy with Cain, the murderer. Doubtless Abel 
 was always hanging around in a maddening way, meekly 
 prying into everything, forestalling him in all his plans. 
 The cat went out through the window, leaving a clatter 
 of broken glass. Besides this, there was not a sound. 
 Was the child asleep ? Was it drugged ? Was it dead ? 
 It was of no use. I must have witnesses. It would be 
 a queer story to come out afterwards, and to be dis- 
 cussed at the corner store and in everybody's kitchen, 
 that I pretended my washing had come home on Thanks- 
 giving of all days in the year ! and it was a baby ! No, 
 it would be much easier to carry the basket in and 
 open it before the eyes of my guests, in the innocence 
 of my heart, than to walk in with a baby in my arms, 
 dead or alive, and try to explain that I had found it !
 
 60 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 My song-, like Leigh Hunt's, should be a song of 
 degrees. 
 
 So once more I pieked up the basket and carried it 
 to the sitting-room lire, which was burning itself out. 
 I had forgotten to bring in more wood. The Deacon 
 and his daughter stared. 
 
 - I don't know what it is," I said humbly, hating 
 myself for deceiving as it were, the very elect ; " but 
 we'll soon find out." 
 
 Mercy Jane was kt farse " to help, and went down on 
 her knees the other side of the basket, while her father 
 wiped his dim eyes in order to get a fair sight at what- 
 ever lay concealed beneath the cover. 
 
 "Don't cut the string; it's a good one," he said. 
 
 So Mercy Jane slowly untied it, for her fingers were 
 stiff and clumsy, and the blood was not racing through 
 her veins and hurrying up her faculties. We lifted the 
 lid together. A fair napkin lay under, and on its exact 
 centre a gilt-edged card with rounded corners. On the 
 card was written in a small hand : " Wishing you a 
 Happy Thanksgiving. From Mrs. Esther Vann." 
 
 Mercy Jane calmly folded the napkin in its ironed 
 prints, and disclosed oranges, bananas, and white grapes, 
 with a long bottle of home-made wine. 
 
 A sense of cruel defeat and a feeling of rising anger 
 at being so desperately cheated stiffened my knees and 
 hardened my heart, so that I rose steadily, and asked
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 61 
 
 the Deacon in pantomime if he would try the wine. He 
 shook his head dolefully, and said he had to resist 
 temptation that he even let the wine pass him at 
 Communion seasons. But he smiled a wide, toothless 
 smile as I piled the fruit high 011 a Lafayette plate, and 
 said contentedly that the earth was full of the goodness 
 of the Lord, who giveth to the beast his food, and to the 
 young ravens which cry ; and who openeth His hand 
 and satisfyeth the desire of every living thing. 
 
 I put the basket back in the wood-room, and set the 
 wicked bottle behind my pantry door. But there were 
 tears in mv heart.
 
 A SPIXSTEli'* LEAFLETS 
 
 JOK'S new mother and I ex- 
 changed flower-seeds in the 
 sprim 
 
 and had 
 
 about thing's 
 during than 
 nights when 
 watchedwith 
 fast recover- 
 let-fever. It 
 llian usual 
 
 more 
 
 flowers in the 
 we together 
 Joe, who Avas 
 ing from scar- 
 was later 
 MfcK when I plant- 
 * ed my sweet 
 peas, and she came 
 over to see me put 
 them down the length 
 of my trowel, with 
 faith that they could 
 find their blind way 
 up again. 
 
 It's a burying and a resurrection that 
 we can see," she said. " I like it. But the 
 other may be grander." 
 
 My sweet peas run riot every year. They cover 
 the old picket fence ; they attack the cherry-trees ; they
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 63 
 
 hang from prickly raspberry vines ; they catch at weeds 
 and dead twigs. Everything within reach they glorify. 
 Give me my sweet-pea Paradise, and Mrs. Vann is 
 welcome to her " dahlia Heaven." Aunt Marty said 
 flowers needed a kind of worship to make them do their 
 best, and that she could coax more blossoms from a 
 stubborn geranium than most people. But she loved 
 the sweet things with souls better: mignonette, helio- 
 trope, violets. '-They are like love," she added; and 
 then I understood better why she had married. 
 
 One dav when we were quite alone and well on. in 
 our confidential talks, she said, 
 
 Many a man I've seen in my lifetime that I could 
 get a good dinner for and sit down at table with ; but 
 never one before that I could stand day after day. You 
 know, they're apt to be tiresome the best of them. I 
 know all his queernesses," she added; ''but when a 
 woman's ' getting along,' as Mrs. Vann says, such things 
 don't signify as they do to a young girl. Other things 
 go deeper. And if he'd been taught," she continued in 
 a lower tone, " he wouldn't be lacking in any of the 
 little things we women like. I even think he'll learn 
 sometime to open the gate for me." 
 
 She laughed softly in the deeps of her gingham sun- 
 bonnet, and I put out my hand, but she was in obscurity 
 and didn't see it. 
 
 ' Just you let well enough alone ! " I said. ' ; What
 
 64 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 would yon have ? He is sui yeneris, and if you try to 
 work him over into Lord Chesterfield, you might as 
 well have married John Smith and done with it." 
 
 'Bless yon ! " she cried, dropping the trowel to grip 
 my hand. " I knew well enough you'd had your laugh 
 over him years ago." 
 
 I had misjudged her when I thought there might be 
 little sensitive places in her heart. After that we talked 
 him over like two mothers ; and the more we laughed 
 and pulled him to pieces, the more we found to love and 
 admire, till we both wiped our eyes like two confidential 
 school-girls in the giggle age, and went on to compare 
 notes about Joe. It seemed a good time to .broach the 
 college subject, and I found, as I thought I should, a 
 ready aider and abettor at my right hand. She had 
 been thinking of the same thing, and meant to consult 
 me about it before speaking to his father, who would 
 never hesitate to do anything that we thought best for 
 the boy. It appeared that we were to be linked with 
 him, she and I, taking our one boy on shares. So we 
 planted our spring hopes with our sweet peas, and in 
 the privacy of the garden I dared speak of 1113- one hope 
 which really budded, like my monthly rose-bush, all 
 through the year. 
 
 She pushed back her sunbonnet to listen better. 
 
 " But don't you think," she asked meditatively, after 
 hearing me with patience through my several episodes,
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 65 
 
 "don't you think that your boy and mine ought 
 to he of an age? ought to go to college together? 
 Did you ever think of going to the asylum to choose 
 one? There are a great many little motherless fellows 
 there." 
 
 -' Goodness, no ! " I said, greatly disturbed, and sorry 
 that I had spoken so freely to any but babes as simple 
 and unpractical as myself. " I could never be mother 
 then." 
 
 "No," she said frankly, " nor am I now. Joe has his 
 own mother in heaven, and we talk about her every 
 night. There never could be but one, you know, and 
 you might make your boy know what mother-love of 
 the heavenly sort is. A boy who has a mother in 
 heaven isn't apt to stray very far away from her on 
 earth." 
 
 I was answered. I who had cherished my own ideal 
 of motherhood for years, stood rebuked before this real 
 mother of a month who would never lay claim to her 
 title. 
 
 Two weeks after Thanksgiving Mr. Timloe died, and 
 Tim my was sent for. He had been with me for several 
 days on account of his grandfather's severe illness, and 
 I wondered how I could best break the heavy tidings to 
 him. He expressed no regret at going, no sorrow for 
 his loss. But at the door he turned back and looked 
 straight into my eyes, and I saw the real boy for the
 
 (jJ A sl'iysTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 lirst time. There were no tears there, but a frightened 
 look, as if he faced something I could not see. I rose 
 and went with him. 
 
 Mrs. Timloe. complaining and garrulous, sat in her 
 usual corner with the same dead odor of herbs pervad- 
 ing the house. It was a hard Providence, she said, that 
 left her helpless and alone in her old age. She ought 
 to have been taken first. Timmy greeted her shyly, but 
 dutifully ; there was no love in her heart for him to 
 respond to. 
 
 An hour later I went into the chilly front room, dark- 
 ened as is our New England custom, where lay the 
 good pastor, a stern figure, and majestic even in death, 
 with an old-time linen sheet drawn over him from head 
 to foot. It was one that Mrs. Timloe had woven for 
 herself in the days Avhen girls were shamed if they went 
 to a husband without a chestful of linen of their own 
 weaving. The}' also had been young when life was a 
 mystery. Of the two, death seemed least mysterious. 
 
 For a moment I forgot the child that had bound them 
 so slightly to modern life with but one link, and that a 
 broken one ; but as I moved, my foot touched some- 
 thing. It was a little heap of ill-fitting clothes, with 
 Timmy somewhere inside them, lying face downward. 
 I closed the door softly, and was glad that Mrs. Timloe 
 did not remember to ask after the child, though she 
 fretted greatly about what he was to wear at the 
 funeral.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 67 
 
 The winter wore away, and with it Mrs. Tiraloe's un- 
 comfortable life, and in the spring Timmy was left 
 alone. His father whom he did not remember, came 
 to take the child away, to pack up what little was 
 worth removing, and to dispose of the house. He had 
 married a widow with four children, and had two 
 young boys of his own. Clearly Timmy would not 
 be needed. 
 
 It all came over me in one blinding flash, and I had 
 to catch my breath before I could ask, 
 
 " Timmy are you my doorstep baby ? " 
 
 He knew very well what I meant, for I had told both 
 him and Joe of my long-deferred hope. 
 
 He looked up dazed, from "David Copperfield : " - 
 "I d'know." 
 
 Then he read on. My heart sank ; for though this was 
 not the Philip of my dreams, I had at least hoped that 
 there was something motherly about me, even to a boy of 
 his age. How bitterly are we disappointed in ourselves 
 when we catch side glimpses of our ego through other's 
 eyes ! It makes one incredulous of a welcome in the 
 great Hereafter. He read on, a glossy lock of coal-black 
 hair falling over his forehead as he bent low over the 
 book. He was an olive-and-pomegranate boy, with eyes 
 of velvety blackness. I stared into the fire. It was his 
 last night. His father was at Deacon Thad's for old- 
 time's sake, and faithful Chloe had gone to live with
 
 58 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 her daughter a mile away. I thought of the echoing 
 old house where ghosts of past days were crowded 
 the gray house that would go to decay with a smell of 
 boueset, and dead air, and scorched flannel. 
 
 I was so far away that when Tim my spoke I jumped, 
 and the tongs rattled down. He was still looking in- 
 tently on the book. 
 
 " Would you let me go to school like the others ? " 
 
 " Yes/' 
 
 "And learn to swim?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And to skate? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " And to row a boat? " 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "You don't mean it!" 
 
 " Honor bright ! " 
 
 "I'll come." 
 
 Jacob was a bargaining creature, I remember, away 
 back in Genesis; but he turned out better than one 
 could expect. 
 
 " I'll come," Timmy said, and threw the book down 
 with a bang. It was the sign and seal of acceptance : 
 but I did not jump this time. I might have named 
 other things: clothing, and Liberty spelled with a capi- 
 tal. But all making haste must be done slowly. He 
 was yet but a boy in embryo.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 69 
 
 In the morning the legal papers were made out, with 
 
 but slight reluctance on the father's part. 
 
 / 
 " We often fail by searching far and wide 
 
 For what lies close at hand." 
 I had my Doorstep Baby at last.
 
 TO 
 
 A SPlXSTELi'S LEAFLETS 
 
 
 THERE was once a 
 woman who thought she 
 knew a good deal about 
 children because she had 
 been one herself. Her 
 theoretical ways of 
 bringing them up would 
 have put Solomon to 
 blush, and caused havoc 
 among his proverbs. 
 
 Some years ago I 
 thought I had said my last word about Philip. I was 
 a young woman then to those of my own generation. 
 Now the image that looks out at me from the glass 
 is never what I expect to see. The world looks as 
 young and beautiful to me as it did fifty years ago, 
 but I do not look the same to it. Where the years 
 are gone is a mystery. It is like solid ground dropping 
 from under one's feet. But when in December I look 
 out on my old crooked apple-tree, with its twisted, 
 blackened boughs, I know that it holds somewhere
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 71 
 
 within its forbidding bark the sure promise of a new 
 life ; so I take courage. 
 
 To go back into the past, when I took Rachel Tim- 
 loe's boy as my very own, it seemed as simple as the 
 easiest sums in addition. I had only to make a home 
 for him, to feed and clothe him, and set his feet and 
 face in the right direction. I remember that the day 
 I adopted Cattery he came in to tell me she was walk- 
 ing down the garden fence, and he had turned her 
 around for fear she would not be able to get back. 
 My ideas about a boy were nearly as primitive. Given 
 a home, and somebody to care for him, why should he 
 not go on making the best sort of a man of himself, with 
 an occasional turning of his face in the right direction 
 by some one who knew certain points of the compass 
 better than he ? So I began in company with the Im- 
 mortal Three, all heroic figures, with Charity at least a 
 head taller than the others. When the doorstep baby 
 that had filled and charmed my dreams became a fixed 
 fact, the world was brighter to me than it ever could 
 have been to Wordsworth's much-quoted boy ; and there 
 was little danger of its fading away into any prosy 
 commonness. 
 
 First of all, like a new Adam fresh from the tree of 
 life, the outward man had to be clothed. Nothing in 
 town was good enough for the straight little figure, and 
 to the scandal of the entire Vann family, all the curves
 
 72 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 and angles of my boy's body were estimated by a first- 
 class city tailor, and written down in a book. It was 
 the proudest Sunday of my long life when the Clothes 
 themselves walked into church, with a boy inside them 
 who opened the pew door for me the proudest, if not 
 the serenest. His eyes shone and Ids cheeks were ruddy. 
 Little freckled Joe across the aisle certainly looked a 
 trifle countrified, but wholly unconscious in his sincere 
 admiration of Timmy. 
 
 Those were great days ! The sun danced at his ris- 
 ing and at his setting as well, and I sang the Beati- 
 tudes while my fire went out. Perhaps Timmy did not 
 always remember to fill the kettle or bring in wood, and 
 he had not the same amount of zeal in making snow 
 paths that Joe had accustomed me to. I called him 
 several times in the morning, and occasionally went up- 
 stairs to make sure that he heard. But breakfast would 
 wait as well as not. Was not my very life his ? And 
 what did a late breakfast signify ? He had never been 
 waited on or petted in all his little life, and a very 
 slight indulgence isn't bad for the best of us. 
 
 Most people would have preached lost time and 
 morning hours that are never made up. It would have 
 been a fine text for Mrs. Vann ; but I never invited her 
 to " sit right down in my teacup," and so we made our 
 own laws or went without the almanac, just as we 
 chose.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 73 
 
 And about this time the strangest thing happened ! 
 I am almost afraid to write it down, on the principle 
 that one should not even speak of truths which sound 
 improbable. But this is a matter of moment, and it 
 came to me as a sign from heaven. 
 
 Among my boy's few effects was a box that remained 
 unopened for weeks. We knew it to be a box of books, 
 but were engrossed at the time by all-important clothes, 
 which shortened the perspective and threw other things 
 out of proportion. 
 
 One leisure Saturday, namely a stormy one, when 
 wind and rain came whirling down together, I heard a 
 great hammering above, and went up to see what this 
 new and strange sign of a man in the house meant. 
 Timmy had just opened his box, and books of several 
 sorts littered the floor. There were old almanacs, ge- 
 ographies, a dingy Milton, Pope's " Essay on Man," a 
 swarm of tracts, and bundles of old letters. Were they 
 old love letters, I wondered. Beyond these were still 
 other books, and I was reaching out after them, when 
 a sudden cessation of sound stopped my hand. Were 
 you ever in a room all alone when the clock stopped 
 ticking ? In my youth I was watching one night with 
 a friend in the last stages of consumption. Toward 
 morning she fell asleep. I did not know that I too was 
 asleep till a sudden silence waked me like a blow. The 
 clock had stopped. I walked guiltily toward the bed
 
 74 A SPiySTEK'S LEAFLETS 
 
 where the sick woman lay with one hand under her 
 cheek. She was dead. 
 
 Timmy had picked up his mother's Bible, and sat 
 staring at the written record of marriages, births, and 
 deaths that grows slowly between Malachi and Matthew. 
 As I stopped, he looked up at me as he did the day his 
 grandfather died, and I scattered an apronful of books 
 and hurried to him. He did not even indicate what it 
 was that had hushed his very breathing, but as the book 
 sagged on his knees I saw written in letters that seemed 
 to burn 011 the page, 
 
 "Philip Timloe Brock. 
 Born Sept. 5. 18 ." 
 
 The color was all gone from the boy's face. As for 
 me, I don't know what I did. I think I opened the 
 window to brush out a buzzing wasp, and then took 
 pity on its bedraggled state and let it in again to dry 
 its wings and distract me with butting its head aim- 
 lessly on every pane. I remember a cobweb across one 
 corner of the window and a spider tangling the legs of 
 a fly that remonstrated in the highest possible key. 
 
 Timmy shut the book without looking up, and my 
 vision cleared. " It was all planned from the begin- 
 ning!" I said. "Let us pray." And then we both 
 burst out laughing and had hard work to find our way 
 down-stairs. But there was a sense of something divine
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 75 
 
 and awful a new Presence in my house that has 
 never left it since. I shivered as I went to rny own 
 room to be alone with it. 
 
 The omission of the boy's first name was nothing 
 strange. To the old pastor and his wife it probably 
 meant nothing, and they in their otherwise childless age . 
 cared only to send their own name down the possible 
 future. So in the privacy of home, when we sat alone 
 beside the fire, I said " Philip " softly, feeling my way 
 by slow degrees. 
 
 But when Joe made one of the party, or the Deacon 
 and his wife and Joe three, it was Timmy as of old. 
 
 That winter there was skating on the pond, and 
 wherever my boy went Danger followed in disguise and 
 plotted against his life. Philip will never know how 
 often I sat quaking by the cold garret window to watch 
 the bobbing heads in the distance, and try to get him 
 in focus with the old field-glass that was my father's. 
 But my hand was shaky with cold, or something ; 
 and when a boy went down the whole field blurred. 
 Neither will he know how I happened to be close by the 
 bridge, with a shawl over my head, when the sudden 
 thaw came and he and Joe went down together. And 
 to this day I cannot tell whether I caught him first or 
 whether it was Joe, and Joe clutched his arm. I only 
 know that both came out together as wet and quiet as 
 if they had simply taken a July bath. Even I did not
 
 76 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 take cold, missing my woman's privilege, though I 
 trailed a soaking gown all over the house till I had the 
 bov in bed with onion draughts on his feet. The Deacon 
 came in to say that Joe was safe, and found me stirring 
 the fire with a palm-leaf fan. 
 
 The neighbors always contended that I was a woman 
 of remarkable presence of mind, and Mrs. Vann had 
 once gone so far as to say that in her opinion I was 
 strong-minded. 
 
 The sun did not stay his course for my boy. From 
 Mr. Craig's school for two, where he and Joe studied 
 Latin and palmed off their constructions on innocent 
 Jessie, the one small child of the house, the boys went 
 to the grammar school in town, and again I had to 
 stand on the defensive. Not only was I spoiling the 
 parson's boy and making him feel head and shoulders 
 above his neighbors, but I was also putting notions into 
 the head of Deacon Thad's Joe. 
 
 Before the boys struck out into this new path I had 
 misgivings and troubled thinkings in the night watches 
 that had formerly been given up to sleep. The mossy 
 old roof of the brown house seemed too low and its 
 walls too narrow for the new, pent-up world within. 
 And when the two were really gone to the rough-and- 
 tumble life they coveted, the silence of the house was 
 like the silence of life growing underground. There 
 was a hush of expectancy in the air, an eager waiting
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 77 
 
 for something, from Monday morning to Friday night. 
 I often caught myself walking 011 tiptoe in those 
 days. 
 
 And when Friday night did come at last, with its 
 rush of fresh-air school life filling every crevice and 
 corner, it was good to think that the two lives had been 
 mercifully spared one week more. Sunday too was a 
 day of devout thanksgiving that double-barrelled shot- 
 guns had once more refrained from going off acciden- 
 tally and killing behind them. It was a great thing in 
 a rural place to trust two boys and two guns out of 
 sight, and I might have been indicted for murder if 
 Providence had not graciously stepped in to save life 
 numberless times. 
 
 What fun we had with the game, and what surprise 
 parties in preparing it for Sunday's dinner ! 
 
 Sometimes we joined forces and met at the Deacon's 
 to discuss the chances of the hunt and dress the game, 
 which might chance to be a red squirrel, a field mouse, 
 or a meadow lark heavy with shot. 
 
 It was something of a task to get the boys started for 
 school before light on Monday mornings, as the days 
 shortened. Sunday nights belonged to the Deacon's 
 house, and there we had our weekly " sing," one neigh- 
 bor after another dropping in to listen, comment, or 
 help. Aunt Marty played the melodeon, and the boys 
 sang with her, while the Deacon, who could still look
 
 78 A SPIXSTElt'S LEAFLETS 
 
 over their shoulders, got in a hit-and-miss note where 
 he could. He looked an inch or t\vo taller than on 
 week days, and stretched his neck above a high, shiny 
 collar, struggling with deep bass notes that often wan- 
 dered through the tune like lost sheep in strange pas- 
 ture, rashly jumping the bars, and making high and 
 frisky leaps in unexpected places. 
 
 One night I well remember when Mr. and Mrs. Craig 
 came in and helped on the concert, and my bright-eyed 
 boy sang tenor with the voice of an angel. As I looked 
 across his smooth cheek, ruddy through the clear olive 
 of his complexion, and watched its color come and go, 
 my heart swelled till it pushed the water out at my 
 eyes. I loved Joe as I always had, but he could never 
 be my very own. God gave me this child as surely as 
 he gave Samuel to Hannah's prayer. I wonder if the 
 mother knew what to do with her boy after the prayer 
 was answered ? She had at least one definite duty, 
 which took him to the temple. I tried to bring the 
 temple to my boy. One Friday night when he came 
 home I said, " Somebody has smoked all over you, 
 Timmy. We'll have to hang these clothes out to air 
 overnight." That time I could not say Philip. When 
 he had gone to his room and I to mine, and the clothes 
 were airing in the woodshed, my old scheme of going to 
 l>ed and going to sleep failed. Even thinking of all the 
 Johns I knew and reciting the alphabet backward did
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 79 
 
 not keep my eyes closed. They were like jacks-in-boxes 
 that are under compulsion. When the power was re- 
 moved, up flew the lids. 
 
 Next day I said nothing ; but Sunday night, when I 
 went up to see that my boy had two blankets on his 
 bed and that he was well tucked up, I made a proposi- 
 tion. We had talked over going to Europe for six 
 months, after his four years at college ; and though it 
 seemed a wild dream, I had a fond hope that it might 
 come true after the manner of another dream of mine. 
 But life was shaping things for me, and I was no longer 
 a dabbler in clay. My heart quaked, but years had 
 given me control of my voice, and I could quietly say 
 that after thinking the matter over in my still days, 
 I had decided that after graduation he would be old 
 enough to go abroad without me, and that if he would 
 promise to use no tobacco till he was twenty-five years 
 old, he should have in addition to his own fund the 
 money that I had set apart for myself. The long lashes 
 lay on his cheek for a moment, and I listened to the 
 thumping of my heart. Then he turned his face to the 
 wall and gave the promise, and I bade him good-night. 
 With a mother's blind faith I trusted him. I believed 
 that he would keep his word because I did trust him. 
 It accorded witli my cut-and-dried theory. How did I 
 know ? That I cannot tell. I do not know how I knew, 
 any more than I know that I am immortal. It was as
 
 80 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 if I had two souls, each acting independently and with- 
 out knowledge of the other, yet bound invisibly each to 
 each for time and eternity. 
 
 There were some things that I had to face in the 
 Monday's silence when my two boys had forgotten 
 their homes for the time. 
 
 Was my Philip glad to be released from me? Had 
 the prospect of escorting an old maid through Europe, 
 of seeing to her baggage, of shortening his steps to hers, 
 been irksome to his thought ? Joe but Joe did not 
 belong to me. The mother heart has pangs of its own 
 that no man or boy can ever suffer. One dream of my 
 life was over, and it did not matter. It had always 
 seemed to me that Europe was farther away than hea- 
 ven, and I might still hope for the nearer journey, which 
 implied neither care nor baggage nor expense. But I 
 wanted my boy to want me to go. That was all. I 
 wanted him to insist upon it, that I might have the keen 
 joy of refusing. Perhaps he would have insisted if 
 he had known. But that was not satisfactory. Better 
 be content to live outside the hearts of those we love ; 
 to trust where we cannot know ; to live on the south 
 side of our lives. 
 
 And I was happy, with a real mother-happiness. The 
 long dream was over, but I had waked to something 
 greater and better. Another portion of my life had 
 been freely given to my boy. It was as if a little
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 81 
 
 trickle of my blood were finding its way through his 
 veins. 
 
 And he had promised ! I would not doubt him for 
 an instant. That bond betwixt us would keep him from 
 a certain fast set that defiles every college. It would 
 be a safeguard in more ways than one. The small edge 
 of the wedge would be blunted : the little leak in the 
 dam stopped. 
 
 At the beginning of their second winter in town the 
 boys went to dancing-school, and the village fumed and 
 fermented over it till spring. The corner store won- 
 dered what kind of monkeys they would turn out to 
 be ; and Deacon Thaddeus was no better than a back- 
 slider to his old neighbors. 
 
 Occasionally we mothers who had not even the title 
 went in on pleasant Fridays, sat through the long les- 
 son, and brought the boys home with us. Or was it 
 they who took us in charge ? 
 
 The hall was sunny and gay with short-frocked and 
 bright-sashed little girls. Joe was perpetual motion 
 itself. Philip moved as he was bid, reticent and up- 
 right with dignity. 
 
 There was one child in the class who always knew 
 where Philip was ; and I always knew where she was. 
 I had seen those eyes before. They belonged to another 
 generation, and brought back memories that I had spent 
 the best part of my life trying to forget. Joe liked her
 
 82 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 pretty, guileless ways, and watched her with open ad- 
 miration ; but she was always talking when he came 
 near in the pauses of the dance. 
 
 She always saw Philip, and he had no difficulty in 
 securing her for a partner. I doubt if Joe laid it to 
 heart. He was incapable of being slighted, because he 
 never expected attention. Like his good father, he had 
 a way of looking out for the neglected ones ; and all 
 the poor dancers and stupid little superfluities beamed 
 on Joe and watched Philip from afar.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 83 
 
 XI 
 
 I BEGAN to get ac- 
 quainted with little Jes- 
 sie Craig that winter. 
 She missed 
 her old 
 playmates, 
 and there 
 
 was none to take their places. Looking into 
 the firelight as it drew towards bedtime, she 
 would say solemnly, " I do wonder what 
 those boys are doing now ! " It did not matter that 
 "those boys" never gave her a thought. 
 
 The summer before, Philip used to turn a cold 
 shoulder 011 her after school hours ; but Joe didn't 
 mind her tagging and endless questioning. When she 
 tried to catch a fish in the thread of a brook that was 
 just large enough to glisten in the sunshine, he even 
 went so far as to bait her hook with a wriggling worm, 
 r while she shut her eyes tight. Under such temptation 
 he sometimes slipped away unobserved ; but his con- 
 science always brought him back to explain why it was
 
 84 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 not convenient to stay. No one expected Philip to 
 explain, so lie never had to take that trouble. 
 
 Jessie was a wonderfully alive child. Her eyes 
 danced, and her voice, and her feet. Of course she 
 must not go to dancing-school, because she was the 
 minister's child; but often in the early winter twilight 
 I locked the door and drew the curtains, and taught her 
 all the steps I knew. 
 
 The firelight made wild guesses at our shadows on 
 the wall as we went down in deep courtesies to each 
 other. Mr. Craig would have winked at a sin so small, 
 but I did not tell him lest he might not be able to face 
 his parishioners when they hurled interrogations at him. 
 And the child bless her heart ! didn't know that 
 it was dancing. It was just a natural kind of play to 
 her. and she saw no ludicrous side to it. 
 
 Sometimes she went home before dusk to ask if she 
 might stay all night. These were times when I had 
 watched for her and laid snares to stay her feet. It 
 would have seemed like the old days with Joe come 
 back again, only girls are so different. She would bring 
 her doll and undress it, and chatter to it, and sing it to 
 sleep, and shade its eyes from the light, and hold up a 
 warning finger if I spoke or stirred at the critical mo- 
 ment. Once when the doll was left behind, she went 
 out and hunted up a stray kitten, wrapped it in a shawl, 
 and apologized for its tail, which would not hide. It
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 85 
 
 was a new kind of child, she said, that was made with 
 a feather duster. People were patented, of course, 
 because 110 one but God ever made them ; and this was 
 a real, new patent baby. 
 
 Mr. Craig was something of an inventor, in a losing 
 way, and Jessie's mind was like a damp sponge. After 
 tea. when her baby, whatever it might be, was asleep, 
 she would always come on tiptoe and draw a footstool 
 close beside me, to beg in whispers for a story. " A 
 really truly story of those nice times when you was a 
 littler girl than me." 
 
 It was a good deal to keep the small maid content 
 and happy, and I doubt if Mrs. Craig minded my taking 
 the care off her shoulders now and then. With all her 
 bounding life Jessie held a moody little soul in the 
 deep part of her nature. She was always crying out in 
 the night arid refusing to be comforted, lest her mother 
 should die before morning. " For God does let mothers 
 die, you know, even when little girls pray hard to him." 
 
 It was useless trying to soothe her, and so we some- 
 times got up and roasted apples before the dying fire to 
 drive sad thoughts away. After the apples were eaten 
 she could sleep peacefully. When the stomach has a 
 task of its own, the brain often takes a little breathing- 
 spell. 
 
 There were two natures struggling in the small com- 
 of this wisp of a child ; the one merry and bright
 
 86 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 by day, the other solemn and dark at night, feeling the 
 immensity of the universe and the improbability of 
 God's power to remember little children and know how 
 much they need mothers always mothers, mothers. 
 Fathers were well enough in their way, but they were 
 only fathers and irresponsible men. The fatherhood of 
 God did not appeal to her. " I wish, oh I do wish he 
 was a mother ! " she would sigh to herself and her doll, 
 forgetting for the moment her audience of one. 
 
 The child was a mirror that 1 made great discoveries 
 in. By her aid. all blindly given, I began to see myself 
 as others saw me. The universal idea of motherhood 
 came home to me with power. 
 
 I have observed that when people marry quite young 
 they assimilate more readily than when they marry late 
 in life. The stronger character is almost sure to absorb 
 the weaker, literally making of twain one. Sometimes 
 the wife is It, and the husband follows meekly in her 
 train, accepts her judgments as conclusive, thinks her 
 thoughts, and repeats her sayings. In this case, Mr. 
 Craig was It. And when I saw his child's devotion 
 to an anaemic and wholly uninteresting mother, my 
 soul took courage. 
 
 If these things be done in the green tree, why not in 
 the dry? I studied over the great problem, and it was 
 not a bad thing for me, because it filled the room that 
 other puzzling thoughts were apt to crowd into and 
 hold like unmannerly first-comers at a show.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 87 
 
 I wished often for power to fathom the child's future. 
 She would never be wholly happy, and she might be 
 entirely miserable. 
 
 I longed to live till she came to womanhood ; but as 
 her small life began to push a tendril here and there 
 among my dry twigs, a measure of dread mingled with 
 the longing. 
 
 Jack Vann was always a terror to the child. He 
 lurked behind trees to jump at her, or made strange 
 sounds under cover of the leafy branches. 
 
 It was fun to catch her cherished doll away and toss 
 it into a roadside blackberry patch. The child did not 
 mind scratched hands or torn clothes in the brave 
 rescue, but if dolly came to harm her passion burst forth, 
 and dry sobs of anger would shake her from head to 
 foot. Yet when Jack was severely punished for dis- 
 obeying his father, she cried herself ill. 
 
 "Please, God, kill Mr. Vann ! " I heard her whisper, 
 after she had lain quietly in my bed for an hour. 
 
 " I think he's a blastyderm ! " were the first words 
 that came when she opened her eyes in the morning. 
 
 " Who, Jessie ? " 
 
 " Why, Mr. Vann course ! " 
 
 " What is a ' blastyderm ' ? " 
 
 " I don't 'zactly know, but I guess it's something 
 pretty bad. I heard my papa say it one day just as 
 as soft-ly."
 
 88 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 But when that same Jack was punished much more 
 severely at school for cruelty to a motherless boy of 
 half his size, Jessie's eyes blazed. 
 
 " I'd just like to punish him myself ! " she said with. 
 set teeth. 
 
 " And how should you do it Jessie ? " 
 
 " I should know how." 
 
 Most things Jessie knew for sure. When she was 
 no more than two or three removes from a baby, her 
 father was solemnly assured that she knew as much as 
 God about some things, and a great deal more than He 
 about dolls and mothers. She insisted that before she 
 came down here the angels explained a few hard things 
 to her, but the rest she knew herself. 
 
 The mother's conscience took possession of the child's 
 sayings; but Mr. Craig said, "Let her alone;" and, as 
 usual, the subject woman-nature obeyed, and Jessie was 
 mercifully delivered from brooding over her own dis- 
 puted thoughts. This time the father knew better than 
 the mother that all out-of-doors was the scientific cure 
 for self-consciousness. 
 
 All the week before Christmas Jessie and I spent 
 our mornings in South Woods, searching for ground 
 pine, and our evenings in making it into wreaths and 
 ropes for the transformation of the decrepit old house. 
 
 " I s'pose," said the child, as we brushed away the 
 light snow and pulled up beautiful trails of green, " I
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 89 
 
 s'pose you've hunted for Christmas greens as much as 
 a hundred times, haven't you ? Well, fifty then any- 
 way ten ! " 
 
 It occurred to me that our mature thought of eternity 
 is about as sharply defined. 
 
 This was to be a grand holiday-keeping for me. The 
 entire dancing-class was coming out from town the 
 girls to spend the night at the parsonage, the boys at 
 Deacon Thad's, where all would dine next day. 
 
 Jessie resolutely stood by me, and refused to share 
 her room. Anybody might have it all, and welcome, 
 after she had hidden her dolls. The child had small 
 faith in the general conscience of a crowd of girls. 
 
 There was to be dancing at my house, which would 
 do no harm, as I was the black sheep by courtesy of 
 the neighborhood. There are certain obvious advan- 
 tages in a hardened conscience that even the elect might 
 envy, as they doubtless do. We who keep a Bible at 
 hand can readily recall the justification of the publican. 
 I am quite sure that both Mr. Craig and Deacon Thad- 
 deus begrudged me my privilege. 
 
 The 24th of December broke crisp and concentrated 
 as an icicle. Our fun began early in the evening, and 
 lasted till ten o'clock, with dancing and games, and 
 plentiful supplies of sweets that the youthful digestion 
 never stops to parley about. The dance in all its 
 brightness and grace wound in and out and around the
 
 90 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 chimney, and my Philip was the hero of the hour. 
 The girls fluttered and giggled outside the danger line 
 of the mistletoe, and only one forgot for an instant 
 where it hung : but she ran away as soon as Philip 
 discovered her mistake. 
 
 The evening flew on wings as swift as those of the 
 hunting wind that jealously tried the latches and 
 shrieked and lamented outside : and then the bright 
 little crowd came with all their small dancing-school 
 airs and graces to say good-night and tell me what a 
 perfectly lovely time they had had. 
 
 Jessie stood beside me with shining eyes, and cheeks 
 the color of the pink carnations she wore, and gave her 
 morsel of a hand to each one after me all but one. 
 When they were gone, I said, " Jessie, you missed Alice 
 LovelFs good-night. What were you thinking about?" 
 " About her ! " said the child sturdily. The contrast 
 between her stature and her expression was absurd. 
 " But you didn't seem to see her." 
 " I could if Pd wished to, but I didn't wish to." 
 It is a curious thing to stand outside a small life, so 
 small that you could crush it out with one hand, and 
 wonder what is going on behind the bars that shut you 
 out.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 91 
 
 XII 
 
 PHILIP was al- 
 ways kind enough 
 to check me when 
 I repeated myself after the man- 
 ner of the ancients. And though 
 it pinched now and then, I kept it to my- 
 self and reflected that nature had made 
 me altogether too thin-skinned, and that 
 I was thus providentially saved from the 
 besetting weakness of advancing age. 
 
 I soon learned to bring myself sharply 
 to a standstill when some tale of the past 
 lingering fondly in my mind floated to 
 the surface, as drowning men are said 
 to do, for the third time. 
 
 In many ways my education was just 
 beginning. 
 
 The woman I had been accustomed to look upon 
 as Myself railed at and despised the demon Worry. 
 The Myself that listened to her own breathing when 
 there was no Jessie to chatter ghosts of the future 
 away, became a restless creature. /
 
 #2 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 There was no use in withdrawing the curtains and 
 looking- out at the windows after tea, because there was 
 nothing to be seen but my own tire-shine dancing in 
 and out of the Norway spruce that kept solemn watch 
 and ward through the still, dark hours. At night I 
 often fell so low as to conjure tip all the Johns I ever 
 knew John Blake, John Miller, John Kent, John 
 Join, n , w ho \\-as that other John? climbing up the 
 sleepy-ladder with Johns for rungs, while impish Doubts 
 and Fears chased each other in and out among the 
 Johns like a game of tag, winding up like the figures 
 in ladies' chain unlinking, threading their blind way 
 around and among the Johns, till I was constrained to 
 rise and roast apples for my lonely self's sake. 
 
 In some way a little of the old glamour of life was 
 getting rubbed off, and the process was painful. As I 
 ranged my books on the low reading-stand of a lonely 
 evening, their makers came nearer my own life than in 
 the old, solitary days when my horizon was close at 
 hand. 
 
 Might not they also have worries and cares for the 
 future those people whom I had set apart in a little 
 Eden of their own, where they were clothed like the 
 flowers of the field and nourished with honey-dew and 
 milk of Paradise ? I was not a little sorry to see my 
 gods come down to me in the likeness of men ; for 
 had I not always been on tiptoe for a glimpse of their
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 9o 
 
 Olympus ? The strain was less when we Avalked on 
 plain old Mother Earth together, but something was 
 lost. 
 
 In February Deacon Noadiah passed away almost 
 imperceptibly, at the great age of ninety-nine, but 
 continued to live on in memory as vigorously as in 
 the flesh. 
 
 Miss Mercy Jane had the excitement of a funeral to 
 stir the lees of her life and furnish topics for limbered 
 conversation. 
 
 She was proud to usher the solemn-faced neighbors 
 into the chilly north room, with its cellary flavor and 
 darkened windows, and to turn aside a corner of the 
 green paper curtain, that they might "see pa so neat 
 and peaceful, not a minute over seventy in looks, and 
 quite pretty for him." 
 
 I think we all felt a growing insecurity of life after 
 this. It was like having a trusted oak that had stood 
 tempest and lightning, summer heat and winter cold, 
 yield at last to the inevitable. But when one's years 
 are all fulfilled there is no great shock at their cessation. 
 
 Months afterwards Mercy Jane told me that she 
 never felt alone. It had been her habit to think aloud 
 in all the years when speech and silence were one to the 
 Deacon ; and she went about the house carrrying on 
 conversations with those who were gone as comfortably 
 as Mr. Andrew Lang writes letters to dead authors.
 
 94 A sriXSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 Through long intimacy with their habits of mind, it 
 was easy to frame replies for them to any every-day 
 question, and she settled matters in this way very much 
 as a hoy in doubt flips up a cent. 
 
 Sometimes she stopped before a mirror in her daily 
 task of dusting unused things and said, " How-d'ye do, 
 Thankful ! " " How-d'ye do, Delight ! " as some look of 
 one or another long-departed sister appeared in her own 
 reflection. Sometimes it was her mother who looked 
 out at her eyes : and as time went on she held ghostly 
 conferences with the Deacon, whose spare form she had 
 perpetuated, though with kindlier angles. 
 
 It was a comfort to her to see the family likeness 
 emphasized as she bore it alone down the years ; as if 
 Nature, jealous of the type, had gathered up her basket 
 of fragments with scrupulous economy and worked 
 them over into a suggestive composite of those who had 
 been, but no longer were. 
 
 In June a remarkable thing came to pass. It was 
 as much discussed as a presidential election, and with 
 quite as much difference of opinion. 
 
 Mr. Craig, always on the lookout for some invest- 
 ment of uneasy genius which burned in his fertile brain 
 like money in a spendthrift's pocket, had spent his win- 
 ter's leisure in devising a new rowlock which was to 
 make his fortune. His inspiration had watched with 
 him at night and kept him awake far longer than the
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 95 
 
 plans of liis sermons, which in consequence gave his 
 Sunday's audience the rest he so sorely needed for him- 
 self. But before applying for a patent, Mr. Craig 
 determined to test his invention on South Pond. 
 
 The stir in the village began when he offered a prize 
 for the fastest rowing over a mile course. 
 
 The Van n boys were eager to enter the lists, but the 
 Squire said he wouldn't even go to see any such tom- 
 foolery, and encourage boys and parsons in wasting time. 
 For his part, he'd sooner give a prize for the quickest 
 hoeing of a potato row. But the prize was only a 
 figure of speech with him, and while the race was in 
 progress his boys were doomed to hoe their row without 
 a semblance of reward. 
 
 Mr. V ami's high-sounding words against the folly of 
 the parson, which through ignorance were not really 
 half so wicked as he intended them to be. were repeated 
 from mouth to mouth until the alembic of the Corners 
 distilled them at fourth proof; and little Mr. Sykes of 
 the paper-mill said he shouldn't think any man would 
 dare go to meeting after such talk. 
 
 This speech was promptly reported, with friendly ad- 
 ditions, to the Squire, who retorted that he'd had his 
 religion thorough, in the nateral way, and didn't have 
 to go to meetin' to get it inocoolated into him. 
 
 Meanwhile the boys, Joe and Philip, with two or 
 three others, were improving their stroke, developing
 
 96 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 their muscle, and growing so fast over night that it 
 was difficult for the tailor to keep up with them. 
 
 When the day appointed for the race came, I was 
 alert and anxious, as if all the responsibility rested on 
 me. Xor was Jessie lacking in enthusiasm. Directly 
 after breakfast she came over with wild roses, and 
 ox-eyed daisies, and consider lilies " of the fields on 
 tall stems : and we went out together and picked every 
 one of my sweet peas with the dew still on their inno- 
 cent faces. 
 
 The banks of South Pond were lined with curious 
 spectators, for within the memorv of man there had 
 been no occasion like this. 
 
 My heart swelled and sank with pride and apprehen- 
 sion as we stood on the bridge together, Deacon Thad- 
 deus and his wife, and Mrs. Craig and I, with Jessie 
 between us. The Deacon put on his hat and took it off 
 every half minute, and talked about any and everything 
 but the boys. Very far off they looked, those boys who 
 \vere all in all to us, when their oars made the first 
 ripple on the deep water, and my eyes were too dim to 
 distinguish between our boys and the others who were 
 of no account. 
 
 But Jessie caught my hand and whispered, " Joe and 
 Philip are ahead, and Joe is ahead of him ! " 
 
 It was a broad pair of shoulders that neared the 
 bridge, so much broader than those I thought my little
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 97 
 
 Joe owned ! and he pulled heartily, like a calm, young 
 giant who feels his own force in his veins, and knows of 
 great reserves of strength as yet uncalled for. 
 
 Philip was rowing nervously, two boatlengths hehind, 
 and the others had given up the race, and were pad- 
 dling near the banks to talk with their friends. As Joe 
 shot under the bridge he gave us one bright glance that 
 comprehended the group, and with slower stroke waited 
 for Philip. I saw it, and so did Mrs. Thaddeus. The 
 Deacon was too excited to see anything less than the 
 pond itself. As he said afterwards, the boys looked 
 like water-spiders, and he couldn't have told t'other 
 from which to save his soul. 
 
 Jessie gripped my hand tighter and tighter, and for 
 an instant the two boys pulled side by side ; but as 
 they neared the judges' stand Philip shot ahead. 
 
 There was a roar of voices, and in the silence that 
 followed I picked up the flowers that had fallen from 
 my hands, and led Jessie blindly along the Deacon's 
 up-meadow road, forgetting the others. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " asked the child, pulling 
 her hand away. 
 
 " To carry my flowers to Joe." 
 
 I looked down at the little face, which was stern 
 and set. 
 
 " But Philip won! I saw him ! "
 
 'S LEAFLETS 
 
 THE years that tread on on our 
 heels and peremptorily order us to 
 step a little 
 faster and 
 make way for 
 the crowd be- 
 hind, soon 
 p us lied our 
 boys out of 
 the grammar- 
 school and 
 into college, 
 and we saw 
 them no more. 
 This, like all 
 
 unguarded statements, is not a literal 
 truth, but a sad approach to it. The 
 two did take "cuts " now and then, and 
 rush home for a holiday that was shortened at both 
 ends. But though it was joy to see them, an uneasy 
 sense of something lacking remained ; and I, like Jessie, 
 felt that there was nothing to be said till they were 
 gone again.
 
 A SPIXSTElt'S LEAFLETS 99 
 
 Yet a mighty wave of college life seemed to sweep in 
 with them and freshen the dry sands of life that were 
 left a little moist long after the ebb. 
 
 Proud days were these for us, the stranded families, 
 who fringed the deserted shore and patiently waited to 
 learn what cargo our ventures would bring home at last. 
 
 But Jessie pouted for a day or two after our brief 
 privileges, and said boys were no good. You just stirred 
 up everything for them and they took it all for granted 
 and cried for more. Jessie was fast growing aware 
 of her own dignity and the increasing length of her 
 gowns, though her logic was still immature. With old- 
 time loyalty to her fading mother, she refused to be 
 sent away to school, and Mr. Craig, making what virtue 
 he could of the necessity, allowed her to study as she 
 pleased. It went against his better judgment, and made 
 her old beyond her years ; but the father in him was as 
 pleased and proud to see her triumphing over Greek 
 roots as if she had been a labor-saving machine of his 
 own invention. 
 
 Jessie was considered proud by the village girls, 
 though they used another adjective in expressing their 
 opinion ; and I do not think they misjudged her. She 
 scorned sewing societies and insisted that her father's 
 salary did not buy "the services of the family. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Craig was worried by these revolutionary 
 opinions, but her small ratchet of protest was of little
 
 1UU A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 account when the great wheel of progress was once 
 under way. It was pleasing to see her submit meekly 
 to the inevitable and follow her own conscience at last, 
 though somewhat timidly, instead of consulting the 
 conscience of Mrs. Vann. who always knew the exact 
 right thing for other people to do. 
 
 It struck me that there are compensations now and 
 then, even in this life, when the Squire's wife Avas 
 made president of the Home Missionary Sewing Society 
 and there allowed to have her own way and say. 
 
 The vigorous use of her unwonted prerogative re- 
 minded me of Jessie's youthful rendering of the 
 Golden Rule Just as other people do to you, do 
 you do just so to them ; " only in this case "' them " was 
 represented by Mrs. Craig and not by Squire Vann, 
 who still ruled with a high hand at home. 
 
 At college Joe was on the football team, and it was 
 Philip's turn to be proud of him, but not with the 
 same amount of fear and tremor as that which qualified 
 our joy. 
 
 We went to see the first game as if it had been a 
 funeral and we the chief mourners. Mr. Craig's pres- 
 ence added to the realism of the thought. Aside from 
 his interest in Joe, his inventive turn of mind was on 
 the lookout for something to improve, even if his last 
 venture had as usual failed to succeed. Hope always 
 sprang eternal in the very human breast of Mr. Craig
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 101 
 
 and led to far bolder flights than faith. But we women 
 cared for nothing on earth save the boy who was com- 
 ing into the arena to kill or be killed before our very 
 eyes. Even brave Mrs. Thaddeus blenched as she 
 caught sight of the men on the other side in their gro- 
 tesque padding, and wished herself at home. 
 
 But Mr. Craig, with the gallant air of one town-born, 
 leaned towards her, hat in hand, and said, " My dear 
 madam, that young giant of yours isn't going to lose so 
 much as an ear much less his head." 
 
 Nor did he ; though between shutting my eyes when 
 I saw him go under in the scrimmage and weeping for 
 joy when he kicked the goal, I saw next to nothing of 
 the game. But my ears were sensitive to every sound, 
 and when a great roar like the rush of many waters 
 swelled around me, it was a comfort to hear one chord 
 like a blessed refrain " He's all right ! Nothing the 
 matter with Joe ! " 
 
 Deacon Thaddeus insisted that I stood on the back of 
 the seat and swung my bonnet at the crisis ; but under 
 strong temptation even that good man has been known 
 to make statements that he would not dare take oath to. 
 
 Philip cared nothing for athletics, nor was he as 
 scholarly as I could have wished. But he flashed at 
 things, and was apt to be brilliant unexpectedly. 
 
 I had hoped the wise-fool-year would not make an 
 especial mark upon my boy ; but if it had not been for
 
 102 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 Joe he would scarcely have pulled through. These 
 days are not pleasant to look back upon, when my only 
 hope was that ambition would ultimately triumph over 
 the temptations that \vere dallied with and that threat- 
 ened to undermine the foundations I had tried to lay. 
 
 My standard had once been set far higher than this, 
 but we fall to levels that are not of our own choosing. 
 
 Philip's was u a mind subject to invasions a soul 
 that had its vandals." In Joe's face shone Vision ; 
 in Philip's lurked Success. He liked to see life and 
 know it in all its phases. 
 
 O Rachel Timloe ! forgive me for daring to think I 
 could take care of your boy ! If I had loved him like 
 a mother, I should have been strong enough to help 
 him. 
 
 It was Joe who watched over his thankless friend so 
 loyally that Philip even in his darkest moods could 
 not resent it ; and presently there shone a little streak 
 of dawn in the east, and I thanked God and took 
 courage. 
 
 The river that flows from South Pond swells in the 
 springtime and washes the meadows, leaviug one quiet 
 little shallow that reflects the sunshine and makes 
 pictures of the moving clouds and waving trees, frin- 
 ging its circumference with green like my mossy cup of 
 a well that is never dry. By dint of contracting all the 
 summer through and accepting the occasional bounty of
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 103 
 
 rain that widens its borders again, the shallow contrives 
 to hold over until the river's spring overflow, and so 
 year after year its small life is preserved. 
 
 It does very little good, and next to no harm, exist- 
 ing only by favor of its source. 
 
 This was my life in the past. Now it was in its own 
 right a river, tormented by sharp stones, rippled by 
 pebbles, turned aside from its chosen course, wasting 
 itself and again gathering up its forces but always broad- 
 ening towards the harbor. And often as I waked at 
 midnight to puzzle over problems beyond me, the dark- 
 ness would suddenly fill with the ripple of the Brook 
 
 Song. 
 
 " Sing on among thy stones, and secretly 
 Tell how the floods are all akin to thee ! "
 
 104 
 
 A SP1X UTAH'S LEAFLETS 
 
 XIV 
 
 JUNIOII PROMENADE, which is to 
 the elect the very rose-leaf on the 
 rounded cup of college festivities, 
 was rather more to me this year than 
 if I had been a pretty, invited girl. 
 Nothing gives edge to our 
 pleasures like longing for 
 them ; and in my youth fes- 
 tivities were not thrust upon 
 me. It is better to long and 
 never have than to have and 
 never long a truth that is 
 not apt to dawn upon us in 
 our first half-century. So 
 
 with contented George Herbert I could say, " Now in 
 my age I bud again ; " since to chaperon Jessie was 
 far more to me than to have been chaperoned in my 
 youth. 
 
 For little Jessie, in the first delicate bloom of her 
 girlhood, was going to a famous college dance, with the 
 added joy of participating in it. The stupendousness 
 of the undertaking, down to the last minute details, 
 
 I
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 105 
 
 was not apparent on the surface of things. " For the 
 breeze that ruffles the stream knows not the depths 
 below." 
 
 It had been solemn work, subtly guarding all the 
 approaches to the fortress that must be undermined 
 before the captive could be set free. At the outset 
 there was Mr. Craig to be won over; for if his wife 
 were first appealed to, she would weakly fall back upon 
 the church, and I should front a solid wall with no 
 loophole of escape. 
 
 Mr. Craig offered the line of least resistance, and for 
 weeks I planned my attack, the brightest ideas always 
 coming to me in the darkest nights. With the parson 
 once enlisted on my side, I could flaunt my flag in the 
 very face of the church, whose commander-in-chief had 
 capitulated. 
 
 The process by which the mouse gnawed the cable in 
 two is unpleasant to think of, but it forms a precedent. 
 Strand by strand my cable gave way ; and at last Jessie 
 was ready, with her college colors and her simple mull 
 gown, in which she looked like a picture-book princess. 
 This was to be a grand surprise to the boys, who had 
 provided a place for me, but who doubtless thought me 
 a silly old woman to care for a thing like this, where I 
 could only sit still and watch a crowd of strange people. 
 There are hidden things in the hearts of the wisest and 
 best of us that would surprise and possibly horrify our 
 choicest friends.
 
 KM} .1 SPI.V STEM'S LEAFLETS 
 
 When the carriage came for me at an old-fashioned 
 boarding-house a mile away. Joe sprang out of it, and 
 up the long steps t\vo at a time, as hilariously as if I 
 had been the real princess in disguise. He stood before 
 ns dazed for a moment, but when his mind could com- 
 pass the scheme in all its wiliness, his pride and joy 
 knew no bounds. We were "too too too for 
 airything ! '' Joe was not apt at speechmaking and 
 lie had but one question to ask, though he tried it in 
 various moods and tenses. 
 
 " Are you truly going to dance, Jessie ? " " How 
 came they ever to let you dance, Jessie ? " " O Jes- 
 sie ! are you going to dance, really?" "If you do 
 dance, may I claim you first ? " 
 
 The child was quietly pleased with Joe's pleasure, but 
 I could see that she was looking forward to Philip's 
 greater surprise and joy when he saw her among his 
 own friends. I felt sure that she would be shy at first 
 among so many ; but, as often happened, my ideas had 
 to be reconstructed. She had evidently thought herself 
 over, strengthened her dignity, and practised her steps 
 in the seclusion of the parsonage. 
 
 Dancing was as natural to her as is flight to a bird : 
 and when Joe, very red in the face, brought her back 
 to me after the first attempt, she smiled as demurely 
 as if this were her usual way of spending the even- 
 ing.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 107 
 
 Joe sought out his very best friends to be introduced, 
 and the time slipped merrily away. Philip had not yet 
 paid his respects to me, which was disappointing ; but I 
 was quite willing to omit the ceremony when he came 
 in sight just beyond the nearer crowd, making his way 
 to us with Alice Lovell on his arm. She was smiling 
 up into his handsome face as only she and her false- 
 hearted mother could smile, and I knew that the curse 
 had fallen upon me. 
 
 Jessie turned suddenly to Joe, who was coming back 
 to us warm and beaming, and said, 
 
 " Why don't you ask me to dance ? " 
 
 The color was all gone from her face, the pretty 
 color that became her so well, and her eyes flashed. 
 
 "Why what's the matter?" stammered poor, stupid 
 Joe, puzzled through all the intricacies of his brain, 
 and trying to find his slow way out of the maze. " I 
 thought you said you didn't want to dance." 
 
 "I didn't, but I do!" 
 
 Joe, promptly obedient, offered his arm, doing as he 
 always did, the first thing that came to hand; and away 
 they went. The music was enchanting, and I half for- 
 got in listening how long they were away. When they 
 returned Philip w r as gone, and Jessie insisted that it was 
 time for us to go home. 
 
 Joe pleaded in vain that the fun was only beginning, 
 and that she ought not to be tired at midnight, espe-
 
 108 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 cially as she had danced so little, and lots of the very 
 nicest fellows were waiting to be presented. 
 
 But Jessie's mind, once made up, was like a package 
 stamped and sealed ; and she had not yet learned to 
 submit her own will to that of others. Her time was 
 coining, but it was not yet. For neither nature nor 
 grace ever left a character like hers to take its own 
 stormy way unrebuked. I, too, had stayed long enough, 
 and did not oppose her. A little of the ignominy of 
 defeat made the atmosphere oppressive, and our drive 
 was a silent one. 
 
 The revelations that afflict us ancient people are like 
 wounds that do not heal by first intention. Our anti- 
 septics are out of reach, and we must get on as best we 
 can. 
 
 These were only children, Philip and Jessie, yet they 
 were playing the intricate game of life with the assur- 
 ance of full-grown people. It was absurd. And then I 
 asked leave of the years to go back to my youth and be 
 a child again just such a child as I had been in my 
 brief boarding-school days, when the light that never 
 was made an improbable world for me, peopled by im- 
 possible humanity. I well remember at our last recep- 
 tion the moon that shone as no moon has ever dared 
 shine since; the roses that hung heavy with dew, and a 
 fragrance that belonged only to the night. We filled 
 the veranda, a group of light-hearted girls, and tossed
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 109 
 
 the roses to the men why, they were only lads: and 
 leaned in at the windows to catch the words that floated 
 out to meet us from the lips of the sweetest and sub- 
 tlest singer, and did not stop to ask what charm held so 
 many in bondage, for were we not all in love with her, 
 the girl who could read all our simple hearts? 
 
 It was a sad song, all about love and death, and we 
 thought we understood what they were, children like us 
 who stood outside of life and leaned in towards it as we 
 leaned in at the windows, but left our young, careless 
 hearts outside ! 
 
 How much older was I than Jessie when I stood on 
 the steps a little removed from the others, and said 
 good-by to one I was never to see again? God be 
 thanked that childhood has no second sight, else hearts 
 would break at once and be done with it. 
 
 Yes, we were ridiculously young, and it was all very 
 foolish and should not have been allowed; but the 
 strands of folly glitter all along the dull gray warp and 
 woof of life, and so we lift it up against the sun, and 
 let it catch the glory instead of spreading it under foot,, 
 
 " We walk this way but once, friend hush ! " 
 
 It was good to be at home again, to lay away the 
 carefully prepared garments with sprigs of lavender in 
 their folds, to take up homely duties that were emptied 
 of all pleasure.
 
 110 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 The gilt edge of the new life was a little tarnished al- 
 ready, but we would not stop to rub it up. As for the 
 keen sense of disappointment, time would dull that too, 
 and we must be patient. Age has always that resource. 
 But the child Jessie? Her horizon was but a hand- 
 breadth away, yet it shut out much that I must face, 
 and her trouble was not infinite. A barrier was grow- 
 ing up between us. I could not tell her the history of 
 Alice Lovell's mother, or let her into the stifling, dark 
 closet of my fears, out of which I myself could not find 
 a way to light and air. 
 
 I could only tell Philip but what could I tell 
 Philip? I saw in the girl something of her mother's 
 cajolery, much of her insistent beauty, her vampire ab- 
 sorption of the strength and devotion of her victims. 
 But Philip's eyes were not my eyes. Must he too learn 
 by living that which I would give my fragment of life 
 to save him from? 
 
 What would a mother do ? 
 
 When I awoke suddenly in the night the words came 
 to me as if they were a part of my sleeping conscious- 
 ness, lying in wait to perplex and baffle my burdened 
 soul. 
 
 What would a mother do?
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 111 
 
 XV 
 
 JUST now our small boys were in 
 knickerbockers. We left them in the 
 back yard with tops and marbles, and 
 turned around to see them marching 
 off the stage in dress suits on Com- 
 mencement Day, carrying their di- 
 plomas with them. Life loitered in 
 the days when I was young, and was not in such 
 indecorous haste to make up its accounts. 
 
 Neither of the boys had a high stand in college, but 
 Joe did his best and knew what was to come next. 
 From the days when he dissected woodchucks and 
 stuffed owls he had purposed to be a surgeon ; and 
 never was better choice made by a boy, or one more 
 satisfactory to us all. For he still belonged to a com- 
 posite family, made up of the original stem and one 
 alien, dry branch ; and I should claim a share in him as 
 long as I lived perhaps longer. 
 
 Philip could not decide what to do, but thought a 
 year abroad might help him. There was no eagerness 
 in his preparation for the trip, no light in his eyes when 
 we talked it over. He did not even know what direc-
 
 112 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 tion lie might take from Liverpool. It was incompre- 
 hensible to me. 
 
 " Whv, Phil, old boy, you don't care half so much 
 about it as I do," Joe would say. ' 4 It's better to me 
 than if I could go myself ; and I lie awake nights 
 trying to think of more jolly things for you to do. I 
 don't believe you've half w r oke up to it yet. What's 
 the matter, anyway ? '' 
 
 And Philip would answer guardedly, '' It's easier to 
 fall four feet than forty. You climb so high that there 
 won't be anything left of you when the limb breaks." 
 
 I would gladly have risked the fall if it had been in 
 my boy to climb a little higher. Dead levels may be 
 safe, but they are terribly monotonous. 
 
 The night Philip left, when everything was packed 
 and strapped, and I began to dread the wordless hour 
 of waiting when one's mind is blank, he drew my chair 
 to the fire, for it was a rainy September evening, turned 
 down the lamp, and came and stood behind me. A 
 great and unreasonable fear took possession of me, and 
 I grasped the chair-arms as if they had been strong 
 human hands. 
 
 " I want to tell you something before I go perhaps 
 never to come back," the boy said in a low, hard tone. 
 u My life breaks short off here, and I sha'n't trouble 
 you any more. Don't stop me; I must speak now. ;md 
 you'll have to hear me. You did the best you could for
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 113 
 
 me when I was a little fellow, and I hope you'll have 
 your reward, though you'd have done better if you had 
 left me to die on your doorstep. Nobody had tried to 
 love me before, and my training spoiled my faith in 
 humanity. I never could be a boy like other boys. I 
 hated to be watched. I hated to be kept in like a 
 girl. I hated to be nagged at. I hated the clothes I 
 wore. 
 
 " I was humiliated every day of my life, but nobody 
 guessed it not even my heavenly-minded grandfather, 
 who would have loved me if he'd known how. The 
 boys made fun of me, and they'd a right to; but it 
 made me hate them. They couldn't guess how it hurt ; 
 but boys are cruel animals, anyway. I doubted every- 
 body's motives, even yours and Joe's. Your taking me 
 was a thankless job, and now you must just wash your 
 hands of me and let me go, and be satisfied if I don't 
 carry off your silver. No, don't try to speak ! Let me 
 have my say this time ; it won't take long. I knoAV 
 what a fool I've been ; how I've squandered your 
 money, and wasted my life, and lost my soul, if I ever 
 had one. I know how I drank and gambled, like the 
 cur I was, though I did keep my promise about smok- 
 ing ; but I truly hoped to pay back a little of what I 
 owed you when I'd seen enough of life. No don't 
 say you won't have it. You shall have it ! That's all 
 I happen to be living for just now, and if you care to
 
 114 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 keep me alive just let me go my own way. There's a 
 little decency left in me, I suppose, because I want to 
 be honest at last. Are you listening? " 
 
 Was I listening, indeed ! 
 
 " In April I was married to Alice Lovell. To-day I 
 was to claim her. Of course it was like the fool I am 
 to run the risk of being expelled from college, but I 
 wanted to make sure of her. She might have had her 
 pick of a dozen better men, but I believed every word 
 she said. It was Bible truth to me, and sacred. We 
 had a great secret to keep, but she was out of town, 
 travelling most of the time Once or twice we met on 
 the street like ordinary acquaintances. Last month she 
 married that blackguard Moorehouse, a man we all cut 
 on the street even I. There have been things to 
 think of that took the romance out of my trip blasted 
 it out. 
 
 " They were married in church, with flowers and 
 bridesmaids, and tilings of that sort, and prayers, too 
 anything to be religious and he and his fortune have 
 gone abroad with her. You warned me ; but you were 
 you and she was she. I remember you used to put the 
 moths out at the window when they flew around the 
 lamp, but they always came back to singe their wings. 
 It was just as good of you, but it didn't save them. 
 And you couldn't know anything about Alice. 
 
 " It was not a clergyman who married us, but a good
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 115 
 
 i 
 
 friend of her own who enjoyed the joke. May Heaven 
 
 reward her ! " 
 
 The tone of his voice had not changed from first to 
 last. There was not even a trace of resentment in it. 
 The flame of life had dropped out to ashes so soon ; 
 the infinite pity of it ! The boat had stranded with 
 all sails set. 
 
 My hands were rigid on the chair arms. The fire had 
 flickered down to embers. 
 
 " Now, Philip," I said, and I set my teeth to steady 
 my voice, " you must hear me. I am not going to 
 begin away back when I took you for my very own and 
 prayed God to give you a happy life. Let all that go. 
 But I want to tell you that there was a time when I 
 too was young. 
 
 " The mother of your Alice took from me all that 
 made happiness possible, and then broke the heart her 
 falsehood had wiled away from me. If her career had 
 only ended there, my poor boy ! But after years of 
 wandering as an actress, she married an old man, spent 
 his fortune, and left him with this child who is trying 
 to follow in her accursed footsteps." 
 
 Philip started. He was not used to such words 
 from me. 
 
 " Is she dead ? " he asked without a shadow of 
 interest. 
 
 " She was living two years ago."
 
 116 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 Carriage-wheels stopped at the gate ; the steamer- 
 trunk \vas curried out. He picked up his bag, looked 
 at the room, the dying fire, the yellow-haired baby on 
 the mantel, but not at me. Was his mind travelling 
 over the way he had come, but by which he could never 
 return ? 
 
 " Oh, my boy, my boy ! how can 1 let you go ? " 
 
 "Don't give me a thought," he said. " I'm not worth 
 it. Good-by." 
 
 I held his cold hand, and looked into the dear face I 
 had loved so long and so well, but there was no answer- 
 ing sign of love in it. The door shut with a jar; there 
 was a pause : then the wheels grated as they turned, 
 and I listened till the last sound died out and left me 
 alone in a dark, cold world. Then I resolutely re- 
 kindled my fire and drew my lonely chair close before 
 it, for I was shivering from head to foot. I thought 
 I was dying, and for one selfish moment it was a wel- 
 come thought. I had yet to learu that grief does not 
 kill. 
 
 When Mary the mother of our Lord saw her Son on 
 the cross, then and not until then did she suffer the 
 pangs of motherhood. So says the legend, and I like 
 to think it true. In that night of my long agony, 
 wrestling alone with myself, I went down into the 
 deepest depths that my humanity can fathom. When 
 morning broke the struggle was over only because I
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 117 
 
 could endure no more. Why had I not prayed to be 
 delivered from this night ? And then, for the first time 
 in my long life did I realize my own ideal of mother- 
 hood. From those awful depths I brought back some- 
 thing God alone knows what, for my brain was weak 
 and sore ; but it was something that kept me alive. 
 
 Jessie was with me for weeks, and Joe came when- 
 ever he could spare time from his work. Good Deacon 
 Thaddeus and his wife would have me go home with 
 them, and felt it sorely when I refused. But there was 
 never an evening when I did not set a light in the 
 window ; never a winter night so cold that my fire did 
 not burn brightly with my curtains wide open, a silent 
 welcome for the wanderer who might come back. He 
 could see the glow for a long way down the road, and 
 it is not in human nature to turn away from such an 
 appeal. 
 
 Sometimes as I was feeling my blind way slowly 
 back to life. Miss Mercy Jane would bring her knitting- 
 work and sit down beside me, trying to comfort me in 
 an old-fashioned way. If I would only boil up strength- 
 ening things and take them regular, no matter if I didn't 
 care for victuals, I shouldn't feel so bad. I was more 
 than welcome to the spring bitters pa left. There was 
 all of half a bottle on the kitchen shelf, and a great 
 spoonful before eating made him feel real spry, and just 
 as hungry as a badger. But when I asked how hungry
 
 118 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 a badger was, she had to confess that she really didn't 
 know ; pa used to say so ; and she judged by his appe- 
 tite that it must have been pretty poor and skimpy, 
 whatever a badger was, till somebody fed it. 
 
 When the badger subject was ended for want of 
 further knowledge, she returned to the boy subject, 
 which might have suggested itself in that connection. 
 If pa had said it once, he had said it as much as twenty 
 times, that 'twas no use women's trying to bring up 
 boys. They generally went to the bad, and no thanks 
 to anybody but themselves. Give 'em rope enough and 
 they'd manage to swing themselves. Keep 'em to work, 
 and like as not they'd run away to sea where nobody 
 knew what they had to eat, and as for drink, they had 
 to take grog because the water was so salty that if they 
 tried to make tea with it the kettle was rusted out in 
 no time. So she had heard tell ; and it wasn't strange 
 if they did come back drinking men. If it wasn't 
 wicked to say so, it did seem as if the Lord would have 
 thought of that when he put the salt in. 
 
 Mercy Jane would muse on her ideas as if they were 
 a source of light and comfort to her; but in time 
 the subject that suggested them would return in full 
 force, and often with more aggressiveness than at first. 
 Human nature was mighty unreliable stuff, and it was 
 a mercy that any of us had been kept from state's 
 prison. There was Jack Vann, now, working on the
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 119 
 
 road out West with a chain gang, which must be pretty 
 bad and considerable humbling to the Vann pride. 
 
 When I added that he got fresh air, which he 
 couldn't have in a cell, and that it probably gave him 
 an appetite without any need of bitters, Mercy Jane 
 looked over her spectacles at me as if she suspected 
 that I was wandering in my mind, and repeated her 
 proposition that the family pride must be humbled. 
 
 But though I knew better, it was not for me to gain- 
 say her. 
 
 Jack Vann had taken pains all along that none of his 
 family should commit the sin of pride on his account. 
 
 The Squire did not feel it his duty to call upon me, 
 which omission I set down on my mental list of things 
 to be thankful for. But Mrs. Vann often ran in to ask 
 in a lively way what I heard from that boy, and to 
 suggest various unpleasant things that might easily 
 have happened to him. 
 
 She was sorry to say that she had one black sheep, 
 and could S3 r mpathize with me ; but when you hadn't 
 any more, black or white, you was apt to take it hard. 
 She didn't find out for quite a spell as anything was 
 wrong, but by asking 'round she heard that it was quite 
 common talk down to The Corners, so 'twasn't any 
 harm to speak to me about it. It was not the first time 
 that I had been cordially invited to tell all I knew or 
 guessed about my dear wanderer, but on this particular
 
 120 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 evening it proved to be the last, for Jessie, who was 
 providentially at hand, opened the door. If it had 
 been I, Mrs. Vann would have ignored it ; but Jessie's 
 eyes had a compelling way, and the Squire's wife rose 
 before the light of them as hurriedly as if her husband 
 had given the word to forward march. 
 
 " If that woman comes here again," said Jessie, with 
 her back against the door, u I'll sweep her out with the 
 broom ! " 
 
 Nor could I for a long time make the child under- 
 stand that these bitter things were my only available 
 tonics, and that I came to myself far sooner than if my 
 blood had not been stirred. Sometimes the victim of 
 narcotic poison has to be whipped back to life, however 
 much his friends may cry out against the inhumanity of 
 the process.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 121 
 
 XVI 
 
 THE reconstruction of a life is neces- 
 sarily a slow and tedious process. He 
 who makes over an old house, even, 
 knows what an unreasonable time it 
 takes the plaster to dry, and how each 
 workman interferes with every other one, putting back 
 the work and breaking into that already done, so that 
 the simplest things have to be gone over and over 
 again, until he repents him of the undertaking, and 
 wishes he had been content with the old house as it 
 was. 
 
 My life was simple enough till I began its reconstruc- 
 tion with something far more intricate than wood and 
 plaster. Just at present its complexity was something 
 awful to think of. It was not a choice now of old 
 house or new. One does not question a cyclone that 
 has taken shape as to its mission. Does a tree struggle 
 against its growth, I wonder? Would it choose to be a 
 sapling always, bowing to every breeze and recovering 
 again, sung to by birds but never offering branches for 
 them to nest in ? Does the bark creak with the inner 
 strain when the sap goes up mightily at the urgent
 
 122 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 call of springtime, forcing it to make room and more 
 room ? 
 
 God had given me the desire of my heart, as he gave 
 food to his people in the wilderness; but would he 
 therefore send leanness into my soul? 
 
 I seemed to feel only the dust of the great world as 
 it roared by and left me for dead on a contemptible 
 battle-field. Why had I not been content with my own 
 happy life, momentous to me, and saved in its serene- 
 ness from the wear and tear of years ? 
 
 But I deliberately chose my own discipline. Heaven 
 did not inflict it. Was I punished for craving that 
 which did not belong to me ? No answer. 
 
 In the dull hours when vitality was lowest and the 
 earth sank slowly beneath my feet as if it had been 
 unstable as water, the words, " He that saveth his life 
 shall lose it," came back like something heard ages ago 
 under similar circumstances and forgotten. With a 
 great rushing sound and momentary oblivion they 
 surged through my tired brain in a high, shrill key, 
 and left me like a rag of seaweed cast up on a barren 
 shore. 
 
 In those days I would forget for a moment that Jessie 
 was with me, and talk aloud as simply as Mercy Jane 
 herself. We could not speak of Philip at first, though 
 afterwards he was our one theme. But from some wan- 
 dering word Jessie caught the idea that tidings from
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 123 
 
 him might save my life ; so of her own accord she wrote 
 to his bankers, and in due time heard that he was still 
 in London. 
 
 Until this time my mind had no pivot, but upon this 
 small point it concentrated, and my working theory 
 started. The boy was doing something ; he had some 
 reason for his silence. 
 
 Then my old-time theories came to my aid, and were 
 to me what the legendary straw is to the drowning 
 man. Though my dear Philip has disproved them all, 
 I would still catch at them and hold on by sheer force 
 of habit. And then I began to reason that the boy 
 might have done worse. The pity of it that this should 
 be our consolation, when the years are spent, the seed 
 sown, the insolent crop of tares ready to blossom ! And 
 then, with reason beginning to adjust itself once more, 
 I fell so low as to complain. What could I have done 
 more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? 
 Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth 
 grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? O Prophet of 
 the Highest ! our little human cry for our own in these 
 latter days is as bitter as was your mighty wail for a 
 nation when the world was young. 
 
 My boy was not born to me ; it was I who was born 
 to him, by every holy tie a mother, with the love all 011 
 my side. Whatever his future might be, that way my 
 life lay ; and so out of the heart of the darkness I took
 
 124 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 courage, expecting nothing, asking only for strength to 
 do my part. If I had known by ever so small a sign 
 that Philip loved me, it would have been a sure clew 
 in my feeble hands to lead me back to life. But I 
 struggled back by an unknown way ; and when my 
 gnarly apple-tree blossomed again and Jessie set my 
 chair under its shadow and led me to it, I knew that 
 life was on its way once more, because I rebelled at 
 second childhood. My world was turning towards the 
 sunrise again : somewhat heavily, to be sure, and with 
 shuddering pauses. I had risen high enough already to 
 speculate about my breakfast, and even at times to feel 
 a human interest in my neighbors' affairs. The very 
 day that my apple-tree seemed to blossom just for me 
 came a cablegram from Philip which made the sea no 
 wider than South Pond where it becomes a river again. 
 If it had been a letter ! 
 
 " But oh, dear Unreasonable," whispered Jessie at 
 my elbow, " what if it hadn't been anything ! " 
 
 It was the same dear child grown wise through love 
 and sympathy, who brought out my small round table, 
 and set the pink-and-gilt sprigged china 011 it, with the 
 Mayflower tea-caddy and the tall decanter of Madeira 
 that had been ripening for a lifetime. As she made the 
 tea and set the cup before me with one of my own 
 mother's spoons worn on the right side of the bowl, I 
 said :
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 125 
 
 " These shall be yours, dear child, when I'm gone ; 
 these spoons, and the tea-caddy, and the little cups with 
 their elbows out." 
 
 " Indeed," said Jessie hotly, and her fingers trembled 
 as she fastened a spray of apple-buds to my gown 
 " indeed, you're not going anywhere ; and as for 
 Philip's things, I won't touch one of them if you go 
 this minute ! " 
 
 And that is how we began to talk about him. Jessie 
 insisted that we should hear from him before long ; that 
 he would write as soon as he had something special to 
 tell. 
 
 For she knew there was something special, or he 
 couldn't have kept still so long. There wasn't the 
 least thing strange about it, and if it wasn't too rude 
 she should say that I ought to be ashamed to spend my 
 time imagining things. Then she struck another vein. 
 Very likely the Queen had sent for him and begged him 
 not to leave London, because nobody over there could 
 ever look 'like him, and they needed ornamental people 
 at court to keep their courage up. She had doubtless 
 offered him a star and a garter, and he might be declin- 
 ing with thanks at this very minute. " I know you 
 think so yourself," she added, "for you are actually 
 smiling with proper pride at last, in your democrat." 
 
 Mr. Craig said I might as well adopt Jessie out and 
 out for all the claim they seemed to have on her, but
 
 126 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 demurred when I spoke of drawing up the papers on 
 the spot. 
 
 Joe had no vacation this summer, and hospital work 
 kept him busy seven days in the week eight, the 
 deacon said, who could not be reconciled to the long 
 separation, and at last found it necessary to go to town 
 in the midst of haying. 
 
 He came home so brimful of new ideas about opera- 
 tions and antiseptics, and Joe's using a sharp knife that 
 had a sort of scalping name, and never flinching any 
 more than if it had just been a razor on his own face, 
 that Mrs. Thaddeus said he woke her in the middle of 
 the night to tell how he shivered when he heard that 
 thing cut right into a man's flesh just like ripping 
 a piece of cotton cloth, and Joe never so much as 
 winked. If pride could kill a man like its physical 
 symbol, dropsy, the good deacon must have died before 
 morning. 
 
 Mrs. Vann chose her moments with discretion, and 
 looked in to let me know that she was not affronted 
 whenever Jessie was away, which was seldom. It made 
 me laugh all by myself when she was gone to see her 
 afraid of a child who was less than half her size and 
 barely a third of her age. 
 
 She had always something to say about her boys, who 
 had been frightened into obedience, and saved from 
 destruction, apparently, by the loss of one. The Presi-
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 127 
 
 dent of the Home Missionary Society wiped away a 
 natural tear now and then when there was time before 
 Jessie appeared, and didn't know whatever would become 
 of Jack, for Ids father never'd have him home again 
 amongst the other boys, even if he did come back some 
 time ; which no doubt gave her a certain sense of relief 
 by shifting the responsibility. 
 
 Her grief was never so profound that she could not 
 discuss it with any one who would listen, from the 
 church porch to the kitchen door ; and I doubt, there- 
 fore, if it yielded her any of the peaceable fruits of 
 righteousness which are the satisfactory crop of seed 
 sown in love and humbleness. 
 
 Miss Mercy Jane brought me not only spring bitters, 
 but a great spoon as well, lest mine should be skimpy 
 in the measure, and stood by to see that I took every 
 poured-out drop. 
 
 So when the apple-tree began to have daily charms 
 for me, and I could raise myself with no help but that 
 of the chair arms, she declared to goodness that it was 
 nothing short of a meracle, and had ought to be put 
 into the paper. She even suggested that my picture 
 wouldn't look bad along with it ; but I turned a deaf 
 ear to such wholesale flattery, and the bitters did their 
 duty like the beneficent forces of nature, without the 
 aid of trumpet or shawm or pictorial illumination.
 
 128 
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 XVII 
 
 ABOUT this time Philip began to 
 write to Joe. I suspect that Jessie 
 prompted Joe to let him know of 
 mv illness and its cause. But if my 
 guessing is true, 
 the secret was well 
 kept. The letters 
 were mere notes, 
 saying that he 
 wanted to hear 
 from home very often, that he was 
 well, and hard at work. They 
 always closed with " love to my dear," a name he had 
 never called me by, but which was mine from this 
 time onward. In his childhood I was never named. 
 Chary of speech from the first, he said briefly what he 
 had to say as if he were thinking aloud. 
 
 It was three years from the time he went away before 
 my letter came the letter that I had expected with 
 confidence summer and winter since I knew that he had 
 not forgotten his old home. There was so much in it 
 touching me, so much that blinded and choked me, that
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 129 
 
 I hesitate about writing it down here. But the more I 
 think of it the clearer it is to me that in no other way 
 can things be made to appear in their true light. It 
 must be borne in mind all along that my dear boy could 
 never know what real mother-love is, his own mother 
 dying so young. 
 
 The letter shames me for every disloyal thought of 
 him, and humbles me with a sense of my deep unworthi- 
 ness in ever questioning the fact that what we most 
 earnestly desire of best things shall be ours if we can 
 only wait long enough. But it shows that he really 
 looked upon me as a mother, and like one's own child 
 refused to see flaws that are patent to every one else. 
 
 Here is the letter word for word as it came to me on 
 a Wednesday, the fifteenth day of May, at ten minutes 
 past six o'clock, while I was sitting at my tea-table : 
 
 "MY BLESSED, MORE THAN MOTHER: There are no words of 
 mine that can tell you all I want to say. The past is past. I am 
 trying to forget all the meanness and wickedness of it, but I can't 
 ask you to do the same. Only try to believe in me a little, and I will 
 try hard to prove what I want you to believe by my life. 
 
 "It's of no use to tell you how I felt that night. You couldn't 
 believe it if I did. I had to keep it all in the hell that was raging 
 inside. It was hold on or go mad. You can't know how a man feels 
 for I was a man full grown, with more pride than any man ought 
 to have to be made a laughing-stock by his classmates, to have his 
 name stand for all that is weak and contemptible. Let it pass. It 
 is too soon to write about that. Joe always stood by me through 
 thick and thin. There were times when I hated him for it and tried
 
 130 A SPIXSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 to shake him off. 1 never can forget iu this world or the next what 
 he has heen to me. 
 
 As for //cr she passed entirely out of my life then. I was 
 almost sorry for Moorehouse when I heard of them in Florence, and 
 knew what a life she was leading him. lie did care for her, or he 
 wouldn't have blown his brains out when she left him. In a year 
 she too was gone to her judgment. I put her out of my thoughts. 
 It was all a wild dream. The ignominy of it was maddening, but 
 that too is past. 
 
 "And now, do you know, my dear, what saved me ? I had to get 
 far away in order to see myself. One midnight, all alone on the 
 deck of the steamer, I got myself into focus. Pray God I may never 
 do that same thing again ! But I needed it then. If it had not been 
 for you, I should have flung myself away then and there. The sea 
 tempted me, and my disgrace tempted me. But as I leaned over the 
 rail and saw the moonlight slip from crest to crest of the waves, I 
 heard your voice as plainly as if you had been in sight no words, 
 only your voice. I don't want you to think there was anything 
 supernatural about it. Probably the tone of it lingered in my ears, 
 and helped my conscience that was just coming to life. But it was 
 like a sign from heaven; and in that moment, if I had been dying, I 
 could not have realized more clearly what you have been to me. 
 Before that moment there was nothing in me that could appreciate 
 you. I don't believe I ever cried before in my life. I'm proud to tell 
 you this. You will try to believe I'm different, won't you? From that 
 time I have planned and worked for you, and it has kept me alive. 
 Rather it kept me till life could get hold of me again. 
 
 " No matter what I did at first. It was honest, hard work, good 
 for the muscles; and in time they helped the brain. 
 
 " Then I compiled books, and was so useful to the firm that they 
 made it worth my while to stay on. 
 
 " All this time I couldn't tell you. I wanted to do something 
 more some great thing to prove my shame and my repentance. 
 If I could show you the inside of my mind and heart, you wouldn't
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 131 
 
 be so shocked at what I'm going to say. You won't believe it at first, 
 because you think you know me. But you can't ever know me as I 
 know myself as if I were the little fellow you used to tuck up 
 nights. 
 
 "Try to believe in me a little. It will help me more than the 
 Bible. For I never knew anything in the world like your love for 
 me. I couldn't go wrong after I grew till I was able to realize that. 
 
 l lat going to preach. 
 
 " And it won't be just preaching either, for I have practised too. 
 And now I must tell some poor devil how to crawl up higher. If I 
 hadn't been in the pit myself, don't you see, I shouldn't know what 
 was down there. And I do think I've got the grip to pull men out. 
 If once I do get hold of a man, I never'll let go, any more than you 
 did of me, if it drags me in too; and just so long as a man has a 
 hold on God's grace and his own free will, he can always get out 
 again. 
 
 " Xext year I'm coming back to you with a big bag full of gold, 
 and then you'll know for certain that I'm your loving PHILIP." 
 
 Jessie said she had heard of people's hair growing 
 white in a single night, but she never thought I could 
 be a girl again in a single day. But Jessie's eyes were 
 holden, and did not respond clearly to impressions that 
 evening. 
 
 As I think of it now, the whole year was -spent in 
 preparation for the coming of my boy. No Coming 
 of Arthur could be so much to the world at large as 
 was this to mine. I urged my sweet peas and sowed 
 morning-glories like the sand by the seashore, and had 
 solid rods of mignonette and alyssum and heliotrope 
 flowers with souls. And they responded to the desire
 
 132 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 of my heart. If the very stars in their courses fought 
 against Sisera, why should not nature's forces be enlisted 
 for once on my side ? For this, my son, was dead and 
 is alive again ; was lost and is found. 
 
 There was a new light in Philip's face when he 
 opened the door, as if he had but just gone out, and 
 came softly in and stood behind my chair a light 
 that was not born with his physical being. He looked 
 ten years older than when I saw him last. 
 
 " And Time had taken away the seal 
 That held the portals of his speech." 
 
 We could talk together now; we could be silent 
 together. 
 
 I called my neighbors in, like the hasty woman in 
 Scripture who had found her lost piece of silver, and 
 who wanted them all to know it and laugh with her. 
 Deacon Thaddeus came with tears running from his 
 eyes, and knelt right down in the middle of the room 
 and thanked God for the boy. It was the one eloquent 
 prayer of his life without a break in it. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craig were there ; and the parson, who 
 was never known to be at a loss for words wherewith to 
 express every shade of emotion, could only say, " Well. 
 well, well ! " Mrs. Craig sniffed softly in a corner, and 
 Jessie, like Martha of old, flew around and set the table, 
 and would have been glad to " kill something." As it
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 133 
 
 was she prepared the way for a week's fast, and joy 
 spoiled no appetite that night. 
 
 Mrs. Craig proposed a donation party for next day ; 
 but that was only because she was a minister's wife, 
 and didn't know how to take her pleasure whole, 
 without a thought of the morrow. So I forgave her. 
 and we had manna or its equivalent honey and 
 crackers for breakfast. It Avas all bread from heaven 
 to me. 
 
 Philip stayed six weeks, and then I went back with 
 him for a year. It sounds very practical as I write it, 
 but the great joy in my heart has made all other pleas- 
 ures small. When one holds the earth and all heaven 
 in fee simple, one doesn't whimper for a- garden spot 
 across the sea. 
 
 At first I refused Philip's proposition, but when he 
 said with authority that he would not go without me, 
 I had to yield. 
 
 It was the final proof of motherhood : I had come to 
 obey my child. Nor would Jessie hear of my staying at 
 home. She said it would be downright cruelty to let 
 Philip go back to his lonely life, and she couldn't think 
 so meanly of me as to believe I ever meant it. 
 
 It was she who looked over my wardrobe, who shook 
 out and modernized my Junior Promenade gown, " for 
 the Queen's sake," and with Philip's help packed my 
 travelling-bag with every known aid to comfort.
 
 134 A SPIXSTEK'S LEAFLETS 
 
 I had a little maid to look after the house while we 
 .stayed, and Mrs. Thaddeus begged to take charge of it 
 while we were away. So I felt that the brown shell 
 would be secure from moth and mould, and that I need 
 not carry it on ray back all over Europe. For we did not 
 stop in London ; but I was tenderly watched over through- 
 out the misery of a Channel passage, and left for a two 
 weeks' rest in a quiet little town in Brittany, the home 
 of 4i Gueim." They who have been abroad wince at the 
 threadbare tale of one's journeyings, and they who stay 
 at home have read more than I could tell in a week, 
 so neither shall be bored with a recital of the surprises 
 and delights that filled my too brief year. 
 
 When I glance over these yellowing leaves, it seems 
 as if they were chiefly a record of apple-blossoms and 
 hearth-fires. Still, one might have a less agreeable cal- 
 endar to mark the passage of the years, so I choose to 
 give them honorable mention as often as they appear. 
 But I shall write no more of them nor of the brown 
 house itself. I have taken a new lease of life, and shall 
 be greatly occupied with living. The dear old home 
 has also grown young not in outward form, for neither 
 Philip nor I could suffer that. But within it is luxu- 
 rious beyond the thought of any lavish nest-decorator, 
 and finer than the hang-birds' home that swings in sight 
 of my window. It is growing from the inside like a 
 tree.
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 135 
 
 The ferns wave long and green among the mosses 
 that line my well, for I watered them through the long 
 dry summer when my neighbors were asleep, that noth- 
 ing might be lacking when my boy came to his own 
 again. 
 
 My children, Philip and Jessie, are just now gone for 
 a little holiday trip before they begin their life work 
 together. I bade them good-by an hour ago. Philip 
 says there is enough to do on this side the world, even 
 no farther away than New York, and that ragged folk 
 are not the only ones who need a helping hand. He is 
 even heretic enough to say that many in the front pews 
 of the most orthodox churches need to be saved as by 
 fire. 
 
 Our own little church is still gay with thousands of 
 apple-blossoms, sweet as love and beautiful as hope. 
 
 Squire Vann couldn't understand why the apple crop 
 should be cut off for one wedding, and stopped Deacon 
 Thaddeus at the church door to say that so far as steady 
 work went, he'd as soon marry a girl of his to a charcoal- 
 burner as to a preacher, and save all this fuss and 
 feathers. 
 
 But he went in and took the best seat as willingly as 
 if he had given his consent to the transaction. 
 
 Everybody was there to see my pride in my very own. 
 I suppose they looked like any ordinary bride and groom 
 to those who did not love them, but
 
 136 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 " Xever yet since high in Paradise 
 O'er the four rivers the first roses blew, 
 Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind" 
 
 than that which came unsought to me on this bright 
 fifteenth day of May. 
 
 Jessie had never in all her life cared for any one but 
 Philip. Never for an instant had she lost faith in him ; 
 never for an instant would she lose faith in him. Her 
 nature was stanch and loyal to the core. 
 
 Mr. Craig prayed God to grant that they might mer- 
 cifully grow old together, which was the very best thing 
 he could have remembered, and, like the majority of 
 quotations, far better than anything original. 
 
 We all lingered on the church steps as they drove 
 away lingered to talk learnedly about the weather 
 and the new schoolteacher, and Miss Mercy Jane's 
 neuralgia, and similar things that might have happened 
 in Jupiter for all the interest we could find in them, till 
 Joe came back to sit before the altar for a little while 
 with me, and fill his soul with the peace and beauty of 
 the hour. For it was like what we imagine of the 
 glorious calm of heaven when earth's work is finished, 
 its discords and harmonies stilled together, and greater 
 things are awaiting their turn to enlarge our souls. It 
 came to me then and there that the warp of life, strong 
 and enduring, is hidden from sight by the more intricate 
 woof that carries the pattern. If our vision is clear
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 137 
 
 enough, we can always find the sombre thread woven 
 side by sidj with the blues and golds, the scarlets and 
 purples ; crossing and recrossing, dimming the lustre 
 here and there, but in the end taking nothing from the 
 strength and real beauty of the brightest fabric. And 
 so it shall be written down here, that although I alone 
 am grieved and privileged to know it, my dear Joe has 
 loved Jessie all his life. 
 
 THE END.
 
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