1% 
 
ALVMNVS BOOK FVND 
 
 FUKD 
 
 lio 
 
 M 
 
The People of Our 
 Neighborhood 
 
 BY 
 
 Mary E. Wilkins 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "A NEW ENGLAND NUN" 
 
 I 903 
 MELVILLE PUBLISHING CO. 
 161 Bank Street : : New York 
 
Copyright, 1895, '96, '97, '98, by 
 CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
Contents 
 
 / 1 -.. 
 
 
 
 
 Timotiiy Sampson : 
 
 The Wise Man . 
 Little Margaret Snell : 
 
 The Village Runaway 
 Cyrus Emmett : 
 
 The Unlucky Man . 
 Phebe Ann Little : 
 
 The Neat Woman . 
 Amanda Todd : 
 
 The Friend of Cats 
 Lydia Wheelock : 
 
 The Good Woman . 
 A Quilting Bee in Our Village . 
 The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 1 
 
 23 
 41 
 5& 
 
 91 
 
 111 
 129 
 149 
 
Cl 3- 
 
Timothy Samson : The 
 Wise Man 
 
 I 
 
 413089 
 
Timothy Samson: The 
 Wise Man 
 
 Timothy Samson is not a college grad- 
 uate, not more than three men in this 
 village are. I never heard that he was 
 remarkable as a boy for his standing in 
 the district school, but he is the village 
 sage. Nobody disputes it. The doctor, 
 the lawyer and the minister all have to 
 give precedence to him. The doctor may 
 know something about physic, the lawyer 
 about law and the minister about theol- 
 ogy, but Timothy Samson knows some- 
 thing about everything. 
 
 The doctor's practice suffers through 
 Timothy. If any of the neighbors or 
 their children are ill they are very apt 
 to call in Timothy instead of the doctor. 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 For one reason, they have nearly as much 
 confidence in him; for another reason, it 
 saves the doctor's fee. 
 
 Timothy Samson seems able to tell al- 
 most at a glance whether a child is com- 
 ing down with a simple cold or the whoop- 
 ing cough, with measles or scarlet fever, 
 with mumps or quinsy. He has a little 
 stock of medicines in his chimney closet 
 in his kitchen. Timothy's medicine bot- 
 tles, which hold a good quart apiece, are 
 always kept replenished. Nothing is ever 
 lacking in case of need. Most of them he 
 concocts himself, from roots and herbs, 
 with a judicious use of stimulants. For 
 this last he is forced to make a slight 
 charge when medicine is taken in large 
 quantities. " I ask jest enough to cover 
 the cost of the stimulants/' he says, and 
 little enough it is — only a few cents upon 
 a quart. Timothy's ministrations are sim- 
 ply for humanity's sake and love of the 
 healing art, and not for gain. 
 
 He is a cobbler, a mender of the cheap 
 rustic shoes that wear out their soles and 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 stub their toes on our rough country 
 roads. He used, until machine-work came 
 in vogue, to make all the shoes for the 
 neighborhood by hand. Indeed, there are 
 now some few conservative mothers of 
 •families who employ him twice a year to 
 fit out their children with his coarse, 
 faithful handiwork. Timothy owns his 
 little cottage house, and his little garden, 
 and his little apple orchard. He paid for 
 them long ago with his small savings, and 
 now he earns just enough by cobbling to 
 pay his taxes and keep himself and his 
 old wife in their plain and simple neces- 
 saries of life. 
 
 Timothy's shoe shop forms a tiny ell 
 of his tiny house. In it he has a little 
 rusty box-stove, which is usually red hot 
 through the winter months, for Timothy 
 is a chilly man; his work-bench with its 
 sagging leather seat, a rude table heaped 
 with lasts, and three or four stools and 
 backless chairs for callers. The hot air 
 is stifling with leather and the reek of 
 ancient tobacco smoke, for Timothy 
 
 5 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 smokes a pipe. A strange atmosphere, it 
 seems, for wisdom to thrive in. 
 
 Often an anxious mother is seen to scut- 
 tle down the road with her shawl thrown 
 over her head, and disappear from the 
 eyes of neighbors in Timothy's shoe-shop 
 and reappear with Timothy ambling at 
 her heels. 
 
 Timothy is a small, spare old man, and 
 he has a curious gait, but he gets over 
 the ground rapidly when he goes on such 
 errands. 
 
 The children like Timothy; they are 
 not as afraid of him as of the doctor. 
 Sometimes one sets up a doleful lament 
 when the doctor is proposed, but is com- 
 forted when his mother says: "Well, I'll 
 run over an' get Timothy Samson. I guess 
 he'll do jest about as well." 
 
 The children run out their tongues 
 quite readily for Timothy to inspect; they 
 even stretch their mouths obediently for 
 his potent doses. There may, however, 
 be reasons for their preference. All of 
 Timothy's medicines are tinctured high 
 6 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 with, flavors which are pleasant and even 
 delectable to childish palates, and they 
 are well sweetened. So much peppermint 
 and sassafras and wintergrcen, indeed, 
 does Timothy infuse in his remedies that 
 the doctor has been known to be very 
 sarcastic over it. " Might as well take 
 sassafras-tea and done with it," he said 
 once with a sniff at the dregs of Timo- 
 thy's medicine when Mrs. Harrison White 
 called him in to see her Tommy, after 
 Timothy had attended him for two weeks. 
 But the doctor was three weeks curing 
 Tommy after that, and she called in Tim- 
 othy the next time the child was sick. 
 
 Aside from the pleasant flavors of Tim- 
 othy's medicines there is another induce- 
 ment for taking them. Always after the 
 patient has swallowed his dose he tucks 
 into his mouth a most delicious little mo- 
 lasses drop made by Mrs. Timothy. 
 
 She makes these drops as no one in 
 the village can; indeed she holds jeal- 
 ously to the receipt, and cannot be coaxed 
 to disclose it. She keeps her husband's 
 
 7 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 pockets filled with the drops; for some 
 occult reason they never seem to stick, 
 even in hot weather. 
 
 Mrs. Timothy is a tall, shy, pale old 
 woman who scarcely ever speaks unless 
 she is asked a direct question. There is 
 a curious lack of active individuality 
 about her. At times she seems like noth- 
 ing so much as a sort of spiritual looking- 
 glass for the reflection of Timothy, and 
 3 r et he is not an imperious or unpleasantly 
 self-assertive man. Still, great self-con- 
 fidence lie undoubtedly has, and that may 
 eliminate a weaker nature without design- 
 ing to do so. Perhaps the whole village 
 reflects Timothy more or less, after the 
 manner of his wife. 
 
 Many a tale is told of a triumph of 
 his sagacity over the doctors, and people 
 listen with pride and chuckling delight. 
 The doctor is a surly, gruff and not very 
 popular old man, and everybody loves to 
 relate how "the doctor said Mis' Nehe- 
 miah Stockwell had erysipelas, and doc- 
 tored her for that several months, and she 
 8 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 got worse. Then they called in Timothy 
 Samson on the sly, and he said, jest as 
 soon as he see her, 'twa'n't erysipelas, 
 'twas poison ivy, an' put on plantain leaves 
 and castor oil, and cured her right up." 
 
 Timothy Samson's triumphs in law and 
 theology are even greater than in medi- 
 cine. He draws up wills, free of charge, 
 which stand without a question; he col- 
 lects hills with wonderful success. Every- 
 body knows how he made Mr. Samuel 
 Paine pay the twenty-five dollars and 
 sixty-three cents which he had been ow- 
 ing John Leavitt over a year for wood. 
 John had asked and asked, but he began 
 to think he should never get a cent. 
 Samuel Paine is one of the most pros- 
 perous men in the village, too; he owns 
 the grist mill. Finally poor John Leav- 
 itt sought aid from Timothy Samson, who 
 bestowed it. 
 
 Mrs. Samuel Paine had company to tea 
 that afternoon — the minister and his wife, 
 and some out-of-town cousins of hers who 
 have married well. They wore stiff black 
 
 9 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 silks trimmed with jet, and carried gold 
 watches; the neighbors saw them out in 
 the yard. 
 
 They had taken their seats at the tea- 
 table, which Mrs. Paine had bedecked 
 with her best linen and china; the min- 
 ister had asked the blessing, and Mrs. 
 Paine was about to pour the tea, and Mr. 
 Paine to pass the biscuits, when Timothy 
 Samson walked in without knocking. 
 
 He bade the company good -day, and 
 then, with no preface at all, addressed Mr. 
 Samuel Paine upon the subject of his 
 long-standing debt to John Leavitt. He 
 told him that John Leavitt was a poor 
 man, and in sore need of a barrel of flour. 
 
 " Poor John Leavitt, he can't afford to 
 have no sech fine company as you've got 
 to-night, an' give 'em no sech hot biscuits 
 and peach sauce, and frosted cake," said 
 Timothy, pitilessly eyeing the table; " he 
 can't have what he actilly needs, 'cause 
 you don't pay your just debt." 
 
 Samuel Paine, thus admonished, turned 
 red, then white, but said not a word, only 
 10 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 pulled his old leather wallet stiffly out 
 of his pocket, and poor John Leavitt had 
 his barrel of flour that night. 
 
 And all the village knows how Timothy 
 settled the dispute between Lysander 
 Mann and Anson White. Anson's hens 
 encroached upon Lysander's young gar- 
 den; he would not shut them up, and 
 Lysander threatened to go to law. They 
 had hot words about it. But Timothy 
 said to Lysander, with that inimitably 
 shrewd wink of his handsome bine eye?, 
 which must have been seen by everybody 
 hearing the story, who knows Timothy, 
 " Why don't you fix up a nice leetle coop, 
 an' some nice leetle nests in your yard, 
 Lysander? " 
 
 xlnd Lysander did, and Anson shut up 
 his hens when they took to laying eggs 
 upon his neighbor's premises, instead of 
 scratching up his peas and beans. 
 
 When theology is in question there is a 
 popular belief in the village that the min- 
 ister is indebted to Timothy for many a 
 good point in his sermen. 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 In fact, the minister, who is an old and 
 somewhat prosy man, seldom gets credit 
 among many of his congregation for any 
 bright and original thought of his own. 
 People nod meaningly at each other, as 
 mnch as to say, " That's Timothy Sam- 
 son." It is universally conceded that if 
 Timothy had been properly educated he 
 would have made a much better parson 
 than the parson. Timothy is especially 
 gifted in prayer, and often seems to bear 
 the whole burden of the conference meet- 
 ing upon his shoulders. 
 
 He is one of the deacons, and he passes 
 the sacramental bread and wine with the 
 stately and solemn bearing of an apostle. 
 Indeed, there is something which ap- 
 proaches the apostolic ideal in the appear- 
 ance of Timothy Samson, with his hand- 
 some, benignantly-beaming old face, and 
 his waving gray locks. There is only 
 one thing which conflicts with it, and 
 that is the twinkle of acute worldly 
 wisdom and shrewdness in his blue eyes. 
 One cannot imagine an apostle twink- 
 
 12 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 ling upon his fellow-men, after that 
 fashion. 
 
 Besides the wisdom comprised under 
 the three heads of medicine, law and the- 
 ology, Timothy has more of varied kinds 
 in stock. He is strangely weatherwise. 
 He seems to read the clouds and the winds 
 like the chapters of a book. "We all be- 
 lieve he could write an almanac as good 
 as the " Old Farmers' " if he were so dis- 
 posed. If the Sunday-school thinks of 
 having a picnic Timothy is consulted, and 
 the day he selects is invariably fair. He 
 has even been known to name the wed- 
 ding day instead of the bride. 
 
 Not a woman in the "village dreams of 
 going abroad in best bonnet and gown if 
 Timothy Samson says it will storm. On 
 the other hand, one sets forth in her fin- 
 est array, and carries no umbrella, no mat- 
 ter how lowering the clouds are, if Tim- 
 othy gives the word that it will be fair. 
 
 Timothy knows when there will be a 
 drought and when a frost. Often we 
 should lose our grapes or our melons were 
 
 *3 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 it not for Timothy's timely warning to 
 cover them before nightfall with old 
 blankets and carpets. Timothy is a master 
 gardener, and knows well how to make 
 refractory plants bud and blossom. He 
 grafts sour and stubborn old fruit trees 
 into sweet and luscious bearing; he knows 
 how to prune vines and hedges and rose- 
 bushes. 
 
 Timothy always knows where the blue- 
 berries and blackberries grow thickest, and 
 pilots the children thither, and he knows 
 the haunt of the partridge if an invalid 
 has a longing for delicate wild meat. 
 
 Timothy's wisdom can apply itself to 
 small matters as well as great, and fit the 
 minutest needs of daily life. If a house- 
 wife's carpet will not go down, if her cur- 
 tains will not roll up, if the stove-pipe will 
 not fit, his aid is sought and never fails. 
 If any one of the thousand little house- 
 hold difficulties beset her, Timothy runs 
 over in his shoemaker's apron and sets the 
 matter right. 
 
 If there is any matter which Timothy's 
 
 14 
 
Timothy Samson : The Wise Man 
 
 wisdom can fail to cover we have yet to 
 find it. 
 
 If this sage did not live in our village 
 what should we all be? Should we ever 
 go anywhere without spoiling our best 
 bonnets? Should we have any wisdom at 
 all unless we paid the highest market 
 price for it? And we could not do that, 
 because we are all poor. What shall we 
 do when our wise man is gathered to his 
 fathers? AYe dare not contemplate that. 
 
 i5 
 
Little Margaret Snell : The 
 Village Runaway 
 
Little Margaret Snell : The 
 Village Runaway 
 
 It certainly goes rather hard for any 
 mother in this village, of a fanciful and 
 romantic turn of mind, who tries to de- 
 part from our staid old customs in the 
 naming of her children. She is directly 
 thought to be putting on airs in a par- 
 ticularly foolish fashion, and her attempts 
 are frustrated so far as may be. 
 
 For instance, when Mrs. White named 
 her second boy Reginald, and the neigh- 
 bors knew that there was no such appella- 
 tion in the family, that it was only a 
 " fancy name," they sniffed contemptu- 
 ously, and called him " Ridgy." Ridgy 
 White he will be in this village until the 
 
 J 9 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 day of his death. And when Mrs. Beals 
 named her little girl Gertrude, the school- 
 children, who scorned such fine names, 
 transformed it to " Gritty," and Gritty the 
 poor child goes. 
 
 As for Marg'ret Snell, she fared some- 
 what better; she might easily have been 
 dubbed Gritty too, had it not been for the 
 fact that Gertrude Beals is eight months 
 older, and went to school first. She is 
 only called in strict conformance to the 
 homely old customs " Marg'ret " and 
 sometimes " Margy," with a hard g, when 
 her real name is Marguerite. 
 
 How the neighbors sniffed when they 
 learned what Francis Snell's wife had 
 named her girl-baby. Miss Lurinda Snell, 
 Francis' sister, told of it in Mrs. Harrison 
 White's. She had dropped in there one 
 afternoon, about a weeL after Marg'ret's 
 birth, and several other neighbors had 
 dropped in, too. 
 
 " Sophi' has named the baby," said Lu- 
 rinda. Mrs. Francis Snell's name is So- 
 phia, but everybody calls her " Sophi," 
 20 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 "with a strong emphasis on the last syl- 
 lable. 
 
 Then the others inquired eagerly what 
 she had named it, and Lurinda replied 
 with a scornful lift and twist of her thin 
 nose and lips: "Marguerite/' 
 
 " ; Marg'rct, you mean/' said the others. 
 
 " No, it's Marguerite," said Lurinda. 
 
 " "Where did she get such a name as 
 that ? " asked the neighbors. 
 
 " Out of a book of poetry," replied Lu- 
 rinda, with another scornful sneer. 
 
 The neighbors then and there agreed 
 that it was very silly to twist about a good 
 sensible name, and Frenchify it in that 
 way; that Sophi read too much, and that 
 she wouldn't be likely to have much gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Whether the former course was silly or 
 not the*y have certainly never abetted it; 
 not one of them has ever called the little 
 girl anything but Marg'ret or Margy, and 
 whether they were right or not about 
 Mrs. SnelPs superfluous reading, they 
 most assuredly were about her lack of gov- 
 
 21 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 eminent. Sophia Snell is a good woman, 
 and probably one of the most intellectual 
 persons in the village, but she does hold 
 a loose rein over her domestic affairs. 
 That broad, white, abstracted brow of hers 
 cannot seem to bring itself to bear very 
 well upon stray buttons, and heavy bread 
 and childish peccadillos. Francis Snell 
 sews on his buttons himself or uses pins, 
 or his sister Lurinda calls him in and 
 sews them on for him with strong and 
 virtuous jerks. It is popularly believed 
 that he never cats light bread unless his 
 sister takes pity upon him, and as for lit- 
 tle Marg'ret, she runs loose. She always 
 has, ever since she could run at all. When 
 she was nothing but a bab}% and tumbled 
 over her petticoats every few minutes, she 
 was repeatedly captured and brought back 
 to her mother, who immediately let her 
 run away again, with the same impeded 
 but persistent species of locomotion. 
 
 Before little Marg'ret was three years 
 old she had toddled and tumbled all alone 
 by herself over the entire village, and 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 often far on the outskirts. Once Thomas 
 Gleason, who lives on a farm three miles 
 out, brought her home. Nobody could 
 understand how she got there, but she tod- 
 dled into the yard at sunset in her little 
 muddy pink frock, with one shoe gone, 
 and no bonnet, very dirty, but very smil- 
 ing, and not at all tired or frightened. 
 
 Little Marg'ret never was afraid of any- 
 body or anything. Probably there is not 
 another such example of absolute fearless- 
 ness in the village as she. She marches 
 straight up to cross dogs and cows, the 
 dark has no terrors for her, the loudest 
 clap of thunder does not make her child- 
 ish bosom quake. And she certainly has 
 no fear, and possibly no respect, for mor- 
 tal man. Speak harshly to her, even give 
 her a little smart shake, or cuff her small, 
 naughty hands, and she stands looking up 
 at you as innocently and unabashedly as a 
 pet kitten. 
 
 Everybody prophesied that little Marg'- 
 ret, through this fearlessness of hers, 
 would come soon to an untimely end. 
 
 23 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 " She'll get bitten by a dog or hooked by 
 a cow," they said. " She'll get lost, she'll 
 follow a strange man, she'll walk into the 
 pond and get drowned." But she never 
 has, so far, and she is going bravely on 
 to six. 
 
 Little Marg'ret's Aunt Lnrinda Snell 
 has probably endured sharper pangs of 
 anxiety on her account than anybody else. 
 Marg'ret's father is an easy-going man; his 
 sister Lurinda seems to have all the capac- 
 ity for worry in the family. 
 
 Lurinda is much given to sitting in her 
 front window. She arises betimes of a 
 morning, and her solitar} r maiden house is 
 soon set to rights, and not a soul who 
 comes down the street escapes her. Let 
 little Marg'ret essay to scamper past, and 
 straightway comes the sharp tap of bony 
 knuckles upon the window-pane, then the 
 window slides up with a creak, and Lu- 
 rinda's voice is heard, sharp and shrill, 
 "Marg'ret, Marg'ret, you stop! Where 
 you going?" 
 
 Then when Marg'ret scuds past, with a 
 24 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 roguish, cock of lier head toward the 
 window, the call comes again, "Margaret 
 Snell, yon stop! Yon come right in 
 here ! " 
 
 But Marg'ret seldom comes to order. 
 She goes where she wills, and nowhere 
 ebe. The very essence of freedom seems 
 to be in her childish spirit. You might as 
 well try to command a little wild rabbit. 
 All Lurinda's shrill orders are of no avail, 
 unless she sees her soon enough to .head 
 her off, and actually brings her into the 
 house by dint of superior bodily strength. 
 
 If Marg'ret has once the start, her aunt 
 can never catch her, but sometimes she 
 starts across her track before the little 
 wild thing has time to double. Then, in- 
 deed, there are struggles and wails and 
 shrill interjections of wrath. 
 
 To compensate for her lack of parental 
 survey the whole neighborhood, as well 
 as Lurinda, takes a hand at controlling 
 this small and refractory member, 
 although in uncertain fashion, which, 
 perhaps, does more harm than good. How- 
 
 25 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 ever, we all do our best to reduce Marg'- 
 ret to subjection, each for one's self — we 
 are driven to it. 
 
 Xone of us are safe from an invasion 
 of Marg'ret at any hour of the day, upon 
 all occasions. Have we any very particu- 
 lar company to tea, into the best parlor 
 walks Marg'ret in her soiled pinafore, with 
 her yellow hair in a tousle, and her face 
 very dirty, and sweetly smiling, and seats 
 herself in the best chair, if a guest has 
 not anticipated her. When told with that 
 gentle and ladylike authorit} r , which one 
 can display before company, that she had 
 better run right home like a good little 
 girl, Marg'ret sits still and smiles. 
 
 Then there is nothing to do but to say 
 in a bland voice that thinly disguises im- 
 patience, " Come out in the kitchen with 
 me, Marg'ret, and I'll give you a piece of 
 cake," and toll her out in that way, — ■ 
 Marg'ret will sell her birthright of her 
 own way for cake, and cake alone, — and 
 then to cram the cake with emphasis into 
 the small hand, and sa}', "Marg'ret, you 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 go right home and don't you come over 
 here again to-day." But no one can be 
 sure that she will not appear at the com- 
 pany tea-table, and pull at the company's 
 black silk skirts for more cake, like a pet- 
 ted pussy cat. 
 
 Marg'ret walks into the minister's study 
 when he is writing his sermons or when he 
 is conducting family prayers. The doc- 
 tor keeps his dangerous drugs on high 
 shelves where she cannot reach them; he 
 has found her alone in his office so many 
 times. She walks over all our houses as 
 she chooses. We are never sure on going 
 into any room that Marg'ret will not start 
 up like a little elf and confront us. She 
 has been found asleep in the middles of 
 spare chamber feather-beds; she has been 
 found investigating with her curious lit- 
 tle fingers the sacred mysteries of best par- 
 lor china-closets. 
 
 Little Marg'ret is the one lively and ut- 
 terly incorrigible thing in our dull little 
 village. There are ethor children, but she 
 is that one all-pervading spirit of child- 
 
 2 7 
 
Little Margaret Snell 
 
 hood which keeps us all fretting but pow- 
 erless under its tyranny, and yet, if the 
 truth must be told, ready enough to cut 
 for it the sweet cake, which it loves, when 
 it runs away into our hearts. 
 
 28 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The 
 Unlucky Man 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The 
 Unlucky Man 
 
 It is not probable that Cyrus Emmett'ff 
 relations intended any sarcasm toward a 
 helpless and inoffensive infant when they 
 gave him the name of the great Persian 
 conqueror, but that alone has proved a 
 mockery of his lot in life. Poor Cyrus 
 Emmett has not been able to conquer even 
 the petty obstacles of the narrow sphere to 
 which he was born. Even in this humble 
 village of humble folk, who regard tho 
 luxuries of life very much as they do the 
 moon, as something so beyond their reach 
 as to make desire ridiculous, Cyrus 
 Emmett has the superior lowliness of the 
 utterly defeated. Xot one of the other 
 villagers but at some time or other has 
 had his own little triumph of success^ 
 
 3 1 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 which gave him that sense of power which 
 exalts humanity. He has married the pret- 
 tiest girl or has made a great crop of hay, 
 or he has grown the finest grapes, or built 
 himself a tasty house, or been deacon or 
 selectman. 
 
 Cyrus Emmett has never known any- 
 thing of these little victories, which, be- 
 ing well proportioned to the simple con- 
 tests, perhaps produce as fine a quality of 
 triumph as did those of the great Persian 
 whose name he bears. 
 
 Poor Cyrus, when a boy at school, never 
 
 ■ quite got to the head of his class, although 
 
 no one studied more faithfully than he, 
 
 .and at the end of the term he knew his 
 
 books better. Once Cyrus would have gone 
 
 -to the head; he spelled the word correctly, 
 
 but the teacher misunderstood. Once the 
 
 two scholars above him had the mumps 
 
 'and were absent, and he would then have 
 
 jlaken his place at the head had he not 
 
 slipped on the ice on his way to school, 
 
 ..and sprained his ankle. 
 
 Always, when he could spell a word, and 
 
 32 
 
Cyrus Emmett ; The Unlucky Man 
 
 the scholars above him were failing, and 
 his heart was beating, and his head swim- 
 ming with anticipated triumph, when he 
 leaned forward and waved his arm fran- 
 tically, and could scarcely be restrained 
 from declaring his wisdom before his turn, 
 the next boy gave the correct answer and 
 went to the head. If Cyrus had not been 
 so near success his disappointment would 
 not have been so great. 
 
 Cyrus made a signal failure in his boy- 
 ish sports. He could never quite reach 
 the bottom of a hill without a swerve and 
 roll in the snow when almost there, and 
 that, too, on an experienced sled, and with 
 no difference in his mode of steering, that 
 one could see. If there was a stone or 
 snag heretofore unknown on the course,. 
 Cyrus discovered it and cut short his ca- 
 reer; if another boy was to collide with 
 any one it was with him. 
 
 At a very early age Cyrus began to ex- 
 cite a feeling compounded of contempt 
 and compassion among everybody with, 
 whom he came in contact. 
 
 33 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 " Cyrus Emmett is a good boy, and tries 
 hard, but he never seems to make out 
 much," they said. 
 
 " Try again, Cy," the boys shouted when 
 lie toiled up the hill for the twentieth time 
 after a hard toss in the snow. And Cy- 
 rus would try with fierce energy, and up- 
 .set again amidst exultant laughter from 
 the top of the hill. There has been, from 
 the first, no lack of energy and persever- 
 ance in Cyrus Emmett. It is possible that 
 he might have gained more respect in his 
 defeats if there had been. There is, after 
 all, a certain negative triumph in declin- 
 ing to bestir one's self against excessive 
 odds, and sitting down to the buffetings of 
 fate, like an Indian, maybe with a steady 
 fury of unconquerable soul, but no strug- 
 gles nor outcries. Cyrus, however, has 
 never ceased to kick against the unending 
 pricks of Providence, and fall back and 
 lack again, and fall, until his neighbors 
 seem never to have seen him in any atti- 
 tudes but those of futile attack and de- 
 ieat. Had he sat stolidly down on his 
 
 34 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 sled nor tried to coast at all, and defied 
 his adverse fate in that way, it is quite 
 probable that he might have gained more 
 respect. 
 
 Cyrus' father was a farmer; a thrifty 
 man, and considered quite well-to-do, as 
 he owned his place and stock clear, with, 
 a little balance in the savings bank, until 
 Cyrus was old enough to enter into active- 
 co-operation with him in the farm man- 
 agement. Then things began to go wrong, 
 but seemingly through no fault of Cyrus', 
 nor indeed of any living man. 
 
 First the woodland caught fire, and all 
 the standing wood and fifty cords of cut 
 went up in flame and smoke. Then there 
 was a terrible hailstorm, which seemed to 
 spend its worst fury on the Emmett farm, 
 and laid waste the garden and the corn- 
 fields. Then the Emmetts' potatoes rot- 
 ted, although nobody's else in the village 
 did. That year half the little balance in 
 the savings bank was drawn; in two years 
 more the Emmett account was closed. The 
 old man died not long after that, and his. 
 
 35 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 son inherited the farm; his wife had died 
 long before, and a maiden sister of his had 
 kept house for him. 
 
 The year after his father's death Cy- 
 rus' barn was struck by lightning, and 
 burned to the ground with several head of 
 cattle and a valuable horse. Then Cyrus 
 mortgaged the farm to build a new barn 
 and buy stock, and it is one of the tragic 
 tales of the village that the new barn had 
 not been finished a week before that also 
 was burned because of the hired man's up- 
 setting a lantern, and only two cows were 
 saved. Then Cyrus borrowed more, and 
 the neighbors went to the raising of an- 
 other barn, and lent a hand in the build- 
 ing. They also contributed all they could 
 spare from their small means and bought 
 Cyrus another horse. 
 
 But it was not long before the horse 
 sickened and died, and the lightning 
 struck again and badly shattered one end 
 of the new barn, and killed a cow, besides 
 stunning Cyrus so severely that he was in 
 /the house for a month in haying-time. 
 
 36 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 Then the neighbors gave up. "It's no use 
 tryin' to help Cy Emmett, he wasn't born 
 lucky/*' they said, and they had a terrified 
 and uncanny feeling, as if they had been 
 contending against some evil power. 
 
 Once Cyrus had what seemed for a little 
 while a stroke of luck, such as all the 
 village people have known at least the 
 taste of — he drew a prize. The village 
 does not approve of lotteries, and Cyrus 
 had been brought up to shun them, but 
 that time he was tempted. A man went 
 the rounds selling tickets at a quarter of 
 a dollar apiece on a horse which he rep- 
 resented as very valuable. The man was 
 a third cousin of Deacon Xehemiah Stock- 
 well, and people were inclined to think he 
 was reliable, although they had not seen 
 the horse. He represented, also, that the 
 money obtained was to go toward the 
 building of a Baptist church in East 
 Windsor. 
 
 Cyrus had just lost his horse, and he 
 h-ad a quarter in his pocket and he bought 
 a ticket and drew the prize. It went around 
 37 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 the village like wildfire. " Cy Emmett has 
 drawn the horse." Pretty soon two men 
 were seen leading the horse through the 
 village. It seemed odd that he should be 
 led instead of ridden, that it should re- 
 quire two men to lead him, also that he 
 should be so curiously strapped and tied 
 about the head and hindquarters. How- 
 ever, he looked like a fine animal, and 
 tugged and pranced as well as he could un- 
 der his restrictions, thereby showing his 
 spirit. He was said to be very valuable; 
 Cyrus Emmett was thought to be actually 
 in luck that time. 
 
 However, poor Cyrus' luck proved to be 
 only one of his usual misfortunes. The 
 horse was a white elephant on his hands; 
 he could not be harnessed, and he threw 
 every rider who bestrode him. As for 
 working the farm, he might as well have 
 set the fabled Pegasus at that. He kicked 
 and bit — it was dangerous even to feed 
 him. 
 
 Finally he took to chewing his halter 
 apart, and escaping and terrorizing the 
 
 38 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 Tillage. " Cy Emmett's horse is loose ! " 
 was the signal for a general stampede. At 
 last he had to be shot. 
 
 Cyrus Emmett, when he was a little tin- 
 der forty, had the mortgage on his farm 
 foreclosed, and went to live in a poor cot- 
 tage with a few acres of land attached. He 
 has lived there ever since, and he is now 
 past sixty. 
 
 Cyrus' ill luck seems to have followed 
 him in his love affairs. When he was quite 
 a young man he fell in love with Mary 
 Ann Linfield, hut she would not have him. 
 She married Edward Bassett afterward. 
 
 It was all over town one morning that 
 Z^Iary Ann had jilted Cyrus. Her mother 
 ran in to Miss Lurinda Snell and told of it. 
 Cyrus did not marry until his old aunt, 
 who kept his house, died; then he espoused 
 a widow in the next village, and she has 
 been a helpless cripple from rheumatism 
 ever since their marriage. 
 
 Cyrus has to toil from dawn until far 
 into the night, tilling his few scanty acres, 
 caring for two cows and hens, peddling 
 
 39 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 milk, and eggs, and vegetables, nursing 
 his sick wife, and doing all the household 
 tasks. 
 
 It is a curious thing that although Cy- 
 rus pays painfully, penny by penny, for 
 all his little necessaries of life, he has 
 no credit. I doubt if a man in the village 
 would trust him with a dollar's worth, 
 and he is said to purchase such infinitesi- 
 mal quantities as a dozen lumps of sugar, 
 and two drawings of tea, and a cup of 
 beans, because he has no ready cash to pay 
 for more. 
 
 Poor Cyrus Emmett goes through the 
 village street, his back bent with years and 
 the hard burdens of life, but there is still 
 the fire of zeal in his eyes, and he is al- 
 ways in spirit trying over again that coast 
 down the hill, although he always upsets 
 before he reaches the goal. 
 
 The boys call out, " Hallo, Cy," when 
 they meet him, and he makes as if he did 
 not hear, although they are, after all, 
 friendly enough, and intend no disrespect. 
 It is only that his lack of progress in life 
 40 
 
Cyrus Emmett : The Unlucky Man 
 
 seems somehow to put the old man on a 
 level with themselves. 
 
 Once he stopped and said, half angrily, 
 half appealing!}', "Fm too old a man for 
 you to speak to me like that, boys." But 
 they only laughed and hailed him in the 
 same way when they met again. 
 
 They say that luck is always sure to turn 
 sooner or later. Perhaps later means 
 not in this world; hut if poor Cyrus Em- 
 mett's luck does turn in his lifetime there 
 will be great rejoicing in this village. 
 
 4i 
 
Phebe Ann Little : The 
 Neat Woman 
 
Phebe Ann Little : The 
 Neat Woman 
 
 Let anybody mention Phebe Ann Little 
 in the neighborhood, and some one is sure 
 to immediately remark, " She's terrible 
 neat/' 
 
 It is impossible to think even of Phebe 
 Ann, to have her image come for an in- 
 stant before one's mind, without reference 
 to this especial characteristic of hers. She 
 cannot be separated by any mental pro- 
 cess from her "terrible neatness." It is in- 
 teresting to speculate what can become of 
 Phebe Ann in the hereafter, where, as we 
 are taught to believe, the contest against 
 moth and rust and the general untidiness 
 of this earth is to cease. Can Phebe Ann 
 exist at all in a state where neatness will 
 45 
 
Phebe Ann Little 
 
 be merely a negative quality with no possi- 
 bility of active exposition? Will not there 
 have to be cobwebs for Phebe Ann to 
 sweep from the sky, if she is to inhabit it 
 in any conscious state? 
 
 Except in meeting, Phebe Ann is scarce- 
 ly ever seen by a neighbor without broom 
 and dusting-cloth in hand. 
 
 With the first flicker of dawn light and 
 the first cock crow, comes the flirt of 
 Phebe Ann's duster from her window, the 
 flourish of her broom on her front door- 
 step, and often far into the evening 
 Phebe Ann's scrubbing and dusting shad- 
 ow is seen upon the window curtains. Peo- 
 ple say that Phebe Ann's husband often 
 has to hold the lamp for her while she 
 cleans and dusts until near midnight. A 
 neighbor passing the open kitchen window 
 late one summer night, reported that he 
 heard Phebe Ann appeal to her husband 
 in something after this fashion: " George 
 Henr} T , can you remember whether I have 
 washed this side of the table or the oth- 
 er ? " There are even stories current that 
 
 46 
 
Phebe Ann Little 
 
 her husband has often to rise during the 
 small hours of a winter night, light a 
 lamp, get the broom, and sweep down the 
 cellar stairs, or the back door-step, be- 
 cause Phebe has awakened with a species 
 of nightmare of unperformed duty tor- 
 menting her. She cannot remember, in 
 her bewildered state, whether she has neg- 
 lected the stairs and the door-step or not, 
 and if she has, none can say what evil 
 seems impending over her and her house. 
 
 Once her husband, George Henry, who 
 at times is afflicted with that species of 
 rheumatism known as a crick in the back, 
 is reported to have rebelled at this mid- 
 night call to the cellar stairs and the 
 broom, and Phebe to have retorted with 
 tragic emphasis: " Suppose I was to die 
 before morning, George Henry Little, and 
 those cellar stairs not swept." • And that 
 argument is said to have been too weighty 
 for George Henry's scruples. 
 
 Phebe Ann is also said to send George 
 Henry searching with a midnight taper 
 for cobwebs on the ceiling, which she re- 
 47 
 
Phebe Ann Little 
 
 members seeing and cannot remember 
 having brushed away. There is a popular 
 picture in the village imagination of 
 George Henry Little, in the silent watches 
 of the night, standing on a chair, a feath- 
 er duster in one hand and a lamp in the 
 other, anxiously scanning the ceiling for 
 cobwebs. 
 
 George Henry Little, it goes without 
 saying, is a meek and long-suffering man. 
 If ever he had spirit and the capability of 
 sustained rebellion, Phebe Ann must long 
 since have scoured it away with some kind 
 of spiritual soap and sand. Indeed, George 
 Henry's relatives openly say that he never 
 was the same man after he married Phebe 
 Ann Fitch, which was his wife's maiden 
 name. And yet Phebe Ann is such a mild- 
 looking, little, sandy-haired woman, with 
 strained, anxious blue eyes, and small, 
 knotty hands with rasped knuckles, and 
 George Henry is black-whiskered and 
 rather fierce-visaged in comparison. Phebe 
 Ann taught school before she was mar- 
 ried, too, and George Henry's relatives 
 48 
 
Phebe Ann Little 
 
 feared that she would not make a good 
 housekeeper, but their fears upon that 
 head were soon allayed. 
 
 When George Henry's sister, Mrs. Ezra 
 Wheeler, went to call at his house for the 
 first time after he and Phebe Ann were 
 married, she came home, surprised and a 
 little alarmed. 
 
 " It was four o'clock in the afternoon 
 when I got there," she tells the story, 
 " and there was Phebe Ann in a calico 
 dress and gingham apron (likely to have 
 wedding callers all the time, too), scrub- 
 bing the tops of the doors. They hadn't 
 been living in that brand-new house a 
 week either. I don't see what she found to 
 scrub. But there she was hard at work 
 with soap and sand. I said then I guessed 
 we needn't worry about George Henry's 
 not having a good housekeeper; I guessed 
 he'd have all the housekeeping he wanted, 
 and more, too." 
 
 It is fortunate for George Henry that 
 he has a reasonably neat and tidy occupa- 
 tion — he is Mr. Harrison White's confi- 
 
 49 
 
Phebe Ann Little 
 
 dential clerk and chief assistant in the 
 store and post-office. If he had been em- 
 ployed in the grist mill, or if he had been 
 a farmer, Phebe Ann might have resorted 
 to such extreme measures as lodging him 
 in the woodshed or on the door-step in 
 mild weather. As it is he seems to work 
 hard to gain an entrance to his own house. 
 George Henry always goes around to the 
 back door — it is improbable that he has 
 ever crossed the threshold of his front 
 door since his wedding-day — and when 
 there he opens it a crack, slips his hand 
 around the corner and takes a pair of 
 slippers from a peg just inside. Then he 
 removes his boots, puts on the slippers and 
 enters. The neighbors are positive that 
 this is his daily custom when he returns 
 from the store. But should the day be 
 snowy or dusty or muddy, then, indeed, 
 George Henry Little has to painfully work 
 his passage into his own house. Phebe 
 Ann comes forth — indeed she often lies 
 in wait — with the broom, and sometimes, 
 it is asserted, with the duster, and poor 
 
 50 
 
Phebe Ann Little 
 
 George Henry is made to undergo a puri- 
 fication as rigid as if he were about to en- 
 ter a heathen temple. 
 
 It must be a sore trial to Thebe Ann to 
 admit any one without the performance of 
 these cleansing rites; but she has to sub- 
 mit in other cases. She cannot make the 
 minister take oil his boots and put on 
 slippers before entering, neither can she 
 make such conditions with the neighbors. 
 She has always a little corn-husk mat on 
 the door-step, and there we stand and 
 carefully scrape and scrape, while she 
 watches with ill-concealed anxiety, and 
 then we walk in, although we feel guilty. 
 In very muddy weather we always, of 
 course, remove our rubbers and all our 
 outer garments which have become damp; 
 but otherwise our shoes, which have been 
 contaminated by the dust of the street, 
 come boldly in contact with Phebe Ann's 
 immaculate carpets. 
 
 But she has her revenge. 
 
 ISTot a neighbor goes in to spend a friend- 
 ly hour with Phebe Ann, who does not see, 
 
 5* 
 
Phebe Ann Little 
 
 after her return, if she lives within seeing 
 distance — and if she does not it is faithful- 
 ly reported to her — her late hostess fling 
 windows and doors wide open, and ply 
 frantically broom and duster, and she 
 wonders uneasily how much dirt and dust 
 she could possibly have tracked into Phebe 
 Ann's. 
 
 But the neighbors have double cause for 
 solicitude so far as an imputation upon 
 their own neatness is concerned, for Phebe 
 Ann never herself returns from a neigh- 
 borly call, that she does not, it is vouched 
 for by competent witnesses, hang all the 
 garments which accompanied her upon 
 the clothes-line to air. Miss Lurinda Snell 
 declares that she turns even the sleeves 
 wrong side out and brushes them vigorous- 
 ly — that she has seen her. 
 
 We all admit, with perhaps some prick- 
 ings of conscience in our own cases, that 
 Phebe Ann Little is a notable housekeep- 
 er. Her window-panes flash like diamonds 
 in the setting sun. There is no dust on 
 her window-blinds; one could sit in one's 
 
 5 2 
 
Phebe Ann Little 
 
 Lest silk dress on her door-step; one could, 
 if there were any occasion for so doing, 
 eat one's meals off her shed floor or her 
 cellar stairs. There is no speck of dirt, no 
 thread of disorder in all Phehe Ann's 
 house, nor upon her person, nor upon any- 
 thing which helongs to her. She is cer- 
 tainly a housekeeper whose equal is not 
 among us, and we all give her due admira- 
 tion and respect. 
 
 She is a credit to our village, and yet it 
 is possihle that one such credit is suffi- 
 cient. If there were another like her the 
 Tillage might become so clean that we 
 should all have to take to the fields and 
 survey its beautiful tidiness over pasture- 
 bars. 
 
 53 
 
Amanda Todd : The 
 Friend of Cats 
 
Amanda Todd : The 
 Friend of Cats 
 
 Amanda Todd's orbit of existence is re- 
 stricted of a necessity, since she was born, 
 brought up and will die in this village, 
 but there is no doubt that it is eccentric. 
 She moves apart on her own little course 
 quite separate from the rest of us. Had 
 Amanda's lines of life been cast elsewhere, 
 had circumstances pushed her, instead of 
 hemming her in, she might have become 
 the feminine apostle of a new creed, have 
 founded a sect, or instituted a new sys- 
 tem of female dress. As it is, she does 
 f not go to meeting, she never wears a bon- 
 net, and she keeps cats. 
 
 Amanda Todd is rising sixty, and she 
 never was married. Had she been, the close 
 friction with another nature might have 
 
 57 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 worn away some of the peculiarities of 
 hers. She might have gone to meeting, 
 she might have worn a bonnet, she might 
 even have eschewed cats, but it is not 
 probable. When peculiarities are in the 
 grain of a person's nature, as they proba- 
 bly are in hers, such friction only brings 
 them out more plainly and it is the other 
 person who suffers. 
 
 The village men are not, as a rule, very 
 subtle, but they have seemed to feel this 
 instinctively. Amanda was, they say, a 
 very pretty girl in her youth, but no young 
 man ever dared make love to her and mar- 
 ry her. She had always the reputation of 
 being u an odd stick," even in the district 
 school. She always kept by herself at re- 
 cess, she never seemed to have anything in 
 common with the other girls, and she 
 always went home alone from singing 
 school. Probably never in her whole life 
 has Amanda Todd known what it is to be 
 protected by some devoted person of the 
 other sex through the nightly perils of 
 our village street. 
 
 58 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 There is a tradition in the village that 
 once in her life, when she was about twen- 
 ty-five years old, Amanda Todd had a 
 beautiful bonnet and went to meeting. 
 
 Old Mrs. Xathan Morse vouches for the 
 reliability of it, and, moreover, she hints 
 at a reason. " When Mandy, she was 'bout 
 twenty-five years old," she says, " George 
 Henry French, he come to town, and 
 taught the district school, and he see 
 Mandy, an' told Almira Benton that he 
 thought she was about the prettiest girl he 
 ever laid eyes on, and Almiry she told 
 Mandy. That was all there ever was to it, 
 he never waited on her, never spoke to her, 
 fur's I know, but right after that, Mandy, 
 she had a bunnit, and she went reg'lar to 
 meetin'. 'Fore that her mother could 
 scarcely get her to keep a thing on her 
 head out-of-doors — allers carried her sun- 
 bunnit a-danglin' by the strings, wonder 
 she wa'n't sunstruck a million times — and 
 as for goin' to meetin', her mother, she 
 talked and talked, but it didn't do a mite 
 of good. I s'pose her father kind of up- 
 
 59 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 held her in it. He was 'most as odd as 
 Mandy. He wouldn't go to meetin' un- 
 less he was driv, and he waVt a mem- 
 ber. 'Nough sight ruther go out prowlin' 
 round in the woods like a wild animal, 
 Sabbath days, than go to meetin'. Once 
 he ketched a wildcat, an' tried to tame it, 
 but he couldn't. It bit and clawed so he 
 had to let it go. I guess Mandy gets her 
 likin' for cats from him fast enough. Well, 
 Mandy, she had that handsome bunnit, 
 an' she went to meetin' reg'lar'most a year, 
 and she looked as pretty as a picture, sit- 
 tin' in the pew. The bunnit was trimmed 
 with green gauze ribbon and had a wreath 
 of fine pink flowers inside. Her mother 
 was real tickled, thought Mandy had met 
 with a change. But land, it didn't last 
 no time. George Henry French, he quit 
 town the next year and went to Somerset 
 to teach, and pretty soon we heard he hed 
 married a girl over there. Then Mandy, 
 she didn't come to meetin' any more. I 
 dunno what she did with the bunnit — ■ 
 stamped on it, most likely, she always had 
 60 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 considerable temper — anyway I never see 
 her wear it arterwards." 
 
 Thus old Mrs. Nathan Morse tells the 
 story, and somehow to a reflective mind 
 the picture of Amanda Todd in her youth, 
 decked in her pink-wreathed bonnet, self- 
 ishly but innocently attending in the sanc- 
 tuary of Divine Love in order to lay hands 
 on her own little share of earthly affec- 
 tion, is inseparable from her, as she goes 
 now, old and bare-headed, defiantly past 
 the meeting-house, when the Sabbath 
 bells are ringing. 
 
 However, if Amanda Todd had elected 
 to go bareheaded through the village 
 street from feminine vanity, rather than 
 eccentricity, it would have been no won- 
 der. Not a young girl in the village has 
 such a head of hair as Amanda. It is of 
 a beautiful chestnut color, and there is not 
 a gray thread in it. It is full of wonder- 
 ful natural ripples, too — not one of the 
 village girls can equal them with her pa- 
 pers and crimping-pins — and Amanda ar- 
 ranges it in two superb braids wound twice 
 
 6! 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 -around her head. Seen from behind, 
 Amanda's head is that of a young beauty; 
 when she turns a little, and her harsh old 
 profile becomes visible, there is a shock 
 to a stranger. 
 
 Amanda's father had a great shock of 
 chestnut hair which was seldom cut, and 
 she inherits this adornment from him. Ha 
 lived to be an old man, but that ruddy 
 crown of his never turned gray. 
 
 Amanda's mother died long ago; then 
 her father. Ever since she has lived alone 
 in her shingled cottage with her cats. 
 There were not so many cats at first; they 
 say she started with one fine tabby which 
 became the mother, grandmother and 
 great-grandmother to armies of kittens. 
 
 Amanda must destroy some when she 
 can find no homes for them, otherwise she 
 herself would be driven afield, but still 
 the impression is of a legion. 
 
 A cat is so covert, it slinks so secretly 
 
 from one abiding place to another, and 
 
 seems to duplicate itself with its sudden 
 
 appearances, that it may account in a 
 
 62 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 measure for this impression. Still there 
 are a great many. Nobody knows just 
 the number — the estimate runs anywhere 
 from fifteen to fifty. Counting, or trying 
 to count, Amanda Todd's cats is a favor- 
 ite amusement of the village children. 
 " Here's another," they shout, when a pair 
 of green eyes gleams at them from a post. 
 But is it another or only the same cat who 
 has moved? Cats sit in Amanda's win- 
 dows; they stare out wisely at the passers- 
 by from behind the panes, or they fold 
 their paws on the ledge outside in the 
 sunshine. Cats walk Amanda's ridge-pole 
 and her fence, they perch on her posts and 
 fly to her cherry trees with bristling fur 
 at the sight of a dog. Amanda has as 
 deadly a hatred of dogs as have her cats. 
 Every one which comes within stone- 
 throw of her she sends off yelping, for she 
 is a good shot. Kittens tumble about 
 Amanda's yard, and crawl out between her 
 fence-pickets under people's feet. Aman- 
 da will never give away a kitten except to 
 a responsible person, and is as particular 
 
 63 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 as if the kitten were a human orphan and 
 she the manager of an asylum. 
 
 She will never, for any consideration, 
 bestow one of her kittens upon a family 
 which keeps a dog or where there are 
 many small children. Once she made a 
 condition that the dog should be killed, 
 and she may be at times inwardly dis- 
 posed to banish the children. 
 
 x\manda Todd is extremely persistent 
 when she has selected a home which is per- 
 fectly satisfactory to her for a kitten. Once 
 one was found tied into a little basket 
 like a baby on the door-step of a childless 
 and humane couple who kept no dog, and 
 there is a story that Deacon Nehemiah. 
 Stockwell found one in his overcoat pock- 
 et and never knew how it came there. It 
 is probable that Amanda resorts to these 
 extreme measures to save herself from 
 either destroying her kittens or being 
 driven out of house and home by them. 
 
 However, once, when the case was re- 
 versed, Amanda herself was found want- 
 ing. When she began to grow old, and 
 64 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 the care of her pets told upon her, it 
 occurred to her that she might adopt a 
 little girl. Amanda has a comfortable 
 income, and would have been able to pro- 
 vide a good living for a child as far as that 
 goes. 
 
 But the managers of the institution to 
 whom Amanda applied made inquiries, 
 and the result did not satisfy them. Aman- 
 da stated frankly her reason for wishing 
 to take the child and her intentions with 
 regard to her. She wished the little girl 
 to tend her cats and assist her in caring 
 for them. She was willing that she should 
 attend school four hours per day, going af- 
 ter the cats had their breakfast, and re- 
 turning an hour earlier to give them their 
 supper. She was willing that she should 
 go to meeting in the afternoon only, and 
 she could have no other children come to 
 visit her for fear they would maltreat the 
 kittens. She furthermore announced her 
 intention to make her will, giving to the 
 girl whom she should adopt her entire 
 property in trust for the cats, to include 
 6S 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 lier own maintenance on condition that 
 she devote her life to them as she had 
 done. 
 
 The trustees declared that they could 
 not conscientiously commit a child to her 
 keeping for such purposes, and the poor 
 little girl orphan who had the chance of 
 devoting her life to the care of pussy cats 
 and kittens to the exclusion of all child- 
 ish followers, remained in her asylum. 
 
 So Amanda to this day lives alone, and 
 manages as hest she can. Nobody in the 
 village can be induced to live with her; 
 one forlorn old soul preferred the alms- 
 house. 
 
 " I'd 'nough sight ruther go on the 
 town than live with all them cats," she 
 said. 
 
 It is rather unfortunate that Amanda's 
 shingled cottage is next the meeting- 
 house, for that, somehow, seems to ren- 
 der her non-church-going more glaringly 
 conspicuous, and then, too, there is a lia- 
 bility of indecorous proceedings on the 
 part of the cats. 
 
 66 
 
Amanda Todd: The Friend of Cats 
 
 They evidently do not share their mis- 
 tress' dislike of the sanctuary, and find its 
 soft pew cushions very inviting. They 
 watch their chances to slink in when the 
 sexton opens the meeting-house; he is an 
 old man and dim-eyed, and they are often 
 successful. It is wise for anybody before 
 taking a seat in a pew to make sure that 
 one of Amanda's cats has not forestalled 
 him; and often a cat flees down one flight 
 of the pulpit stairs as the minister ascends 
 the oilier. 
 
 We all wonder what will become of 
 Amanda's cats when she dies. There is 
 a report that she has made her will and 
 left her property in trust for the cats to 
 somebody; but to whom? Nobody in this 
 village is anxious for such a bequest, and 
 whoever it may be will probably strive to 
 repudiate it. Some day the cats will un- 
 doubtedly go by the board; young Henry 
 ^Yilson, who has a gun, will shoot some, 
 the rest will become aliens and wanderers, 
 but we all hope Amanda Todd will never 
 know it. 
 
 67 
 
Amanda Todd : The Friend of Cats 
 
 In the meantime she is undoubtedly 
 carrying on among us an eccentric, but 
 none the less genuine mission. A home 
 missionary is Amanda Todd, and we 
 should recognize her as such in spite of 
 her non-church-going proclivities. Weak 
 in faith though she may be, she is, per- 
 chance, as strong in love as the best of 
 us. At least I do not doubt that her poor 
 little four-footed dependents would so give 
 evidence if they could speak. 
 
 68 
 
Lydia Wheelock: The 
 Good Woman 
 
Lydia Wheelock : The 
 Good Woman 
 
 We all agree that Lydia Wheelock is 
 yery plain-looking, but that she is very 
 good. She was never handsome, even as 
 a girl. She never had any youthful bloom, 
 and her figure was always as clumsy and 
 awkward as it is now. Poor Lydia, with 
 her round shoulders and her high hips, 
 always moved heavily among the light- 
 tripping maids of her own age. Seen from 
 behind, her broad, matronly back made 
 her look old enough to be the mother of 
 them all. Bright and delicate girlish rib- 
 bons and muslins, which set off their hap- 
 py, youthful, flower-like faces, made poor 
 Lydia's dull, thick cheeks look duller, and 
 thicker, and heavier. 
 
 Some women as plain-visaged as Lydia, 
 7i 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 seeing themselves, as it were, like dingy- 
 barnyard fowls among flocks of splendid 
 snowy doves and humming-birds, might 
 have deliberately tried to cultivate loving 
 kindness and sweet obligingness of man- 
 ner as an offset. But Lydia was not bril- 
 liant enough for that, neither had she 
 much personal ambition. It is doubtful if 
 she has ever looked in the glass much, ex- 
 cept to ascertain if her face was clean and 
 her hair smooth, and if her lack of comeli- 
 ness ever cost her an anxious hour. 
 
 Besides, Lydia's goodness, contrary to 
 the orthodox tenets, really seems to be the 
 result of nature, and nothing which she 
 has acquired at any known period since 
 her advent upon this earth. Nobody can 
 remember when Lydia was not just as 
 good and devout as she is now: just as 
 faithful in her ministrations to the af- 
 flicted and needy, just as constant at meet- 
 ing, just as patient under her own trials. 
 
 As a child at school Lydia never whis- 
 pered, was never tardy, seldom failed in 
 her lessons, and never teased away anoth- 
 72 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 er little girl's candy. Besides, her mother 
 always vouched for the fact that she was 
 good as a young and tender infant, and 
 consequently seemed to have been actual- 
 ly born good. 
 
 "Lyddy never cried except when she was 
 real sick/" her mother used to say. (She 
 lived to be a very old woman, and harped 
 upon her good daughter as if she were the 
 favorite string of her whole life.) " Never 
 knowed her cry because she was mad, as 
 the other children did. Lyddy allers took 
 her nap regular an' slept all night without 
 fussin'. An' she never banged her head 
 on the floor 'cause she couldn't have her 
 own way. She allers give in real pleas- 
 ant and smilin\" 
 
 What was true of Lydia as a baby has 
 undoubtedly been true of her ever since 
 — she has " allers give in real pleasant on' 
 smilinV There may be some people who 
 would urge the plea that Lydia has an 
 easy temperament, and not naturally such 
 a firm clutch upon her desires that it is 
 agony to relinquish them. But if all the 
 
 73 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 ways that Lydia has patiently and smiling- 
 ly accepted have been her own ways, she 
 must, even if her temperament had been 
 ever so stolid, have had peculiar tastes 
 and likings. Sometimes it would have 
 been almost like a relish for the scalping- 
 knife or the branding-iron. If Lydia has 
 not, metaphorically speaking, many times 
 during her life banged her head upon the 
 floor, it has not been from lack of proper 
 temptation. She has had from any hu- 
 man standpoint a hard life. Her father 
 died when she was a young girl. She had 
 to leave school and go about helping the 
 neighbors with sewing and cleaning and 
 extra household tasks when they had com- 
 pany, to earn a pittance for the support 
 of herself and her mother. Lydia's moth- 
 er, although she lived to be so old, was 
 always a feeble woman, crippled with 
 rheumatism. 
 
 Lydia lived patiently and laboriously, 
 earning just enough to keep her mother 
 comfortably and herself uncomfortably 
 alive, and that was all. She had one good 
 
 74 
 
Lydia Wheeiock 
 
 meal a day when she was working at a 
 neighbor's. Often we know that was all 
 she had, although she never said so and 
 never complained. 
 
 Lydia's shawl was always too thin for 
 winter wear, and we felt that we ought to 
 avoid looking at her poor bonnets in order 
 not to hurt her feelings. Every cent that 
 Lydia earned, beyond what she spent for 
 the barest necessaries, went for her moth- 
 ers comfort. 
 
 Her mother was never without her three 
 meals a day and her warm flannels, when 
 the dread of Lydia's life was that she 
 might faint away some day at a neighbor's 
 from lack of proper nourishment, and the 
 state of her attire in midwinter be dis- 
 covered. She confessed her great dread 
 to somebody once, after she was married. 
 
 When Lydia was about thirty she sud- 
 denly got married, to the surprise of the 
 whole village. Xobody had dreamed she 
 would ever marry. She was so plain and 
 so poor, and seemed years older than she 
 was — old enough to be her own grand- 
 
 75 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 mother, as Mrs. Harrison White said. She 
 married a man who had paid some atten- 
 tion to Mrs. Harrison White when she waa 
 a girl, and she was popularly supposed to 
 favor him, hut her parents objected, so 
 she married Harrison White instead. 
 
 Elisha Wheelock, the man Lydia mar- 
 ried, all the neighbors had called " a poor 
 tool." He was good-looking and good- 
 hearted, but seemed to have little ambi- 
 tion and no taste for industry. Moreover, 
 everybody said he drank. Lurinda Snell 
 said she had seen him when he could 
 scarcely walk, and many others agreed with 
 her. Although the village was surprised, 
 the village gave a sort of negative approval 
 of the banns. Everybody agreed that a man 
 like Elisha Wheelock couldn't hope to do 
 any better. No pretty girl with a good 
 home would forsake it for him, and as for 
 Lydia, it was probably her first and only 
 chance, and she could never hope to do 
 any better either. Moreover, Elisha owned 
 a comfortable house — his father had just 
 died and left it to him, with quite a good- 
 
 7 6 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 sized farm; and it was said positively that 
 Lydia's mother was to live there. "Lydia's 
 got a good home for herself and her moth- 
 er if 'Lisha don't drink it up," people said. 
 Some thought he would. Everybody 
 Matched to see the old homestead and 
 the fertile acres transformed into fiery 
 draughts going down Elisha's throat, but 
 they never did. 
 
 Lydia has had her way in one respect, 
 if not in others, and that one may suffice 
 for much. She has certainly had her way 
 with Elisha Wheelock and made a man of 
 him. Not a drop has he drunk, so far as 
 people know — and all the neighbors have 
 watched — in all the years since he mar- 
 ried Lydia. He has worked steadily on 
 his farm, he does not owe a dollar, and he 
 is said to have a nice little sum in the 
 savings bank. Moreover, he is a deacon 
 of the church, and on the school commit- 
 tee. 
 
 Some of the neighbors say openly that 
 Elisha would never have been deacon if it 
 had not been for his wife; that Lydia 
 77 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 ought to have been deacon, and since she 
 could not, because she was a woman, they 
 made her one by proxy through her hus- 
 band. Elisha is a good deacon — a very 
 good deacon, indeed — and he has Lydia to 
 fully and carefully advise him. 
 
 Lydia has never had any children, but 
 she always had a large family. She be- 
 gan with her own mother and her hus- 
 band's mother, and a little orphan second 
 cousin of her husband's who had lived 
 with the Wheelocks since her parents died. 
 Her own mother, as I said before, was very 
 feeble and a deal of care; her husband's 
 mother had a jealous, irritable disposition 
 and was very difficult to live with; the 
 orphan cousin was delicate, had the rick- 
 ets, and, people said, none too clear a 
 mind. Lydia kept no servant, and she 
 had to work hard to keep her house in or- 
 der, sew and mend, build up her husband's 
 character, and reconcile all the opposite 
 dispositions and requirements of her fam- 
 ily. She has had to delve in a spiritual as 
 well as temporal field, and employ heart 
 78 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 and soul and hands at the same time ever 
 since she was married. After her mother 
 died an old aunt of Elisha's, who would 
 otherwise have had to go upon the town, 
 came to live with them. She is stone- 
 deaf and has a curiously inquiring mind, 
 hut it is said that Lydia never loses her 
 patience and never wearies of shouting the 
 most useless information into her strain- 
 ing ears. 
 
 It was accounted somewhat fortunate 
 that Elisha's mother did not live long af- 
 ter Aunt Inez appeared, for it would have 
 been, not too great a strain upon Lydia's 
 patience — nobody doubts the long-sutTer- 
 ing of that — but for her strength, to rec- 
 oncile two such characters and keep the 
 peace for any length of time. However, 
 Elisha's mother had not been dead long 
 before a sister of the rickety orphan cou- 
 sin, who grows more and more of a charge 
 as the years go on, lost her husband and 
 came to live at the Wheelock place with her 
 four children. They said she would be a 
 great help to Lydia, but she is a pretty 
 79 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 young thing, in spite of her four children; 
 she is a good singer, and she is constant at 
 all the sociables and singing-schools, and 
 does a deal of fancy-work, and the neigh- 
 bors think Lydia has to take nearly all the 
 care of the children. They also think that 
 the young widow is setting her cap here 
 and there, and hope she may marry and 
 so relieve poor Lydia of herself and her 
 children. But, after all, it would be only a 
 temporary relief. Some other widow, or 
 orphan, or aged and infirm aunt, would 
 descend upon her, for it is well known 
 that it is Lydia who aids and abets her 
 husband in his charity toward his needy 
 relations. And, moreover, it is told how 
 she lets the children and the additional 
 expense be as small a source of worry to 
 him as possible. Some of the neighbors 
 think that if Lydia Wheelock stints herself 
 much more, to provide for widows and 
 orphans, she cannot go to meeting for lack 
 of simply decent covering. Lurinda Snell 
 is positive that she keeps her shawl on in 
 hot weather to cover up her sleeves, which 
 80 
 
Lvdia Wheelock 
 
 are past mending in any decorous fashion, 
 and simply make a show of their innum- 
 erable and not very harmonious patches. 
 And as for her bonnets, it is actually an 
 insult to look attentively at them. 
 
 Poor Lydia has not had a new carpet 
 in her sitting-room since she was married. 
 The one Elisha's mother had was old then, 
 and long ago went to the rag-man. Ever 
 since she has lived on the bare boards. It 
 is a dreadful thing in this village not to 
 have a carpet in the sitting-room. The 
 neighbors never get over being shocked at 
 the loud taps of their shoes on the hard 
 boards when they enter Lydia's. She had 
 a rag carpet almost done, they say, when 
 Lottie Green and her children came; since 
 then she has had no time nor opportunity 
 to finish it. 
 
 But everybody knew that if Lydia and 
 Ehsha did not do so much for other peo- 
 ple she could have a tapestry carpet in her 
 fitting-room, and a black silk dreSvS every 
 year. She sees to it, however, that Elisha 
 is not stinted to his discomfort. He has 
 81 
 
Lydia Wheelock 
 
 his nice Sunday clothes and looks as well 
 as any man in the whole village. 
 
 Lydia is a good cook, and is said to sim- 
 ply pamper her husband's appetite, and 
 take more pains to do so the more she has 
 in her family. We are all very sure that 
 Lydia never neglects her husband for his 
 needy relations, nor relaxes for an instant 
 her watchful eye upon his spiritual and 
 temporal needs. Miss Lurinda Snell de- 
 clares that she has built up a fire in the 
 north parlor every evening this winter 
 that Elisha may sit in there and read his 
 paper, and not be annoyed by Lottie 
 Green's children. They are very noisy, 
 boisterous children. 
 
 Lydia Wheelock, busy as she is with her 
 own, and the needs of her own, tried as 
 her strength must be by her own house- 
 hold cares, does not confine her ministra- 
 tions to them. If a neighbor is ill Lydia 
 is always ready to watch with her, and a 
 most invaluable nurse she is. Not a neigh- 
 bor but would rather have Lydia than any- 
 body else over her when she is ill. 
 82 
 
Lydia Wheelock. 
 
 Absolutely untiring is Lydia when min- 
 istering to the sick, tender as if the suf- 
 ferer were her own child, and yet so firm 
 and wise that one can feel her almost 
 sufficient of herself to pull one back to 
 health. 
 
 Lydia is always in the house of mourn- 
 ing; people claim her sympathy as if it 
 were their right, and she seems to recog- 
 nize her obligation toward all suffering 
 without a question. She is also always 
 ready with her aid on occasions of re- 
 joicings, at wedding feasts, as well as fu- 
 nerals. She comes to the front with her 
 kindly sympathy when the exigencies of 
 human life arise. 
 
 We look across the meeting-house on a 
 Sunday and see Lydia sitting listening to 
 the sermon, her plain face uplifted with 
 the expression of a saint, under that bon- 
 net which we avoid glancing at for love of 
 her, and our hearts are full of gratitude 
 for this good woman in our village. 
 
 83 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our 
 Village 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our 
 Village 
 
 One sometimes wonders whether it will 
 ever be possible in our village to attain 
 absolute rest and completion with regard 
 to quilts. One thinks after a week fairly 
 swarming with quilting bees, " Now every 
 housewife in the place must be well sup- 
 plied; there will be no need to make more 
 quilts for six months at least.'' Then, the 
 next morning a nice little becurled girl in 
 a clean pinafore knocks at the door and 
 repeats demurely her well-conned lesson: 
 " Mother sends her compliments, and 
 would be happy to have you come to her 
 quilting bee this afternoon." 
 
 One also wonders if quilts, like flow- 
 ers, have their seasons of fuller produc- 
 
 87 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 tion. On general principles it seems as if 
 the winter might be more favorable to 
 their gay complexities of bloom. In the 
 winter there are longer evenings for mer- 
 riment after the task of needlework is fin- 
 ished and the young men arrive; there are 
 better opportunities for roasted apples, 
 and chestnuts and flip, also for social 
 games. It is easier, too, as well as pleas- 
 anter, to slip over the long miles between 
 some of our farmhouses in a sleigh if it 
 is only a lover and his lass, or a wood-sled 
 if a party of neighbors or a whole family. 
 
 However, so many of our young women 
 become betrothed in the spring, and wed- 
 ded in the autumn, that the bees flourish 
 in the hottest afternoons and evenings of 
 midsummer. 
 
 For instance, Brama Lincoln White was 
 engaged to "William French, from Somer- 
 set, George Henry French's son, the first 
 Sunday in July, and the very next week 
 her mother, Mrs. Harrison White, sent out 
 invitations to a quilting bee. 
 
 The heat during all that week was 
 88 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 something to be remembered. It was so 
 warm that only the very youngest and 
 giddiest of the village people went to the 
 Fourth of July picnic. Cyrus Emmett 
 had a sunstroke out in the hayfield, and 
 Mrs. Deacon Stockwell's mother, who was 
 over ninety, was overcome by the heat and 
 died. Mrs. Stoekwell could not go to the 
 quilting, because her mother was buried 
 the day before. It was a misfortune to 
 Mrs. White and Brama Lincoln, for Mrs. 
 Stoekwell is one of the fastest quilters who 
 ever lived, but it was no especial depriva- 
 tion to Mrs. Stoekwell. Hardly any wom- 
 an who was invited to that quilting was 
 anxious to go. The bee was on Thursday, 
 which was the hottest day of all that hot 
 week. The earth seemed to give out heat 
 like a stove, and the sky was like the lid 
 of a fiery pot. The hot air steamed up in 
 our faces from the ground and beat down 
 on the tops of our heads from the sky. 
 There was not a cool place anywhere. The 
 village women arose before dawn, aired 
 their rooms, then shut the windows, drew 
 
 g 9 
 
A Ouilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 the curtains and closed blinds and shut- 
 ters, excluding all the sunlight, but in an 
 hour the heat penetrated. 
 
 Mrs. Harrison White's parlor faced 
 southwest, and the blinds would have to 
 be opened in order to have light enough; 
 it seemed a hard ordeal to undergo. Lu- 
 rinda Snell told Mrs. Wheelock that 
 it did seem as if Brama Lincoln might 
 have got ready to be married in better 
 weather, after waiting as long as she had 
 done. Brama was not very young, but 
 Lurinda was older and had given up being 
 married at all years ago. Mrs. Wheelock 
 thought she was a little bitter, but she 
 only pitied her for that. Lydia Wheelock 
 is always pitying people for their sins and 
 shortcomings instead of blaming them. 
 She pacified Lurinda, and told her to wear 
 her old muslin and carry her umbrella and 
 her palm-leaf fan, and the wind was from 
 the southwest, so there would be a breeze 
 in Mrs. White's parlor even if it was sun- 
 
 The women went early to the quilting; 
 90 
 
'A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 they were expected to be there at one 
 o'clock, to secure a long afternoon for 
 work. Eight were invited to quilt: Lu- 
 rinda and Mrs. Wheelock, the young wid- 
 ow, Lottie Green, and five other women, 
 some of them quite young, but master 
 hands at such work. 
 
 Brama and her mother were not going 
 to quilt; they had the supper to prepare. 
 Brama's intended husband was coming 
 over from Somerset to supper, and a 
 number of men from our village were 
 invited. 
 
 A few minutes before one o'clock the 
 quilters went down the street, with their 
 umbrellas bobbing over their heads. Mrs, 
 Harrison White lives on the South Side 
 in the great house where her husband 
 keeps store. She opened the door when 
 she saw her guests coming. She is a 
 stout woman, and she wore a large plaid 
 gingham dress, open at her creasy throat. 
 Her hair clung in wet strings to her tem- 
 ples and her face was blazing. She had 
 just come from the kitchen where she was 
 
 9i 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 baking cake. The whole house was sweet 
 and spicy with the odor of it. 
 
 She ushered her guests into the parlor, 
 where the great quilting-frame was 
 stretched. It occupied nearly the entire 
 room. There was just enough space for 
 the quilters to file around and seat them- 
 selves four on a side. The sheet of patch- 
 work was tied firmly to the pegs on the 
 quilting-frame. The pattern was intri- 
 cate, representing the rising sun, the num- 
 ber of pieces almost beyond belief; the 
 calicoes comprising it were of the finest 
 and brightest. 
 
 * Most all the pieces are new, an* I don't 
 believe but what Mis' White cut them 
 right off goods in the store," Lurinda 
 Snell whispered to Mrs. Wheelock when 
 the hostess had withdrawn and they had 
 begun their labors. 
 
 They further agreed among themselves 
 that Mrs. White and Brama must have 
 secretly prepared the patchwork in view 
 of some sudden and wholly uncertain mat- 
 rimonial contingency. 
 92 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 " I don't believe but what this quilt ha* 
 been pieced ever since Brama Lincoln was 
 eixteen years old/' whispered Lurinda 
 Snell, so loud that all the women could 
 hear her. Then suddenly she pounced 
 forward and pointed with her sharp fore- 
 finger at a piece of green and white calico 
 in the middle of the quilt. " There, I 
 knew it," said she. " I remember that 
 piece of calico in a square I saw Brama 
 Lincoln piecing over to our house before 
 Francis was married." Lurinda Snell has 
 a wonderful memory. 
 
 " That's a good many years ago," said 
 Lottie Green. 
 
 "Yes," whispered Lurinda Snell. When 
 she whispers her s's always hiss so that 
 they make one's ears ache, and she is very 
 apt to whisper. " L T sed to be hangin' round 
 Francis considerable before he was mar- 
 ried," she whispered in addition, and then 
 she thought that she heard Mrs. White 
 coming, and said, keeping up very loud, 
 in such a pleasant voice, " How comforta- 
 ble it is in this room for all it is such a 
 
 93 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 hot afternoon." But her cunning was 
 quite needless, for Mrs. White was not 
 coming. 
 
 The women chalked cords and marked 
 the patchwork in a diamond pattern for 
 quilting. Two women held the ends of a 
 chalked cord, stretching it tightly across 
 the patchwork, and a third snapped it. 
 That made a plain chalk line for the nee- 
 dle to follow. When a space as far as they 
 could reach had been chalked they quilted 
 it. When that was finished they rolled the 
 quilt up and marked another space. 
 
 Brama Lincoln's quilt was very large; 
 it did seem impossible to finish it that af- 
 ternoon, though the women worked like 
 beavers in that exceeding heat. They 
 feared that Brama Lincoln would be dis- 
 appointed and think they had not worked 
 as hard as they might when she and her 
 mother had been at so much trouble to 
 prepare tea for them. 
 
 Nobody saw Brama Lincoln or Mrs. 
 White again that afternoon, but they 
 could be heard stepping out in the kitchen 
 
 94 
 
A Ouilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 and sitting-room, and at five o'clock the 
 china dishes and silver spoons began to 
 clink. 
 
 At a quarter before six the men came. 
 There were only three elderly ones in the 
 company: Mr. Harrison White, of course, 
 and Mrs. Wheeloek's husband, and Mr. 
 Lucius Downey, whose wife had died the 
 jpear before. All the others were young, 
 and considered beaus in the village. 
 
 The women had just finished the quilt 
 and rolled it up, and taken down the 
 frame, when Lurinda Snell spied Mr. Lu- 
 aius Downey coming, and screamed out 
 Mid ran, and all the girls after her. They 
 had brought silk bags with extra finery, 
 wach as laces and ribbons and combs, to 
 put on in the evening, and they all raced 
 upstairs to the spare chamber. 
 
 When they came down with their rib- 
 bons gayly flying, and some of them with 
 their hair freshly curled, all the men had 
 arrived, and Mrs. White asked them to 
 walk out to tea. 
 
 Poor Mrs. White had put on her purple 
 
 95 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 eilk dress, but her face looked as if the 
 blood would burst through it, and her hair 
 as if it were gummed to her forehead. 
 Brama Lincoln looked very well; her front 
 hair was curled, and Lurinda thought 
 she had kept it in papers all day. She 
 wore a pink muslin gown, all ruffled to 
 the waist, and sat next her beau at the 
 table. 
 
 Lurinda Snell sat on one side of Mr. 
 Lucius Downey and Lottie Green on the 
 other, and they saw to it that his plate 
 was well filled. Once somebody nudged 
 me to look, and there were five slices of 
 cake and three pieces of pie on his plate. 
 However, they all disappeared — Mr. 
 Downey had a very good appetite. 
 
 Mrs. White had a tea which will go into 
 the history of the village. Everybody won- 
 dered how she and Brama had man- 
 aged to do so much in that terrible heat. 
 There were seven kinds of cake, besides 
 doughnuts, cookies and short ginger- 
 bread; there were five kinds of pie, and 
 cup custards, hot biscuits, cold bread, pre- 
 96 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 serves, cold ham and tongue. No woman 
 in the village had ever given a better quilt- 
 ing supper than Mrs. Harrison White and 
 Brama. 
 
 After supper the men went into the par- 
 lor and sat in a row against the wall, while 
 the women all assisted in clearing away 
 and washing the dishes. 
 
 Then the women, all except Mrs. Wheel- 
 ock, who went home to take care of Lottie 
 Greens children, joined the men in the 
 parlor, and the evening entertainment be- 
 gan. Mrs. White tried to have everything 
 as usual in spite of the heat. She had 
 even got the Slocum boy to come with his 
 fiddle that the company might dance. 
 
 First they played games — Copenhagen, 
 and post-office, roll the cover, and the rest. 
 Young and old played, except Brama Lin- 
 coln and her beau; they sat on the sofa 
 and were suspected of holding each oth- 
 er's hands under cover of her pink 
 flounces. Many thought it very silly in 
 them, but when Lurinda Snell told Mrs. 
 Wheelock of it next day she said that 
 
 97 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 she thought there were many worse things 
 to be ashamed of than love. 
 
 Lurinda Snell played the games witk 
 great enjoyment; she is very small and 
 wiry, and could jump for the rolling cover 
 like a cricket. Lurinda, in spite of her 
 bitterness over her lonely estate, and her 
 evident leaning toward Mr. Lucius Dow- 
 ney, is really very maidenly in some 
 respects. She always caught the cover be- 
 fore it stopped rolling, and withdrew her 
 hands before they were slapped in Copen- 
 hagen, whereas Lottie Green almost in- 
 variably failed to do so, and was, in conse- 
 quence, kissed so many times by Mr. 
 Downey that nearly everybody was smiling 
 and tittering about it. 
 
 However, Lurinda Snell was exceeding- 
 ly fidgety when post-office was played, 
 and Lucius Downey had so many letters 
 for Lottie Green, and finally she succeed- 
 ed in putting a stop to the game. The 
 post-office was in the front entry, and of 
 -course the parlor door was closed during 
 the delivery of the letters, and Lurinda 
 
 9* 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 objected to that. She said the room was 
 go warm with the entry door shut that 
 she began to feel a buzzing in her head, 
 which was always dangerous in her family. 
 Her grandfather had been overheated, 
 been seized with a buzzing in his head, 
 and immediately dropped dead, and so 
 had her father. When she said that, peo- 
 ple looked anxiously at Lurinda; her face 
 was flushed, and the post-office was given 
 up and the entry door opened. 
 
 Next Lottie Green was called upon to 
 fiing, as she always is in company, she has 
 iuch a sweet voice. She stood up in the 
 middle of the floor, and sang "Annie Lau- 
 rie" without any accompaniment, because 
 the Slocum boy, who is not an expert mu- 
 sician, did not know how to play that 
 tune, but Lurinda was taken with hic- 
 coughs. Nobody doubted that she really 
 had hiccoughs, but it was considered just- 
 ly that she might have smothered them in 
 her handkerchief, or at least have left the 
 room, instead of spoiling Lottie Green's 
 beautiful song, which she did completely- 
 
 99 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 If the Slocum boy could have played the 
 tune on his fiddle it would not have been 
 so disastrous, but "Annie Laurie" with no 
 accompaniment but that of hiccoughs was 
 a failure. Brama Lincoln tiptoed out into 
 the kitchen, and got some water for Lu- 
 rinda to take nine swallows without stop- 
 ping, but it did not cure her. Lurinda 
 hiccoughed until the song was finished. 
 
 The Slocum boy tuned his fiddle then 
 and the dancing began, but it was not a 
 success — partly because of Lurinda and 
 partly because of the heat. Lurinda would 
 not dance after the first; she said her head 
 buzzed again, but people thought — it may 
 have been unjustly — that she was hurt be- 
 cause Lucius Downey had not invited her 
 to dance. That spoiled the set, but aside 
 from that the room was growing insuffer- 
 ably warm. The windows were all wide 
 open, but the night air came in like puffs 
 of dark, hot steam, and swarms of mos- 
 quitoes and moths with it. The dancers 
 were all brushing away mosquitoes and 
 wiping their foreheads. Their faces were 
 ioo 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 blazing with the heat, and even the pretty 
 girls had a wilted and stringy look from 
 their hair out of curl and their limp mus- 
 lins. 
 
 When Lurinda refused to dance Brama 
 Lincoln at once said that she thought it 
 would be much pleasanter out-of-doors, 
 and took William French by the arm and 
 led the way. The rest of the quilting bee 
 was held in Harrison White's front yard. 
 The folks sat there until quite late, tell- 
 ing stories and singing hymns and songs. 
 Lottie Green would not sing alone; she 
 said it would make her too conspicuous. 
 The front yard is next to the store, and 
 there was a row of men on the piazza set- 
 tee, besides others coming and going. The 
 yard was light from the store windows. 
 Brama Lincoln and William French sat 
 as far back in the shadow as they could. 
 
 Mr. Lucius Downey sat on the door-step, 
 but of the dampness; he considers him- 
 self delicate. Lottie Green sat on one side 
 of him and Lurinda Snell on the other. 
 
 There was much covert curiosity as to 
 
A Quilting Bee in Our Village 
 
 which of the two he would escort home. 
 Some thought he would choose Lottie, 
 some Lurinda. The problem was solred 
 in a most unexpected manner. 
 
 Lottie Green lives nearly a mile out of 
 his way, in one direction, Lurinda half a 
 mile in another. When the quilting bee 
 disbanded Lottie, after lingering and look- 
 ing back with sweetly-pleading eyes from 
 under her pretty white rigolette, went 
 down the road with Lydia Wheelock's hus- 
 band; Lurinda slipped forlornly up the 
 road in the wake of a fond young couple, 
 keeping close behind them for protection 
 against the dangers of the night, and Mr. 
 Lucius Downey went home by himself. 
 
 102 
 
The Stockwells' Apple- 
 Paring Bee 
 
The Stockwells' Apple- 
 Paring Bee 
 
 During " apple years " there are always 
 many paring bees in our village. During 
 other years there are, of course, not so 
 many, and people, consequently, are more 
 eager to attend them. When Mr. Nehe- 
 miah Stoekwell gave his great bee it was 
 the only one that autumn, and, therefore, 
 an occasion to be remembered on that ac- 
 count, had not so many remarkable things 
 happened during the evening. It seemed 
 singular, when all the other orchards 
 yielded so little fruit, for it was an unus- 
 ually " of! year," that ]STehemiah Stock- 
 welPs trees should have been bent to the 
 ground and even had some of their 
 branches broken beneath the great weight 
 *°5 
 
The Stockwells* Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 of apples, but thus matters often are with 
 him. 
 
 The neighbors regard Nehemiah Stock- 
 well with admiration, somewhat tinctured 
 with a curious jealousy as of his favorit- 
 ism with Providence. The) r cannot under- 
 stand why, when every other garden im 
 the village shows blasted melon-vines, his 
 are rampant with golden globes; when the 
 cut-worms eat everybody else's cabbages 
 his are left undisturbed. 
 
 To use the language of one of the bit- 
 terest dissenters against Mr. StoekwelFs 
 good fortune: "It does seem as if every- 
 body else's ' off year ' was his ' on year/ " 
 and "he always gets double what any- 
 thing is worth, because nobody else las 
 got it/' 
 
 Still, when people were invited to the 
 paring bee they went, though many felt 
 aggrieved and puzzled at such an unequal 
 distribution of the fruits of the earth. Lu- 
 rinda Snell said she was going anyhow, 
 for she hadn't " eat " a good apple that 
 year, and probably many shared her politic 
 
 TO* 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 imposition not to slight the good things 
 •f others, because of rancor at haying 
 Bone of their own. 
 
 The bee was held in the barn instead of 
 th« kitchen, since it would accommodate 
 a greater number of people. The Stock- 
 well barn is a very lajge one on the oppo- 
 fite side of the road from the house. It 
 was as clean as a parlor, and well lighted 
 with rows of lanterns hung from the 
 fceams and scaffolds. Mrs. Stockwell used 
 all her own, and borrowed many of the 
 neighbors', kitchen chairs, and there were 
 a number of tables set out with pans and 
 knives, and needles aud strings. Bushel- 
 fcaskets of apples stood around the tables, 
 and the whole place was full of their 
 goodly smell. There was also a woody 
 fragrance of evergreen and pine, for Lot- 
 tie Green and Zepheretta Stockwell and 
 some other girls had been at work all day 
 trimming the barn. It was a pretty sight, 
 and, moreover, quite a novel one. The 
 stanchions of the cow-stalls, the straight 
 ladders to the scaffolds, and the posts sup- 
 107 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 porting them were all wound with ever- 
 green, and great branches of red and yel- 
 low maple, and sumach, were stuck in the 
 shaggy fleeces of hay in the mows. Then 
 Lottie Green, who has quite a daring in- 
 vention of her own, had gone a step be- 
 yond — each mild-faced Jersey cow in the 
 stalled row had her # horns decorated with 
 evergreens and yellow leaves, and looked 
 out of her stanchions at the company like 
 some queer beast of fable, and, it must be 
 confessed, with somewhat uneasy tossing 
 of her crowned head. 
 
 Lurinda Snell whispered to somebody 
 that Lottie Green had called in Mr. Lu- 
 cius Downey, who happened to be passing 
 by, to tie the greens on the cows' horns 
 when they came home from pasture, and 
 she thought it was pretty silly work. 
 
 However, everybody agreed that the 
 barn was a charming sight, and it became 
 still more so when the company was seat- 
 ed around paring apples and stringing 
 them. 
 
 Old and young had come to the bee, and 
 1 08 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 the lantern light shone on silvery glancing" 
 heads and dark and golden ones. It was 
 a very warm night for October, so warm 
 that the great barn doors were slid apart 
 for air. People could see through the open- 
 ing a young maple tree full of yellow 
 leaves, which gleamed like a torch in the 
 light from the barn. 
 
 The girls often motioned the young 
 men to look at it. " See how handsome 
 that tree looks," they cried. 
 
 One young man, Jim Paine, whispered 
 to the girl beside him, so loud that Lurin- 
 da Snell heard, that he did not need to 
 look outside the barn to see something 
 handsome, but all the others looked at 
 the beautiful tree and assented. Jim 
 Paine is, perhaps, the most gallant young 
 man in the village, but he has had the ad- 
 vantage of living in Boston. He was in 
 business there for two years, and, though 
 he has now come home to live, and set- 
 tled down with his father, he does not lose 
 his city polish, and he makes the other 
 young men appear provincial. He ia 
 109 
 
The Stockwclls' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 handsome, too, and considered a great 
 catch by the village girls and their moth- 
 ers. 
 
 People were not surprised at Jim 
 Paine's remark; they admitted that it 
 sounded just like him, but they wondered 
 that it should have been addressed to such 
 a girl. Zepheretta Stockwell is a good 
 girl, no one denies that. She is faithful 
 and industrious, but she is not only very 
 plain-featured, but quite lame, and none 
 of the young men have fancied her. 
 
 The other girls were almost too scorn- 
 ful to be jealous, and tittered when Lurin- 
 da Snell repeated Jim's speech. As for 
 poor Zepheretta, who had never, during* 
 her whole life, had anything like that said 
 to her, she turned white as a sheet at first, 
 and then looked at Jim in a sad, sharp 
 way that she has; then she blushed so that 
 her cheeks were as red as the apple she 
 was paring, and she looked almost pretty. 
 Zepheretta's hair is a common, lustreless 
 brown, but she brushes it until it is very 
 smooth; she never crimps it. There is a 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 sort of patient hopelessness of attraction 
 about Zepheretta. She does not even have 
 her dresses trimmed much. That night 
 she wore a plain brown cashmere with a 
 little white ruffle in the neck, and a very 
 fine white cambric apron beautifully hem- 
 stitched. People thought that Zepheretta 
 was rather extravagant to wear such an 
 apron to a paring bee, though her father 
 was well-to-do. All the women wore 
 aprons, but most of them were made of 
 gingham or calico. 
 
 The men pared the apples, and some of 
 the women pared and some strung. The 
 stringing was regarded as rather the nicer 
 work, and the prettiest girls, as a rule, did 
 it. After a while Jim Paine took away 
 Zepheretta's pan of apples and knife, and 
 got a dish of nicely-cut quarters, and a 
 needle and string for her. Then some of 
 the pretty girls began to look spiteful and 
 sober. Presently one of them, Maria Rice, 
 cut her finger, for she was paring, and said 
 she would not work at all; she would 
 go home if she could not string. The» 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 Zepheretta at once gave up her stringing 
 to Maria and fell to paring again, while 
 Jim Paine looked bewildered and vexed. 
 After a little he edged over beside Maria, 
 and pared and cut for her to string, and 
 she was radiant. As for Zepheretta she 
 pared away as patient as ever. She is 
 always giving up to other people, still she 
 looked rather sober. 
 
 All the young people were twirling ap- 
 ple-parings three times around their heads 
 and letting them fall over their left shoul- 
 ders to determine the initials of their fu- 
 ture husbands or wives. They also named 
 apples and counted the seeds, all except- 
 ing Zepheretta. They would have been 
 inclined to laugh if she had followed their 
 example, for nobody thought Zepheretta 
 would ever marry. 
 
 Finally, Jim Paine, in spite of Maria 
 Rice's efforts to keep him, rose and saun- 
 tered over to where Zepheretta sat patient- 
 ly paring. Her face lit up so when he 
 6at down beside her that she looked al- 
 most pretty. Maria Rice looked non- 
 112 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 plusscd, but only for a moment. She had 
 enough strategic instinct for a general. 
 She also rose promptly, followed Jim, and 
 sat down, not beside him, as a less clever 
 girl would have done, but on the other 
 side, next Zepheretta. She began to ad- 
 mire, with great effusion, the knitted lace 
 on Zepheretta's apron, and begged for the 
 pattern. She took up Zepheretta's atten- 
 tion so completely that Jim Paine, on the 
 other side, was quite ignored, and pared 
 apples in silence. 
 
 Probably not many people in the barn 
 saw through Maria's manoeuvre. Our vil- 
 lage does not rear many diplomats. Few 
 would have even noticed it had it not been 
 for the accident which resulted and came 
 near changing our festivity to tragedy. 
 Maria, in order to sit beside Zepheretta, 
 had forced herself into a corner where no 
 one was expected to sit, and which was oc- 
 cupied by a low-hung lantern. Her head 
 came very near it when she first sat down, 
 and some one called to her to take care. 
 She jerked aside, with a coquettish giggle, 
 
 "3 
 
The Stockwclls' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 but it was not long before she forgot and 
 brought her head up severely against the 
 lantern. There was a crash, a scream, thea 
 a wild flash of fire, and Zepheretta Stock- 
 well was flying to the nearest horse-stali 
 and dragging off the bay mare's blanket 
 before anybody could think. Maria's aproa 
 was blazing, and if it had not beea 
 for Zepheretta she would certainly have 
 been dangerously, if not fatally, burned. 
 Zepheretta flung the horse blanket over 
 Maria, and threw her down to the floor un- 
 der it before any one else stirred. Thea 
 Jim Paine sprung, but Zepheretta cried t* 
 him fiercely to keep off, and crouched M 
 closely over Maria that he could not come 
 near. However, there was enough to do, 
 for a fringe of hay from the scaffold had 
 caught fire, and if it had not been for quick 
 work the barn would have gone. It was 
 a narrow escape as it was, for hay burns 
 like powder. The men tore off their coata 
 to smother the flames; they formed a line 
 to the well and passed buckets of water. 
 In fifteen minutes the fire was completely 
 
 114 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 under control, but that was an end of the 
 apple paring for that night. The barn 
 was drenched with water, the apples were 
 swollen and dripping, and everybodj was 
 too nervous to settle down to work again 
 under any circumstances. 
 
 Maria Eice was not burned at all. When 
 Zepheretta released her from the blanket 
 she got up, looking pale and disheveled, 
 with her apron a blackened rag, but she 
 was quite uninjured. But poor Zepheret- 
 ta's hands were burned to a blister, though 
 she said nothing, and nobody would have 
 known it had she not almost fainted away- 
 after the scare was over. 
 
 Mr. Nehemiah Stockwell stood up in the 
 middle of the barn and said he guessed we 
 had better call the paring over, and all 
 come into the house and have supper. His 
 voice trembled, and we could see that he 
 was still fairly quaking with the fright. 
 
 It would have been a great loss to ISTe- 
 hemiah Stockwell had his barn been de- 
 stroyed, for he carried only a very small 
 insurance on it. 
 
 Ir 5 
 
The Stockwells* Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 "Well, we all went across the road to the 
 house — those who had not fled there al- 
 ready in the fear of being burned alive in 
 the barn — and there was the supper-table 
 all laid in the sitting-room. 
 
 It was just after we entered the house 
 that Zepheretta nearly fainted from the 
 pain of her burns, and her Aunt Hannah, 
 Mr. StockwelPs sister, who had been as- 
 sisting Mrs. Stockwell, went with her to 
 her own room. That was possibly the rea- 
 son why we had such a singular experi- 
 ence with the supper. Hannah Stockwell 
 being very calm and clear-headed, it is not 
 probable that she would have allowed us 
 to sit down to the table until certain mat- 
 ters had been differently arranged. Poor 
 Mrs. Stockwell was almost in hysterics — 
 tears rolling down her cheeks in spite of 
 her frequent dabs with her apron, catch- 
 ing her breath, and trembling so that 
 when she took up a cup and saucer they 
 rattled like castanets. 
 
 "We placed ourselves as best we could 
 around the table. There was not quite 
 116 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 chairs enough; some stood all through 
 the meal, though Mr. Stockwell and his 
 hired man raced wildly back and forth 
 with chairs, after the blessing had been 
 asked. 
 
 The minister asked the blessing, and it 
 was a very long one, including fervent 
 thanks for deliverance from perils, from 
 fire and flood. Then we began to eat sup- 
 per, but there was very little to eat. There 
 was really nothing but bread — and cold 
 bread at that — and dried-apple sauce, and 
 one small pumpkin pie. There was neith- 
 er tea nor coffee, though many were 
 sure they could smell them. Everybody 
 had expected a fine supper at the Stock- 
 wells', but there was such a poor repast as 
 nobody in our village had ever been known 
 to offer at a paring bee. However, we 
 were all too polite, of course, to speak of 
 it, and Mrs. Stockwell did not appear to 
 notice anything out of the way. Lurinda 
 Snell whispered that she acted as if she 
 didn't know whether she was at a wed- 
 ding or a funeral. Lurinda looked out 
 i*7 
 
The Stockwells , Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 that Lucius Downey had a piece of the 
 one pumpkin pie. We all discussed the 
 fire and tried to eat as if we enjoyed the 
 supper, but it was hard work. The dried- 
 apple sauce was not sweetened, and there 
 was no butter, even, on the table. 
 
 We went home soon after supper. Usu- 
 ally there is an after-course of flip and 
 roasted chestnuts on these occasions, but 
 nothing was said about it that night. We 
 all sat around a half hour or so and dis- 
 cussed the fire, and then, with one accord, 
 rose and took leave. Zepheretta had not 
 returned, and we understood that she had 
 gone to bed. I heard Jim Paine inquir- 
 ing of Mrs. Stockwell how she was, and 
 she replied that Hannah had put scraped 
 potato on the burns, and they were less 
 painful, but she guessed Zepheretta 
 wouldn't come down again. Jim Paine 
 had to take Maria Rice home, for she de- 
 clared that she felt too weak to walk, and 
 he was the only one who had a vacant seat 
 in his carriage. 
 
 We were all flocking out of the front 
 118 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 gate, looking across at the barn, and say- 
 ing for the hundredth time how thankful 
 we ought to be, when we heard Hannah 
 StockwelPs voice, and after her Mrs. Ne- 
 hrrniah StockweH's, like a shrill echo. 
 
 " You haven't had a single thing that 
 we meant to have for supper," cried Han- 
 nah Stockwell. 
 
 " No, you ain't, oh, dear ! oh, dear ! " 
 cried Mrs. Stockwell after her. 
 
 " There was mince pies, and apple pies, 
 and Indian pudding," said Hannaji. 
 
 "And plum pudding," declared Mrs. 
 Stockwell. 
 
 " Pumpkin pie and cranberry pie, and 
 Aoughnuts." 
 
 " And cheese » 
 
 u There was hot biscuits, and corn- 
 "bread, and freshly-baked beans." 
 
 " And pork, and pickles " 
 
 ° There was a great chicken pie, and 
 coffee." 
 
 "And tea for them that wanted it," 
 said Mrs. Stockwell. " I forgot every- 
 thing. I was so upset. Oh, dear ! " 
 119 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 " There was pound cake, and fruit cake, 
 and sponge cake," Hannah Stockwell said. 
 
 u And ginger cookies, and seed cakes — 
 oh, dear ! " 
 
 The two women went on with the cata- 
 logue of that feast which we had missed. 
 No such supper had ever "been prepared 
 for an apple-paring bee in our village. 
 They begged us, and Mr. Stockwell begged 
 us, to return and partake of the dainties, 
 but it was too late, we were all more or 
 less shaken by our exciting experience, 
 and we all refused, though some of the 
 men would have accepted had not their 
 wives hindered them. 
 
 We bade the Stockwells good-night, as- 
 suring them that we had had a delightful 
 evening, and that the supper did not sig- 
 nify in the least, and departed. But, as we 
 were going down the road, we heard Han- 
 nah StockwelPs voice again: 
 
 " There were fried apple turnovers and 
 currant jelly tarts," and Mrs. Stockweirs, 
 feebly, but insistently, "And peach pre- 
 serves and tomato ketchup." 
 120 
 
The Stockwells' Apple-Paring Bee 
 
 We went home that night feeling sure, 
 and we have felt sure ever since, that we 
 had never in our lives eaten, nor ever 
 should eat, such a supper as the one we 
 missed at the Stockwells' apple-paring 
 bee. 
 
 121 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our 
 Village 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our 
 Village 
 
 The singing-school is, of course, a regu- 
 lar institution in our village during the 
 winter months, but the one of special in- 
 terest is held on Christmas Eve. That is 
 called, to distinguish it from the others, 
 " The Christmas Sing/' On that night 
 only the psalms and fugues appropriate to 
 the occasion are sung, and the town hall is 
 trimmed with holly and evergreen. 
 
 The Sing begins at eight o'clock and is 
 always preceded by a turkey supper. The 
 supper is in the tavern, as it used to be 
 called — now we say "hotel " — still it is 
 the tavern, and always will be the same 
 old house where the stages drew up be- 
 fore the railroad was built. 
 
 I2s 
 
The Christmas Sing in Cur Village 
 
 The turkey supper is at six o'clock, and 
 at least two hours are required to dispose 
 of the good things and speechify; then the 
 people cross the road to the town hall, 
 where the Sing is held. It is a great oc- 
 casion in our village, and the women give 
 as much care to their costumes as if they 
 were going to a ball. The dressmaker is 
 hard worked for weeks before the Sing. 
 Everybody who can afford it has a new 
 dress, and those who cannot, have their 
 old ones made over. The women all try 
 to keep their costumes secret until the 
 night of the Sing, and the dressmaker is 
 bound over by the most solemn promises 
 not to reveal anything. The Christmas 
 Sing is often most brilliant and surprising 
 to our humble tastes in the matter of 
 dress, and was especially so last year. The 
 sing of last year was also noteworthy in 
 another respect; there were three betroth- 
 als and a runaway marriage that night. 
 
 It was ideal weather for Christmas Eve 
 and our Sing; very cold and clear, a full 
 moon, and a beautiful, hard level of snow 
 126 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 for sleighing. At six o'clock everybody 
 was assembled at the tavern; past and 
 present members of the singing-school — 
 even old man Veazie, who is over ninety 
 — were there. There were also some guests 
 — fine singers — from out of town. 
 
 The turkey supper was excellent, and 
 so were the speeches. One of the best was 
 made by Mr. Cassius C. Powell from East 
 Langham, a village about eight miles from 
 ours, ile is a very line tenor singer and 
 quite a celebrity. He sings in the church 
 choir in Langham, and is in great demand 
 to sing at funerals. He is not very young, 
 but fine looking and a great favorite with 
 the ladies. He has a gentle, deferential 
 way of looking at them which is consid- 
 ered very attractive. Lottie Green sat next 
 him at the supper-table, and lie looked at 
 her, and made sure that she had plenty 
 of white meat and gravy. Mr. Lucius 
 Downey was on the other side of Lottie, 
 but she paid no attention to him. Had it 
 not been for Lurinda Snell. who was next 
 on his right, lie might have felt slighted _ 
 127 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 She looked very well, too, in a fine new 
 silk dress, plum color with velvet trim- 
 ming. Lurinda was quite pretty in her 
 youth, and sometimes dress and excite- 
 ment seem to revive something of her old 
 beauty. Her cheeks were pink and her 
 eyes bright; her hair, which is still abun- 
 dant, was most beautifully crimped. 
 
 Lottie Green, also, looked very pretty. 
 She had not been able to afford a new 
 dress, but she had made over her old blue 
 cloth one and put in silk sleeves, and it 
 was as good and quite as pretty as when it 
 was new. 
 
 Probably Maria Bice had the finest new 
 dress of any of the girls. Everybody stared 
 at Maria when she entered with a great 
 rustle of silk and rattle of starched petti- 
 coats. The dress was of pink silk, and — 
 a most startling innovation in our village 
 — the waist was cut square and quite low. 
 Maria has a beautiful neck, and she wore 
 a great bunch of pink roses on one shoul- 
 der. She had elbow sleeves, too, and drew 
 -off her long gloves with a very fme air 
 128 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 when she sat down to table. The other 
 girls were half admiring, half scandalized. 
 No such costume as that had ever been 
 worn to our singing school before. Poor 
 Zepheretta Stockwell, in a black silk 
 which might have been worn appro- 
 priate!}' by her grandmother, was entirely 
 eclipsed by Maria in more senses than 
 one. Jim Paine sat between the two girls 
 at supper. Maria's pink skirts spread over 
 his knee, her pretty face was tilted up in 
 his and her tongue was wagging every 
 minute. Once I saw Jim try to speak to 
 Zepheretta, but Maria was too quick for 
 him. 
 
 When supper was over the people all 
 assembled in the town hall without delay. 
 The hall was finely decorated — green 
 wreaths hung in all the windows, and the 
 portrait of the gentleman who gave the 
 town house to the village fifty years ago, 
 '\Squire Ebenezer Adams, was draped with 
 an American flag. It is a life-size por- 
 trait, and hangs on the right of the 
 stage. Our old singing master and choir 
 129 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 leader, Mr. Orlando Sage, stood on the 
 stage, and conducted the school, as usual. 
 The piano was on his right. The south 
 district teacher, Mis? Elmira Crane, played 
 that. There was old Mr. Joseph Nelson, 
 With his hass viol, which he used to play 
 in the church choir, and Thomas Farr and 
 Charlie Morse, with their violins. 
 
 The school was arranged in the usual 
 manner, in the four divisions of sopranos, 
 tenors, bassos and altos. At eight o'clock 
 Mr. Sage raised his baton, and the music 
 began. 
 
 Everybody stood up, and sang their best 
 and loudest, with, perhaps, one exception. 
 The result was quite magnificent, unless 
 you happened to stand close to certain 
 singers, and did not sing loud enough 
 yourself to drown them out. 
 
 "We went on with the fine old fugues, 
 and it was grand, had it not been for the 
 weakness in the sopranos. At length, Mr. 
 Orlando Sage stood directly in front of 
 the sopranos, waving his baton frantical- 
 ly, raising himself up on his toes, and 
 130 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 jerking his head as if in such ways he 
 would stimulate them to greater volume 
 of voice. Mr. Sage is a nervous little 
 man. Finally, with an imperious switch 
 of his baton, and a stamp of his foot, he 
 brought the whole school to a dead stop. 
 
 "Miss Stockwell/' he said, "why don't 
 you sing ? " 
 
 Everybody stared at Zepheretta. She 
 turned white, then red, and replied mcek- 
 
 
 
 that she was sinsin 
 
 " Xo, you are not singing," returned 
 Mr. Sage. " I was riding pasi your fa- 
 ther's yesterday, and I heard you singing. 
 You have a voice. Why don't you sing ? '' 
 
 Mr. Sage brandished his baton, as if he 
 would like to hit her with it, and poor 
 Zepheretta looked almost frightened to 
 death. " Why don't you sing ? " sternly 
 demanded Mr. Sage again. " You never 
 sing in this school as you can sing." 
 
 Zepheretta looked as if she were going 
 
 lo cry. She opened her mouth, as if to 
 
 speak, but did not. Then, suddenly, Lu- 
 
 riuda Snell, who sat on her right, spoke 
 
 1^1 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 for her. " I can tell you why, if you want 
 to know, Mr. Sage," she said; " I haven't 
 told a soul before, but much as three 
 years ago I heard Maria Rice tell Zepher- 
 etta not to sing so loud, she drowned her 
 all out, and Zepheretta hasn't sung so 
 loud since/' 
 
 When Lurinda stopped, with a defiant 
 nod of her head, you could have heard a 
 pin drop. Maria Rice, on the other side 
 of Zepheretta, was blushing as pink as her 
 •dress. Then Mr. Sage brought his baton 
 down. " Sing ! " he shouted, and we all 
 began again — " When shepherds watch 
 their flocks by night.*' 
 
 Zepheretta did let out her voice a little 
 more then, and we were all amazed; no- 
 body had dreamed she could sing so well. 
 Still it was quite evident that she held her 
 voice back somewhat on her high notes, 
 on account of Maria's feelings, though 
 Maria would not sing at all during the 
 rest of the evening. I think she was glad 
 when the Sing was over, though everybody 
 else had enjoyed it. 
 
 132 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 It was ten o'clock when we closed, after 
 singing " When marshaled on the nightly 
 plain/*' and all the young men who had 
 come with teams hastened out to get 
 them. Many a young woman who had 
 come to the Sing with her father or 
 brother went home in the sleigh of some 
 gallant swain who was waiting for her 
 when she emerged from the town hall. 
 All the girls in coming down the steps ran 
 a sort of gauntlet of love and jealousy 
 between double lines of waiting beaus, 
 beyond whom the restive horses pranced 
 with frequent flurries of bells. 
 
 Then Maria Rice, to the great delight 
 of the vindictive of her sex and the 
 amused pity of others, was seen, after 
 manifestly hurrying and lingering, and 
 peering with eagerly furtive eyes toward 
 Jim Paine, to gather up her pink silk 
 skirts and go forlornly down the road 
 with Lydia Wheelock, who lived her way.' 
 It was rumored that she wept all the way 
 home, in spite of Lydia's attempts to com- 
 fort her, but nobody ever knew. She was 
 
 *33 
 
The Christmas Sing in Our Village 
 
 not far on the road before Jim Paine and 
 Zepheretta passed her in Jim's sleigh, 
 drawn by his fast black horse. 
 
 Everybody was astonished to see Jim 
 step out from the waiting file, accost 
 Zepheretta, and lead her to his sleigh as 
 if she had been a princess, and probably 
 Zepheretta was the most astonished of all. 
 ; Mr. Caseins C. Dowell, who had driven 
 over from Langham, took Lottie Green 
 home, and Mr. Lucius Downey escorted 
 Lurinda Snell. He had brought a lantern, 
 though it w r as bright moonlight — he is 
 fond of carrying *one because his eyes are 
 poor. The lantern light shone full on 
 Lurinda's face as she went proudly past 
 on his arm, and she looked like a young 
 girl. 
 
 The next day we heard that all three 
 couples were going to be married, and 
 that another young couple, who had 
 driven down the road at such a furious 
 rate that everybody had hastened out of 
 the way, and there had been narrow es- 
 capes from collisions, were married. They 
 
 *34 
 
The Christinas Sing in Our Village 
 
 had driven ten miles to Dover for that 
 purpose, nobody ever knew why. The 
 parents on either side would have given 
 free consent to the match, but they drove 
 to Dover that Christmas Eve as if a whole 
 regiment of furious relatives were savage- 
 ly charging at their back-. 
 
 However, that marriage has been happy 
 so far, and the others also. Jim and 
 Zepheretta are a devoted pair; Lurinda 
 Snell makes a good wife for Lucius Dow- 
 ney, and does not talk as bitterly about 
 her neighbors as she was accustomed to 
 do formerly. Cassius C. Dowell seems 
 very happy with Lottie, so the neighbor- 
 all say, and Lydia Wheclock, now that 
 she has not Lottie and her children to 
 look after and provide for, has bought. 
 herself a new parlor carpet and a bonnet. 
 
 Take it altogether, that Sing seemed to 
 bring much happiness to our village, set. 
 as it were, to sweet Christmas music. 
 
THE 
 JAMESONS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 'A Humble Romance," "A New England Nun, 
 
 "TiiMDROKE," Etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Intbrmational Association of Newspapers & Authors 
 1901 
 
Copyright, 189S, 1899, by thk 
 CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 CoPYRICHT, 1899, BY THK 
 
 BOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO. 
 
 hOKiH tUVEK iSJNDEKY 
 PKIN'TKKS AN!) BINDERS 
 NEW YORK CITV, N. Y. 
 
THE JAMESONS 
 
 THEY ARRIVE 
 
 Until that summer nobody in our vil- 
 lage had ever taken boarders. There had 
 been no real necessity for it, and we had 
 always been rather proud of the fact. 
 "While we were certainly not rich — there 
 was not one positively rich family among 
 us — we were comfortably provided with 
 all the necessities of life. We did not 
 need to open our houses, and our closets, 
 and our bureau drawers, and give the 
 freedom of our domestic hearths, and, as 
 it were, our household gods for playthings, 
 to strangers and their children. 
 1 136 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Many of us had to work for our daily 
 bread, but, we were thankful to say, not 
 in that way. We prided ourselves be- 
 cause there was no summer hotel with a 
 demoralizing bowling-alley, and one of 
 those dangerous chutes, in our village. 
 We felt forbiddingly calm and superior 
 when now and then some strange city 
 people from Grover, the large summer 
 resort six miles from us, travelled up and 
 down our main street seeking board in 
 vain. We plumed ourselves upon our 
 reputation of not taking boarders for love 
 or money. 
 
 Nobody had dreamed that there was to 
 be a break at last in our long-established 
 custom, and nobody dreamed that the 
 break was to be made in such a quarter. 
 One of the most well-to-do, if not the 
 most well-to-do, of us all, took the first 
 boarders ever taken in Linnville. When 
 Amelia Powers heard of it she said, 
 " Them that has, gits." 
 
 On the afternoon of the first day of 
 137 
 
They Arrive 
 
 June, six years ago, I was sewing at my 
 sitting-room window. I was making a 
 white muslin dress for little Alice, my 
 niece, to wear to the Seventeenth-of-June 
 picnic. I had been sitting there alone all 
 the afternoon, and it was almost four 
 o'clock when I saw Amelia Powers, who 
 lives opposite, and who had been sewing 
 at her window — I had noticed her arm 
 moving back and forth, disturbing the 
 shadows of the horse-chestnut tree in the 
 yard — fling open her front door, run out 
 on the piazza, and stand peering around 
 the corner post, with her neck so stretched 
 that it looked twice as long as before. 
 Then her sister Candace, who has poor 
 health and seldom ventures out-of-doors, 
 threw up the front chamber window and 
 leaned out as far as she was able, and 
 stared with her hand shading her eyes 
 from the sun. I could just see her head 
 through an opening in the horse-chestnut 
 branches. 
 
 Then I heard another door open, and 
 138 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Mrs. Peter Jones, who lives in the house 
 next below the Powers', came running 
 out. She ran down the walk to her front 
 gate and leaned over, all twisted sideways, 
 to see. 
 
 Then I heard voices, and there were 
 Adeline Ketchum and her mother coming 
 down the street, all in a nutter of hurry. 
 Adeline is slender and nervous ; her elbows 
 jerked out, her chiu jerked up, and her 
 skirts switched her thin ankles; Mrs. 
 Ketchum is very stout, and she walked 
 with a kind of quivering flounce. Her 
 face was blazing, and I knew her bonnet 
 was on hindside before — I was sure that 
 the sprig of purple flowers belonged on 
 the front. 
 
 When Adeline and her mother reached 
 Mrs. Peter Jones' gate they stopped, and 
 they all stood there together looking. 
 Then I saw Tommy Gregg racing along, 
 and I felt positive that his mother had 
 sent him to see what the matter was. 
 She is a good woman, but the most curi- 
 i39 
 
They Arrive 
 
 ous person in our village. She never 
 seems to have enough affairs of her own 
 to thoroughly amuse her. I never saw a 
 hoy run as fast as Tommy did — as if his 
 mother's curiosity and his own were a 
 sort of motor compelling him to his ut- 
 most speed. His legs seemed never to 
 come out of their running crooks, and his 
 shock of hair was fairly stiffened out he- 
 hind with the wind. 
 
 Then I began to wonder if it were pos- 
 sible there was a fire anywhere. I ran to 
 my front door and called : 
 
 "Tommy! Tommy!" said T, "where is 
 the fire?" 
 
 Tommy did not hear me, but all of a 
 sudden the fire-bell began to ring. 
 
 Then I ran across the street to Mrs. 
 Peter Jones' gate, and Amelia Powers 
 came hurrying out of her yard. 
 
 M Where is it ? Oh, where is it ? " said 
 she, and Candace put her head out of the 
 window and called out, "Where is it? 
 Is it near here ? " 
 
 740 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 "We all sniffed for smoke and strained 
 our eyes for a red fire glare on the hori- 
 zon, but we could neither smell nor see 
 anything unusual. 
 
 Pretty soon we heard the fire-engine 
 coming, and Amelia Powers cried out: 
 "Oh, it's going to Mrs. Liscom's! It's 
 her house ! It's Mrs. Liscom's house ! " 
 
 Candace Powers put her head farther 
 out of the window, and screamed in a 
 queer voice that echoed like a parrot's, 
 " Oh, 'Melia ! 'Melia ! it's Mrs. Liscom's, 
 it's Mrs. Liscom's, and the wind's this 
 way ! Come, quick, and help me get out 
 the best feather bed, and the counterpane 
 that mother knit ! Quick ! Quick ! w 
 
 Amelia had to run in and quiet Can- 
 dace, who was very apt to have a bad 
 spell when she was over-excited, and the 
 rest of us started for the fire. 
 
 As we hurried down the street I asked 
 
 Mrs. Jones how she had known there was 
 
 a fire in the first place, for I supposed 
 
 that was why she had run out to her front 
 
 141 
 
They Arrive 
 
 dcor and looked down the street. Then 
 I learned about the city boarders. She 
 and Amelia, from the way they faced at 
 their sitting-room windows, had seen the 
 Grover stage-coach stop at Mrs. Liscom's, 
 and had run out to see the boarders 
 alight. Mrs. Jones said there were five 
 of them — the mother, grandmother, two 
 daughters, and a son. 
 
 I said that I did not know Mrs. Lis- 
 com was going to take boarders; I was 
 very much surprised. 
 
 " I suppose she thought she would earn 
 some money and have some extra things," 
 said Mrs. Jones. 
 
 " It must have been that," said Mrs. 
 Ketch urn, panting — she was almost out of 
 breath — " for, of course, the Liscoms don't 
 need the money." 
 
 I laughed and said I thought not. I 
 felt a little pride about it, because Mrs. 
 Liscom was a second cousin of my hus- 
 band, and he used to think a great deal 
 cf her. 
 
 142 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 "They must own that nbe place clear, 
 if it ain't going to bum to the ground, 
 and have something in the bank besides," 
 assented Mrs. Peter Jones. 
 
 Ever so many people were running 
 down the street with us, and th^ air 
 seemed full of that brazen clang cf the 
 fire-bell; still we could not see any fire,, 
 nor even smell any smoke, until we got 
 to the head of the lane where the Liscom 
 house stands a few rods from the main 
 street. 
 
 The lane was about choked up with the 
 fire-engine, the hose- cart, the fire depart- 
 ment in their red shirts, and, I should 
 think, half the village. We climbed 
 over the stone wall into Mrs. Liscom's 
 oat-field; it was hard work for Mrs. 
 Ketchum, but Mrs. Jones and I pushed 
 and Adeline pulled, and then we ran 
 along close to the wall toward the house. 
 We certainly began to smell smoke, 
 though we still could not see any fire. 
 The firemen were racing in and out of 
 143 
 
They Arrive 
 
 the house, bringing out the furniture, as 
 were some of the village boys, and the 
 engine was playing upon the south end, 
 where the kitchen is. 
 
 Mrs. Peter Jones, who is very small 
 and alert, said suddenly that it looked to 
 her as if 'die smoke were coming out of 
 the kitchen chimney, but Mrs. Ketchum 
 said of course it was on lire inside in the 
 woodwork. " Oh, only to think of Mrs. 
 Liscom's nice house being all burned up, 
 and what a dreadful reception for those 
 boarders ! " she groaned out. 
 
 I never saw su n h a hubbub, and appar- 
 ently over nothing at all, as there was. 
 There was a steady yell of fire from a 
 crowd of boys who seemed to enjoy it; 
 the water was swishing, the firemen's 
 arms were pumping in unison, and every- 
 body generally running in aimless circles 
 like a swarm of ants. Then we saw the 
 boarders coming out. "Oh, the house 
 must be all in a light blaze inside 1 * 
 groaned Mrs. Ketchum. 
 i44 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 There were five of the boarders. The 
 mother, a large, fair woman with a long, 
 massive face, her reddish hair crinkling 
 and curling around it in a sort of ivy- 
 tendril fashion, came first. Her two 
 daughters, in blue gowns, with pretty, 
 agitated faces, followed ; then the young 
 son, fairly teetering with excitement; 
 then the grandmother, a little, tremulous 
 old lady in an auburn wig. 
 
 The woman at the head carried a 
 bucket, and what should she do but form 
 her family into a line toward the well at 
 the north side of the house where we 
 were I 
 
 Of course, the family did not nearly 
 reach to the well, and she beckoned to 
 us imperatively. " Come immediately ! " 
 said she ; " if the men of this village have 
 no head in an emergency like this, let the 
 women arise ! Come immediately. " 
 
 So Mrs. Peter Jones, Mrs. Ketchum, 
 Adeline, and I stepped into the line, and 
 the mother boarder filled the bucket at 
 *45 
 
They Arrive 
 
 the well, and we passed it back from hand 
 to hand, and the boy at the end flung it 
 into Mrs. Liscom's front entry all over 
 her nice carpet. 
 
 Then suddenly we saw Caroline Liscom 
 appear. She snatched the bucket out of 
 the hands of the boy boarder and gave it 
 a toss into the lilac-bush beside the door; 
 then she stood there, looking as I had 
 never seen her look before. Caroline 
 Liscom lias always had the reputation of 
 being a woman of a strong character; she 
 is manifestly the head of her family. It 
 is always, "Mrs. Liscom's house," and 
 "Mrs. Liscom's property," instead of Mr. 
 Liscom's. 
 
 It is always understood that, though 
 Mr. Liscom is the nominal voter in town 
 matters, not a selectman goes into office 
 with Mr. Liscom's vote unless it is au- 
 thorized by Mrs. Liscom. Mr. Liscom 
 is, so to speak, seldom taken without 
 Mrs. Liscom's indorsement. 
 
 Of course, Mrs. Liscom being such a 
 146 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 character has always more or less author- 
 ity in her bearing, but that day she dis- 
 played a real majesty which I had never 
 seen in her before. She stood there a 
 second, then she turned and made a back- 
 ward and forward motion of her arm as 
 if she were sweeping, and directly red- 
 shirted firemen and boys began to fly out 
 of the house as if impelled by it. 
 
 "You just get out cf my house; every 
 one of you ! " said Caroline in a loud but 
 slow voice, as if she were so augry that 
 she was fairly reining herself in ; and they 
 got out. Then she called to the firemen 
 who were working the engine, and they 
 heard her above all the uproar. 
 
 "You stop drenching my house with 
 water, and go home ! " said she. 
 
 Everybody began to hush and stare, 
 but Tommy Gregg gave one squeaking 
 cry of fire as if in defiance. 
 
 "There is no fire," said Caroline Lis- 
 com. "My house is not on fire, and has 
 not been on fire. I am getting tea, and 
 i47 
 
They Arrive 
 
 the kitchen chimney always smokes when 
 the wind is west. I don't thank you, 
 any of you, for coming here and turning 
 my house upside down and drenching it 
 with water, and lugging my furniture out- 
 of-doors. Now you can go home. I don't 
 see what fool ever sent you here ! " 
 
 The engine stopped playing, and you 
 could hear the water dripping off the 
 south end of the house. The windows 
 were streaming as if there had been a 
 shower. Everybody looked abashed, aud 
 the chief engineer of the fire department — ■ 
 who is a little nervous man who always 
 works as if the river were on lire and he 
 had started it — asked meekly if they 
 shouldn't bring the furniture back. 
 
 "No," said Caroline Liscom, "I want 
 you to go home, and that is all I do want 
 of you." 
 
 Then the mother boarder spoke — she 
 
 was evidently not easily put down. M I 
 
 refuse to return to the house or to allow 
 
 my family to do so unless I am officially 
 
 148 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 notified by the fire department that the 
 fire is extinguished," said she. 
 
 "Then you can stay out-of-doors," said 
 Caroline Liscom, and we all gasped to hear 
 her, though we secretly admired her for it. 
 
 The boarder glared at her in a curious 
 kind of way, like a broadside of stoniness, 
 but Caroline did not seem to mind it at 
 all. Then the boarder changed her tactics 
 like a general on the verge of defeat. She 
 sidled up to Mr. Spear, the chief engineer, 
 who was giving orders to drag home the 
 engine, and said in an unexpectedly sweet 
 voice, like a trickle of honey off the face 
 of a rock : " My good man, am I to un- 
 derstand that I need apprehend no further 
 danger from fire ! I ask for the sake of 
 my precious family." 
 
 Mr. Spear looked at her as if she had 
 spoken to him in Choctaw, and she was 
 obliged to ask him over again. "My 
 good man," said she, "is the fire out? " 
 
 Mr. Spear looked at her as if he were 
 half daft then, but he answered: "Yes, 
 149 
 
They Arrive 
 
 ma'am, yes, ma'am, certainly, ma'am, no 
 danger at all, ma'am." Then he went on 
 ordering the men : " A leetle more to the 
 right, boys ! All together ! " 
 
 "Thank you, my good man, your word 
 is sutiicient," said the boarder, though 
 Mr. Spear did not seem to hear her. 
 
 Then she sailed into the house, and her 
 son, her two daughters, and the grand- 
 mother after her. Mrs. Peter Jones and 
 Adeline and her mother went home, but 
 I ventured, since I was a sort of relation, 
 to go in and offer to help Caroline set 
 things to rights. She thanked me, and 
 said that she did not want any help; 
 when Jacob and Harry came home they 
 would set the furniture in out of the yard. 
 
 " I am sorry for you, Caroline," said T. 
 
 " Look at my house, Sophia Lane," said 
 she, and that was all she would say. She 
 shut her mouth tight over that. That 
 lior.se was enough to make a strong- 
 minded woman like Caroline dumb, and 
 jbend a weak one into hysterics. It was 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 dripping with water, and nearly all the 
 furniture out in the yard piled up pell- 
 mell. I could not see how she was going 
 to get supper for the boarders : the kitchen 
 fire was out and the stove drenched, with 
 a panful of biscuits in the oven. 
 
 " What are you going to give them for 
 supper, Caroline ? " said I, and she just 
 shook her head. I knew that those 
 boarders would have to take what they 
 could get, or go without. 
 
 When Caroline was in any difficulty 
 there never was any help for her, except 
 from the working of circumstances to their 
 own salvation. I thought I might as well 
 go home. I offered to give her some pie 
 or cake if he^s were spoiled, but she only 
 shook he^: nead again, and I knew she 
 must have some stored away in the parlor 
 china-closet, where the water had not 
 penetrated. 
 
 I went through the house to the front 
 entry, thinking I would go out the front 
 door — the side one was dripping as if it 
 i5 l 
 
They Arrive 
 
 were under a waterfall. Just as I reached 
 it I heard a die-away voice from the front 
 chamber say, "My good woman." 
 
 I did not dream that I was addressed, 
 never having been called by that name, 
 though always having hoped that I was a 
 good woman. 
 
 So I kept right on. Then I heard a 
 despairing sigh, and the voice said, " You 
 speak to her, Harriet." 
 
 Then I heard another voice, very sweet 
 and a little timid, " Will you please step 
 upstairs? Mamma wishes to speak to 
 you." 
 
 I began to wouder if they were talking 
 to me. I looked up, and there discovered 
 a pretty, innocent, rosy little face, peering 
 over the balustrade at the head of the 
 stairs. " Will you please step upstairs ? " 
 said she again, in the same sweet tones. 
 "Mamma wishes to speak to you." 
 
 I have a little weakness of the heart t 
 and do not like to climb stairs more than 
 I am positively obliged to ; it always puts 
 
 2 i r 2 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 me so out of breath. I sleep downstairs 
 on that account. I looked at Caroline's 
 front stairs, which are rather steep, with 
 some hesitation. I felt shaken, too, on 
 account of the alarm of fire. Then I 
 heard the first voice again with a sort of 
 languishing authority : " My good woman, 
 will you be so kind as to step upstairs 
 immediately ? " 
 
 I went upstairs. The girl who had 
 spoken to me — I found afterward that she 
 was the elder of the daughters — motioned 
 me to go into the north chamber. I 
 found them all there. The mother, Mrs. 
 H. Boardman Jameson, as I afterward 
 knew her name to be, was lying on the 
 bed, her head propped high with pillows ; 
 the younger daughter was fanning her, 
 and she was panting softly as if she were 
 almost exhausted. The grandmother sat 
 beside the north window, with a paper- 
 covered book on her knees. She was eat- 
 ing something from a little white box on 
 the window-sill. The boy was at an- 
 i53 
 
They Arrive 
 
 other window, also with a book in which 
 he did not seem to be interested. He 
 looked up at me, as I entered, with a most 
 peculiar expression of mingled innocence 
 and shyness which was almost terror. I 
 could not see why the boy should possi- 
 bly be afraid of me, but I learned after- 
 ward. that it was either his natural atti- 
 tude or natural expression. He was either 
 afraid of every mortal thing or else ap- 
 peared to be. The singular elevated arch 
 of his eyebrows over his wide-open blue 
 eyes, and his mouth, which was always 
 parted a little, no doubt served to give 
 this impression. He was a pretty boy, 
 with a fair pink-and-white complexion, 
 and long hair curled like a girl's, which 
 looked odd to me, for he was quite large. 
 Mrs. Jameson beckoned me up to the 
 bed with one languid finger, as if she 
 could not possibly do more. I began to 
 think that perhaps she had some trouble 
 with her heart like myself, and the fire had 
 overcome her, and I felt very sympathetic. 
 *54 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 " I am sorry you have had such an un- 
 pleasant experience, " I began, but she cut 
 me short. 
 
 "My good woman," said she in little 
 more than a whisper, " do you know of 
 any house in a sanitary location where 
 we can obtain board immediately ? I am 
 very particular about the location. There 
 must be no standing water near the house, 
 there must not be trees near on account 
 of the dampness, the neighbors must not 
 keep hens — of course, the people of the 
 house must not keep hens — and the wom- 
 an must have an even temper. I must 
 particularly insist upon an even temper. 
 My nerves are exceedingly weak ; I can- 
 not endure such a rasping manner as that 
 which I have encountered to-day. " 
 
 When she stopped and looked at me 
 for an answer I was so astonished that I 
 did not know what to say. There she 
 was, just arrived ; had not eaten one meal 
 in the house, and wanting to find another 
 boarding-place. 
 
They Arrive 
 
 Finally I said, rather stupidly I sup- 
 pose, that I doubted if she could find 
 another boarding-place in our village as 
 good as the one which she already had. 
 
 She gave another sigh, as if of the most 
 determined patience. " Have I not al- 
 ready told you, my good woman," said 
 she, " that I cannot endure such a rasping 
 manner and voice as that of the woman 
 of the house ? It is most imperative that 
 I have another boarding-place at once." 
 
 She said this in a manner which net- 
 tled me a little, as if I had boarding- 
 places, for which she had paid liberally 
 and had a right to demand, in my hand, 
 and was withholding them from her. I 
 replied that I knew of no other boarding- 
 place of any kind whatsoever in the vil- 
 lage. Then she looked at me in what I 
 suppose was meant to be an ingratiating 
 way. 
 
 "My good woman," said she, "you 
 look very neat and tidy yourself, and I 
 don't doubt are a good plain cook; I am 
 >5<5 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 willing to try your house if it is net sur- 
 rounded by trees and there is no standing 
 water near; I do not object to running 
 water. " 
 
 In the midst of this speech the elder 
 daughter had said in a frightened way, 
 "Oh, mamma! " but her mother had paid 
 no attention. As for myself, I was angry. 
 The memory of my two years at VVard- 
 ville Young Ladies' Seminary in my 
 youth and my frugally independent life 
 as wife and widow was strong upon me. 
 I had read and improved my mind. I 
 was a prominent member of the Ladies' 
 Literary Society of our village: I wrote 
 papers which were read at tjie meetings ; 
 I felt, in reality, not one whit below Mrs. 
 H. Boardman Jameson, and, moreover, 
 large sleeves were the fashion, and my 
 sleeves were every bit as large as hers, 
 though she had just come from the city. 
 That added to my conviction of my own 
 importance. 
 
 " Madam," said I, " I do not take board- 
 *57 
 
They Arrive 
 
 ers. I have never taken boarders, and I 
 never shall take boarders. " Then I turned 
 and went out of the room, and downstairs^ 
 with, it seemed to me, much dignity. 
 
 However, Mrs. Jameson was not im- 
 pressed by it, for she called after me : " My 
 good woman, will you please tell Mrs. 
 Liscom that I must have some hot water 
 to make my health food with imme- 
 diately? Tell her to send up a pitcher at 
 once, very hot." 
 
 I did not tell Caroline about the hot 
 water. I left that for them to manage 
 themselves. I did not care to mention 
 hot water with Caroline's stove as wet as 
 if it had been dipped in the pond, even if 
 I had not been too indignant at the per- 
 sistent ignoring of my own dignity. I 
 went home and found Louisa Field, my 
 brother's widow, and her little daughter 
 Alice, who live with me, already there. 
 Louisa keeps the district school, and with 
 her salary r , besides the little which my 
 brother left her, gets aloug very comfort- 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 ably. I have a small sum in bank, besides 
 my house, and we have plenty to live on, 
 even if we don't have much to spare. 
 
 Louisa was full of excitement over the 
 false alarm of fire, and had heard a rea- 
 son for it which we never fairly knew to 
 be true, though nearly all the village be- 
 lieved it. It seems that the little Jame- 
 son boy, so the story ran, had peeped into 
 the kitchen and had seen it full of smoke 
 from Caroline's smoky chimney when she 
 was kindling the fire ; then had run out 
 into the yard, and seeing the smoke out 
 there too, and being of such an exceed- 
 ingly timid temperament, had run out to 
 the head of the lane calling fire, and had 
 there met Tommy Gregg, who had spread 
 the alarm and been the means of calling 
 out the fire department. 
 
 Indeed, the story purported to come 
 from Tommy Gregg, who declared that 
 the boy at Liscom's had "hollered " fire, 
 and when he was asked where it was had 
 told him at Liscom's. However that may 
 159 
 
They Arrive 
 
 have been, I looked around at our humble 
 little home, at the lounge which I had 
 covered myself, at the threadbare carpet 
 on the sitting-room floor, at the wall- 
 paper which was put on the year before 
 my husband died, at the vases on the 
 shelf, which had belonged to my mother, 
 and I was very thankful that I did not 
 care for " extra things " or new furniture 
 and carpets enough to take boarders who 
 made one feel as if one were simply a 
 colonist of their superior state, and the 
 Kepublic was over and gone. 
 
 60 
 
n 
 
 WE BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THEM 
 
 It was certainly rather unfortunate, as 
 far as the social standing of the Jamesons 
 among us was concerned, that they 
 brought Grandma Cobb with them. 
 
 Everybody spoke of her as Grandma 
 Cobb before she had been a week in the 
 village. Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson al- 
 ways called her Madam Cobb, but that 
 made no difference. People in our vil- 
 lage had not been accustomed to address 
 old ladies as madam, and they did not 
 take kindly to it. Grandma Cobb was of 
 a very sociable disposition, and she soon 
 developed the habit of dropping into the 
 village houses at all hours of the day and 
 evening. She was an early riser, and all 
 the rest of her family slept late, and she 
 161 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 probably found it lonesome. She often 
 made a call as early as eight o'clock in 
 the morning, and she came as late as ten 
 o'clock in the evening When she came 
 in the morning she talked, and when she 
 came in the evening she sat in her chair 
 and nodded. She often kept the whole 
 family up, and it was less exasperating 
 when she came in the morning, though it 
 was unfortunate for the Jamesons. 
 
 If a bulletin devoted to the biography 
 of the Jameson family had been posted 
 every week on the wall of the town house 
 it could have been no more explicit than 
 was Grandma Cobb. Whether we would 
 or not we soon knew all about them ; the 
 knowledge was fairly forced upon us. 
 We knew that Mr. II. Boardman Jameson 
 had been very wealthy, but had lost most 
 of his money the year before through the 
 failure of a bank. We knew that his 
 wealth had all been inherited, and that 
 he would never have been, in Grandma 
 Cobb's opinion, capable of earning it him- 
 162 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 self. We knew that lie had obtained, 
 through the influence of friends, a posi- 
 tion in the custom-house, and we knew 
 the precise amount of his salary. We 
 knew that the Jamesons had been obliged 
 to give up their palatial apartments in 
 New York and take a humble flat in a 
 less fashionable part of the city. We 
 knew that they had always spent their 
 summers at their own place at the sea- 
 shore, and that this was the first season 
 of their sojourn in a little country village 
 in a plain house. We knew how hard a 
 struggle it had been for them to come here ; 
 we knew just how much they paid for their 
 board, how Mrs. Jameson never wanted 
 anything for breakfast but an egg and a 
 hygienic biscuit, and had health food in 
 the middle of the forenoon and afternoon. 
 We also knew just how old they all 
 were, and how the H. in Mr. Jameson's 
 name stood for Hiram. We knew that 
 Mrs. Jameson had never liked the name 
 — might, in fact, have refused to marry 
 163 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 on that score had not Grandma Cobb 
 reasoned with her and told her that he 
 was a worthy man with money, and she 
 not as young as she had been ; and how 
 she compromised by always using the ab- 
 breviation, both in writing and speaking. 
 "She always calls him H," said Grandma 
 Cobb, "and I tell her sometimes it doesn't 
 look quite respectful to speak to her hus- 
 band a.s if he were a part of the alphabet." 
 Grandma Cobb, if the truth had been told, 
 was always in a state of covert rebellion 
 against her daughter. 
 
 Grandma Cobb was always dressed in 
 a black silk gown which seemed sumptu- 
 ous to the women of our village. They 
 could scarcely reconcile it with the state- 
 ment that the Jamesons had lost their 
 money. Black silk of a morning was 
 stupendous to them, when they reflected 
 how they had, at the utmost, but one 
 black silk, and that guarded as if it were 
 cloth of gold, worn only upon the grand- 
 est occasions, and designed, as they knew 
 164 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 in their secret hearts, though they did not 
 proclaim it, for their last garment of 
 earth. Grandma Cobb always wore a fine 
 lace cap also, which should, according to 
 the opinions of the other old ladies of the 
 village, have been kept sacred for other 
 women's weddings or her own funeral. 
 She used her best gold-bowed spectacles 
 every day, and was always leaving them 
 behind her in the village houses, pud lit- 
 tle Tommy or Annie had to run after her 
 with a charge not to lose them, for no- 
 body knew how much they cost. 
 
 Grandma Cobb always carried about 
 with her a paper-covered novel and a 
 box of cream peppermints. She ate tlie 
 peppermints and freely bestowed them 
 upon others; the novel she never read. 
 She said quite openly that she only car- 
 ried it about to please her daughter, who 
 had literary tastes. "She belongs to a 
 Shakespeare Club, and a Browning Club, 
 and a Current Literature Club," said 
 Grandma Cobb. 
 
 i6 5 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 We concluded that she had, feeling al- 
 together incapable of even carrying about 
 Shakespeare and Browning, compromised 
 with peppermints and current literature. 
 
 " That book must be current literature," 
 said Mrs. Ketchum one day, " but I looked 
 into it when she was at our house, and I 
 should not want Adeline to read it." 
 
 After a while people looked upon 
 Grandma Cobb's book with suspicion ; but 
 since she always carried it, thereby keep- 
 ing it from her grandchildren, and never 
 read it, we agreed that it could not do 
 much harm. 
 
 The very first time that I saw Grandma 
 Cobb, at Caroline Liscom's, she had that 
 book. I knew it by the red cover and 
 a baking-powder advertisement on the 
 back ; and the next time also — that was 
 it the seventeenth-of-June picnic. 
 
 The whole Jameson family went to 
 
 the picnic, rather to our surprise. I think 
 
 }«eople had a fancy that Mrs. II. Board - 
 
 man Jameson would be above our little 
 
 iGG 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Tural picnic. We had yet to understand 
 Mrs. Jameson, and learn that, however 
 much she really held herself above and 
 aloof, she had not the slightest intention 
 of letting us alone, perhaps because she 
 thoroughly believed in her own non- 
 mixable quality. Of course it would al- 
 ways be quite safe for oil to go to a picnic 
 with water, no matter how exclusive it 
 might be. 
 
 The picnic was in Leonard's grove, and 
 young and old were asked. The seven- 
 teenth-of- June picnic is a regular institu- 
 tion in our village. I went with Louisa, 
 and little Alice in her new white muslin 
 dress; the child had been counting on it 
 for weeks. We were nearly all assem- 
 bled when the Jamesons arrived. Half a 
 dozen of us had begun to lay the table 
 for luncheon, though we were not to have 
 it for an hour or two. We always 
 thought it a good plan to make all our 
 preparations in season. We were collect- 
 ing the baskets and boxes, and it did look 
 167 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 as if we were to have au unusual feast 
 that year. Those which we peeped in- 
 to appeared especially tempting. Mrs. 
 Nathan Butters had brought a great loaf 
 of her rich fruit cake, a kind for which 
 she is famous in the village, and Mrs. 
 Sim White had brought two of her 
 whipped-cream pies. Mrs. Ketchum had 
 brought six mince pies, which were a real 
 rarity in June, and Flora Clark had 
 brought a six-quart pail full of those 
 jumbles she makes, so rich that if you 
 drop one it crumbles to pieces. Then 
 there were two great pinky hams and a 
 number of chickens. Louisa and I had 
 brought a chicken ; we had one of ours 
 killed, and I had roasted it the day be- 
 fore. 
 
 I remarked to Mrs. Ketchum that we 
 should have an unusually nice dinner; 
 and so we should have had if it had not 
 been for Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson. 
 
 The Jamesons came driving into the 
 grove in the Liscom carryall and their 
 3 168 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 buggy. Mr. Jacob Liscom was in charge 
 of the carryall, and the Jameson boy was 
 on the front seat with him ; on the back 
 seat were Grandma, or Madam Cobb, and 
 the younger daughter. Harry Liscom 
 drove the bay horse in the buggy, and 
 Mrs. Jameson and Harriet were with 
 him, he sitting between them, very un- 
 comfortably, as it appeared — his knees 
 were touching the dasher, as he is a tall 
 young man. 
 
 Caroline Liscom did not come, and I 
 did not wonder at it for one. She must 
 have thought it a good chance to rest one 
 day from taking boarders. We were sur- 
 prised that Mrs. Jameson, since she is 
 such a stout woman, did not go in the 
 carryall, and let either her younger daugh- 
 ter or the boy go with Harry and Harriet 
 in the buggy. We heard afterward that 
 she thought it necessary that she should 
 go with them as a chaperon. That 
 seemed a little strange to us, since our 
 village girls were all so well conducted 
 169 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 that we thought nothing of their going 
 buggy-riding with a good young man like 
 Harry Lis com; he is a church member 
 and prominent in the Sunday-school, and 
 this was in broad daylight and the road 
 full of other carriages. So people stared 
 and smiled a little to see Harry driving 
 in with his knees braced against the 
 dasher, and the buggy canting to one side 
 with the weight of Mrs. H. Boardman 
 Jameson. He looked rather shamefaced, 
 I thought, though he is a handsome, 
 brave young fellow, and commonly car- 
 ries himself boldly enough. Harriet 
 Jameson looked very pretty, though her 
 eostume was not, to my way of thinking, 
 quite appropriate. However, I suppose 
 that she was not to blame, poor child, 
 and it may easily be more embarrassing 
 to have old fine clothes than old poor 
 ones. Really, Harriet Jameson would 
 have looked better dressed that day in an 
 old calico gown than the old silk one 
 which she wore. Her waist was blue 
 170 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Bilk with some limp chiffon at the neck 
 and sleeves, and her skirt was old brown 
 silk all frayed at the bottom and very 
 shiny. There were a good many spots on 
 it, too, and some mud stains, though it 
 had not rained for two weeks. 
 
 However, the girl looked pretty, and 
 her hair was done with a stylish air, and 
 she wore her old Leghorn hat, with its 
 wreath of faded French flowers, in a way 
 which was really beyond our girls. 
 
 And as for Harry Liscom, it was plain 
 enough to be seen that, aside from his 
 discomfiture at the close attendance of 
 Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson, he was bliss* 
 fully satisfied and admiring. I was rather 
 sorry to see it on his account, though I 
 had nothing against the girl. I think, on 
 general principles, that it is better usually 
 for a young man of our village to marry 
 one of his own sort; that he has a better 
 chance of contentment and happiness. 
 However, in this case it seemed quite 
 likely that there would be no chance of 
 '7* 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 married happiness at all. It did not 
 look probable that Mrs. H. Boardman 
 Jameson would smile upon her eldest 
 daughter's marriage with the son of "a 
 good woman," and I was not quite sure 
 as to what Caroline Liscom would say. 
 
 Mr. Jacob Liscom is a pleasant-faced, 
 mild-eyed man, very tall and slender. 
 He lifted out the Jameson buy, who did 
 not jump out over the wheel, as boys 
 generally do when arriving at a picnic, 
 and then he tipped over the front seat 
 and helped out Madam Cobb, and the 
 younger daughter, whose name was Sarah. 
 We had not thought much of such old- 
 fashioned names as Harriet and Sarah for 
 some years past in our village, and it 
 seemed rather odd taste in these city 
 people. We considered Hattie and Sadie 
 much prettier. Generally the Harriets 
 and Sarahs endured only in the seclusion 
 of the family Bible and the baptismal 
 records. Quite a number of the ladies 
 had met Mrs. Jameson, having either 
 172 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 called at Mrs. Lis corn's and seen her 
 there, or having spoken to her at church ; 
 and as for Grandma Cobb, she had had 
 time to visit nearly every house in the 
 village, as I knew, though she had not 
 been to mine. Grandma Cobb got out, 
 all smiling, and Jacob Liscom handed 
 her the box of peppermints and the paper- 
 covered novel, and then Harry Liscom 
 helped out Harriet and her mother. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson walked straight up to us 
 who were laying the table, and Harry 
 followed her with a curiously abashed 
 expression, carrying a great tin cracker- 
 box in one hand and a large basket in 
 the other. We said good-morning as 
 politely as we knew how to Mrs. Jame- 
 son, and she returned it with a brisk air 
 which rather took our breaths away, it 
 was so indicative of urgent and very 
 pressing business. Then, to our utter as- 
 tonishment, up she marched to the nearest 
 basket on the table and deliberately took 
 off the cover and began taking out the 
 
 i73 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 content?. It happened to he Mrs. Nathan 
 Butters' basket. Mrs. Jameson lifted out 
 the great loaf of fruit cake and set it on 
 the table with a contemptuous thud, as it 
 seemed to us ; then she took out a cran- 
 berry pie and a frosted apple pie, and set 
 them beside it. She opened Mrs. Peter 
 Jones' basket next, and Mrs. Jones stood 
 there all full of nervous twitches and saw 
 her take out a pile of ham sandwiches 
 and a loaf of chocolate cake and a bottle 
 of pickles. She went on opening the 
 baskets and boxes one after another, and 
 we stood watching her. Finally she came 
 to the pail full of jumbles, and her hand 
 slipped and the most of them fell to the 
 ground and were a mass of crumbles. 
 
 Then Mrs. Jameson spoke; she had 
 not before said a word. "These are 
 enough to poison the whole village," said 
 she, and she sniffed with a proud uplift- 
 ing of her nose. 
 
 I am sure that a little sound, something 
 between a groan and a gasp, came from 
 i74 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 us, but no one spoke. I felt that it was 
 fortunate, and yet I was almost sorry that 
 Mora Clark, who made those jumbles, 
 was not there ; she had gone to pick wild 
 flowers with her Sunday-school class. 
 Flora is very high-spirited and very proud 
 of her jumbles, and I knew that she 
 would not have stood it for a minute to 
 hear them called poison. There would 
 certainly have been words then and there, 
 for Flora is afraid of nobody. She is a 
 smart, handsome woman, and would have 
 been married long ago if it had not been 
 for her temper. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson did not attempt to gather 
 up the jumbles ; she just went on affcer 
 that remark of hers, opening the rest of 
 the things; there were only one or two 
 more. Then she took the cracker-box 
 which Harry had brought; he had stolen 
 away to put up his horse, and it looked 
 to me very much as if Harriet had stolen 
 away with him, for I could not see ker 
 anywhere. 
 
 *75 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 Mrs. Jameson lifted this cracker-box 
 on to the table and opened it. It was 
 quite full of thick, hard-looking biscuits, 
 or crackers. She laid them in a pile be- 
 side the other things; then she took up 
 the basket and opened that. There was 
 another kind of a cracker in that, and 
 two large papers of something. When 
 everything was taken out she pointed at 
 the piles of eatables on the table, and ad- 
 dressed us : " Ladies, attention ! " rapping 
 slightly with a spoon at the same time. 
 Her voice was very sweet, with a curious 
 kind of forced sweetness: "Ladies, at- 
 tention ! I wish you to carefully observe 
 the food upon the table before us. I wish 
 you to consider it from the standpoint of 
 wives and mothers of families. There is 
 the food which you have brought, un- 
 wholesome, indigestible; there is mine, 
 approved of by the foremost physicians 
 and men of science of the day. For ten 
 years I have had serious trouble with the 
 alimentary canal, and this food has kept 
 176 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 me in strength and vigor. Had I at- 
 tempted to live upon your fresh biscuits, 
 your frosted cakes, your rich pastry, I 
 should be in my grave. One of those 
 biscuits which you see there before you 
 is equal in nourishment to six of your 
 indigestible pies, or every cake upon the 
 table. The great cause of the insanity and 
 dyspepsia so prevalent among the rural 
 classes is rich pie and cake. I feel it my 
 duty to warn you. I hope, ladies, that you 
 will consider carefully what I have said." 
 
 With that, Mrs. Jameson withdrew 
 herself a little way and sat down under a 
 tree on a cushion which had been brought 
 in the carryall. We looked at one an- 
 other, but we did not say anything for a 
 few minutes. 
 
 Finally, Mrs. White, who is very good- 
 natured, remarked that she supposed that 
 she meant well, and she had better put 
 her pies back in the basket or they would 
 dry up. We all began putting back the 
 things which Mrs. Jameson had taken 
 i77 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 out, except the broken jumbles, and were 
 very quiet. However, we could not help 
 feeling astonished and aggrieved at what 
 Mrs. Jameson had said about the insan- 
 ity and dyspepsia in our village, since we 
 could scarcely remember one case of in- 
 sanity, and very few of us had to be in 
 the least careful as to what we ate. Mrs. 
 Peter Jones did say in a whisper that if 
 Mrs. Jameson had had dyspepsia ten 
 years on those hard biscuits it was more 
 than any of us had had on our cake and 
 pie. We left the biscuits, and the two 
 paper packages which Mrs. Jameson had 
 brought, in a heap on the table just 
 where she had put them. 
 
 After we had replaced the baskets we 
 all scattered about, trying to enjoy our- 
 selves in the sweet pine woods, but it 
 was hard work, we were so much dis- 
 turbed by what had happened. We won- 
 dered uneasily, too, what Flora Clark 
 would say about her jumbles. We were 
 all quiet, peaceful people who dreaded 
 > 7 8 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 altercation ; it made our hearts beat too 
 fast. Taking it altogether, we felt very 
 much as if some great, overgrown bird of 
 another species had gotten into our vil- 
 lage nest, and we were in the midst of an 
 awful commotion of strange wings and 
 beak. Still we agreed that Mrs. Jame- 
 son had probably meant well. 
 
 Grandma Cobb seemed to be enjoying 
 herself. She was moving about, her 
 novel under her arm and her peppermint 
 box in her hand, holding up her gown 
 daintily in front. She spoke to every- 
 body affably, and told a number confiden- 
 tially that her daughter was very delicate 
 about her eating, but she herself believed 
 in eating what you liked. Harriet and 
 Harry Liscom were still missing, and so 
 were the younger daughter, Sarah, and 
 the boy. The boy's name, by the way, 
 was Cobb, his mother's maiden name. 
 That seemed strange to us, but it possibly 
 would not have seemed so had it been a 
 prettier name. 
 
 179 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 Just before liuich-tiine Cobb and his 
 sister Sarah appeared, and they were in 
 great trouble. Joints Green, who owns 
 the farm next the grove, was with them, 
 and actually had Cobb by the hair, hold- 
 ing all his gathered-up curls tight in his 
 list, lie held Sarah by one arm, too, and 
 she was crying. Cobb was crying, too, 
 for that matter, and crying out loud like 
 a baby. 
 
 Jonas Green is a very brusque man, 
 and he did look as angry as I had ever 
 seen any one, and when I saw what those 
 two were carrying I did not much won- 
 der. Their hands were full of squash 
 blossoms and potato blossoms, and Jonas 
 Green's garden is the pride of his life. 
 
 Jonas Green marched straight up to 
 Mrs. Jameson under her tree, and said in 
 a loud voice : " Ma'am, if this boy and 
 girl are yours I think it is about time 
 you taught them better than to tramp 
 through folks' fields picking things that 
 don't belong to them, and I expect what 
 180 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 I've lost in squashes and potatoes to be 
 made good to me." 
 
 We all waited, breathless, and Mrs. 
 Jameson put on her eyeglasses and looked 
 up. Then she spoke sweetly. 
 
 "My good man," said she, "if, when 
 you come to dig your squashes, you find 
 less than usual, and when you come to 
 pick your potatoes the bushes are not in 
 as good condition as they generally are, 
 you may come to me and I will make it 
 right with you." 
 
 Mrs. Jameson spoke with the greatest 
 dignity and sweetness, and we almost 
 felt as if she were the injured party, in 
 spite of all those squash and potato blos- 
 soms. As for Jonas Green, he stared at 
 her for the space of a minute, then he 
 gave a loud laugh, let go of the boy and 
 girl, and strode away. We heard him 
 laughing to himself as he went; ail 
 through his life the mention of potato 
 bushes and digging squashes was enough 
 to send him into iits of laughter. It was 
 181 
 
We Beceme Acquainted 
 
 the joke of his lifetime, for Jonas Green 
 had never been a merry man, and it was 
 probably worth more than the vegetables 
 which he had lost. I pitied Cobb and 
 Sarah, they were so frightened, and got 
 hold of them myself and comforted them. 
 Sarah was just such another little timid, 
 open-mouthed, wide-eyed sort of thing as 
 her brother, and they were merely pick- 
 ing flowers, as they supposed. 
 
 " I never saw such beautiful yellow 
 t owers, M Sarah said, sobbing and looking 
 ruefully at her great bouquet of squash 
 blossoms. This little Sarah, who was 
 only twelve, and very small and childish 
 for her age, said sooner and later many 
 ignorant, and yet quaintly innocent things 
 about our country life, which were widely 
 repeated. It was Sarah who said, when 
 she was offered some honey at a village 
 tea-drinking, "Oh, will you please tell me 
 what time you drive home your bees? 
 and do they give honey twice a day like 
 the cows ? " It was Sarah who, when 
 182 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 ner brother was very anxious to see the 
 pigs on Mr. White's farm, said, "Oh, 
 be quiet, Cobb, dear; it is too late to- 
 night; the pigs must have gone into their 
 holes." 
 
 I think poor Cobb and Sarah might 
 have had a pleasant time at the picnic, 
 after all — for my little Alice made friends 
 with them, and Mi's. Sim White's Charlie 
 — had it not been for their mother's 
 obliging them to eat her hygienic biscuits 
 for their luncheons. It was really pitiful 
 to see them looking so wistfully at the 
 cake and pie. I had a feeling of relief 
 that all the rest of us were not obliged to 
 make our repast of hygienic bread. I 
 had a fear lest Mrs. Jameson might try 
 to force us to do so. However, all she 
 did was to wait until we were fairly 
 started upon our meal, and then send 
 around her children with her biscuits, 
 following them herself with the most ten- 
 der entreaties that we would put aside that 
 unwholesome food and not risk our pre- 
 183 
 
We Become Acquainted 
 
 cious lives. She would not, however, 
 allow us to drink our own coffee — about 
 that she was firm. She insisted upon our 
 making some hygienic coffee which she 
 had brought from the city, and we were 
 obliged to yield, or appear in a very stub- 
 born and ungrateful light. The coffee 
 was really very good, and we did not 
 mind. The other parcel which she had 
 brought contained a health food, to be 
 made into a soit of porridge with hot 
 water, and little cups of that were passed 
 around, Mrs. Jameson's face fairly beam- 
 ing with benevolence the while, and there 
 was no doubt that she was entirely in 
 earnest. 
 
 Still, we were all so disturbed — that is, 
 all of us elder people — that I doubt if 
 anybody enjoyed that luncheon unless it 
 was Grandma Cobb. She did not eat 
 hygienic biscuits, but did eat cake and 
 pie in unlimited quantities. I was really 
 afraid that she would make herself ill 
 with Mrs. Butters' fruit cake. One thing 
 4 184 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 was a great relief, to me at least: Flora 
 Clark did not know the true story of her 
 jumbles until some time afterward. Mrs. 
 White told her that the pail had been 
 upset and they were broken, and we were 
 all so sorry; and she did not suspect. 
 We were glad to avoid a meeting between 
 her and Mrs. Jameson, for none of us 
 felt as if we could endure it then. 
 
 I suppose the young folks enjoyed the 
 picnic if we did not, and that was the 
 principal thing to be considered, after all. 
 I know that Harry Liscom and Harriet 
 Jameson enjoyed it, and all the more that 
 it was a sort of stolen pleasure. Just 
 before we went home I was strolling off 
 by myself near the brook, and all of a 
 sudden saw the two young things under 
 a willow tree. I stood back softly, and 
 they never knew that I was there, but 
 they were sitting side by side, and 
 Harry's arm was around the girl's waist, 
 and her head was on his shoulder, and 
 they were looking at each other as if they 
 185 
 
Wc Become Acquainted 
 
 eaw angels, and I thought to myself that, 
 whether it was due to hygienic bread 
 or pie, they were in love— and what 
 would Mrs. H. Bcaidman Jameson and 
 Caroline Liscom say? 
 
 186 
 
Ill 
 
 MRS. JAMESON IMPROVES US 
 
 It was some time before we really un- 
 derstood that we were to be improved. 
 We might have suspected it from the 
 episode of the hygienic biscuits at the 
 picnic, but we did not. We were not 
 fairly aware of it until the Ladies' Sew- 
 ing Circle met one afternoon with Mrs. 
 Sim White, the president, the first week 
 in July. 
 
 It was a very hot afternoon, and I 
 doubt if we should have had the meeting 
 that day had it not been that we were 
 anxious to get off a barrel as soon as 
 possible to a missionary in Minnesota. 
 The missionary had seven children, the 
 youngest only six weeks old, and they 
 were really suffering. Flora Clark did 
 187 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 say that if it were as hot in Minnesota: 
 as it was in Linnville she would not 
 thank anybody to send her clothes; she 
 would be thankful for the excuse of pov- 
 erty to go without them. But Mrs. Sim 
 White would not hear to having the meet- 
 ing put off ; she said that a cyclone might 
 come up any minute in Minnesota and 
 cool the air, and then think of all those 
 poor children with nothing to cover them. 
 Flora Clark had the audacity to say that 
 after the cyclone there might not be any 
 children to cover, and a few of the 
 younger members tittered ; but we never 
 took Flora's speeches seriously. She 
 always came to the sewing meeting, no- 
 matter how much she opposed it, and 
 sewed faster than any of us. She came 
 that afternoon and made three flannel 
 petticoats for three of the children, 
 though she did say that she thought the 
 money would have been better laid out 
 in palm-leaf fans. 
 
 We were astonished to see Mrs. BL 
 188 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Boardman Jameson come that very hot 
 rafternoon, for we knew that she consid- 
 ered herself delicate, and, besides, we 
 wondered that she should feel interested 
 in our sewing circle. Her daughter Har- 
 riet came with her; Madam Cobb, as I 
 afterward learned, went, instead, to Mrs. 
 Ketchum's, and stayed all the afternoon, 
 and kept her from going to the meeting 
 at all. 
 
 Caroline Liscom came with her board- 
 ers, and I knew, the minute I saw her, 
 that something was wrong. She had a 
 look of desperation and defiance which I 
 had seen on her face before. Thinks I to 
 myself: "You are all upset over some- 
 thing, but you have made up your mind 
 to hide it, whether or no." 
 
 Mrs. Jameson had a book in her hand, 
 and when she first came in she laid it on 
 the table where we cut out our work. 
 Mrs. Liscom went around the room with 
 her, introducing her to the ladies whom 
 she had not met before. I could see that 
 189 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 she did not like to do it, and was simply 
 swallowing her objections with hard gulps 
 every time she introduced her. 
 
 Harriet walked behind her mother and 
 Mrs. Liscom, and spoke very prettily 
 every time she was addressed. 
 
 Harriet Jameson was really an exceed- 
 ingly pretty girl, with a kind of apolo- 
 getic sweetness and meekness of manner 
 which won her friends. Her dress that 
 afternoon was pretty, too: a fine white 
 lawn trimmed with very handsome em- 
 broidery, and a white satin ribbon at the 
 waist and throat. I understood after- 
 ward that Mrs. Jameson did not allow 
 her daughters to wear their best clothes 
 generally to our village festivities, but 
 kept them for occasions in the city, since 
 their fortunes were reduced, thinking that 
 their old finery, though it might be a little 
 the worse for wear, was good enough for 
 our unsophisticated eyes. But that might 
 not have been true ; Harriet was very well 
 dressed that afternoon, at all events. 
 190 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Mrs. Jameson seemed to be really very 
 affable. She spoke cordially to us all, 
 and then asked to have some work given 
 her; but, as it happened, there was noth- 
 ing cut out except a black dress for the 
 missionary's wife, and she did not like to 
 strain her eyes working on black. 
 
 "Let me cut something out," said she 
 in her brisk manner ; " I have come here 
 to be useful. What is there needing to 
 be cut out?" 
 
 It was Flora Clark who replied, and I 
 always suspected her of a motive in it, 
 for she had heard about her jumbles by 
 that time. She said there was a little 
 pair of gingham trousers needed for the 
 missionary's five-year-old boy, and Mrs. 
 Jameson, without a quiver of hesitation, 
 asked for the gingham and scissors. I 
 believe she would have undertaken a 
 suit for the missionary with the same 
 alacrity. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson was given another little 
 pair of trousers, a size smaller than thos« 
 191 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 required, for a pattern, a piece of blue 
 and white gingham and the shears, and 
 she began. We all watched her fur- 
 tively, but she went slashing away with 
 as much confidence as if she had served 
 an apprenticeship with a tailor in her 
 youth. We began to think that possibly 
 she knew better how to cut out trousers 
 than we did. Mrs. White whispered to 
 me that she had heard that many of those 
 rich city women learned how to do every- 
 thing in case they lost their money, and 
 she thought it was so sensible. 
 
 When Mrs. Jameson had finished cut- 
 ting out the trousers, which was in a 
 very short space of time, she asked for 
 some thread and a needle, and Flora 
 Clark started to get some, and got there- 
 by an excuse to examine the trousers. 
 She looked at them, and held them up 
 so we all could see, and then she spoke. 
 
 "Mrs. Jameson," said she, "these are 
 cut just alike back and front, and they 
 are large enough for a boy of twelve.* 
 192 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 She spoke very clearly and decisively. 
 Flora Clark never minces matters. 
 
 We fairly shivered with terror as to 
 what would come next, and poor Mrs. 
 White clutched my arm hard. "Oh," 
 she whispered, " I am so sorry she spoke 
 so.* 
 
 But Mrs. Jameson was not so easily 
 put down. She replied very coolly and 
 sweetly, and apparently without the 
 slightest resentment, that she had made 
 them so on purpose, so that the boy 
 would not outgrow them, and she always 
 thought it better to have the back and 
 front cut alike; the trousers could then 
 be worn either way, and would last much 
 longer. 
 
 To our horror, Flora Clark spoke again. 
 u I guess you are right about their last- 
 ing," said she; "I shouldn't think those 
 trousers would wear out any faster on a 
 five-year-old boy than they would on a 
 pair of tongs. They certainly won't 
 touch him anywhere." 
 i93 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 Mrs. Jameson only smiled in her 
 calmly superior way at that, and we 
 concluded that she must be good-tem- 
 pered. As for Flora, she said nothing 
 more, and we all felt much relieved. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson went to sewing on the 
 trousers with the same confidence with 
 which she had cut them out; but I must 
 say we had a little more doubt about her 
 skill. She sewed with incredible swift- 
 ness ; I did not time her exactly, but it 
 did not seem to me that she was more 
 than an hour in making those trousers. 
 I know the meeting began at two o'clock, 
 and it was not more than half -past three 
 when she announced that they were done. 
 
 Flora Clark rose, and Mrs. White 
 clutched her skirt and held her back 
 while she whispered something. How- 
 ever, Flora went across the room to the 
 table, and held up the little trousers that 
 we all might see. Mrs. Jameson had 
 done what many a novice in trousers- 
 making does: sewed one leg over the 
 194 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 other and made a bag of them. The} 
 were certainly a comical sight. 1 don't 
 know whether Flora's sense of humor got 
 the better of her wrath, or whether Mrs. 
 White's expostulation influenced her, but 
 she did not ,say one word, only stood there 
 holding the trousers, her mouth twitching. 
 As for the rest of us, it was all we could 
 do to keep our faces straight. Mrs. 
 Jameson was looking at her book, and 
 did not seem to notice anything; and 
 Harriet was sitting with her back to 
 Flora, of which I was glad. I should 
 have been sorry to have had the child's 
 feelings hurt. 
 
 Flora laid the trousers on the table and 
 came back to her seat without a word, 
 and I know that Mrs. White sat up nearly 
 all night ripping them, and cutting them 
 over, and sewing them together again, in 
 season to have them packed in the barrel 
 the next day. 
 
 In the mean time, Mrs. Jameson was 
 finding the place in her book; and just as 
 *95 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 Mrs. Peter Jones had asked Mrs. Butters 
 if it were true that Dora Peckham was 
 going to marry Thomas Wells and had 
 bought her wedding dress, and before 
 Mrs. Butters had a chance to answer 
 her (she lives next door to the Peck- 
 hams), she rapped with the scissors on 
 the table. 
 
 "Ladies," said she. "Ladies, atten- 
 tion ! " 
 
 I suppose we all did stiffen up invol- 
 untarily; it was so obviously not Mrs. 
 Jameson's place to call us to order and 
 attention. Of course she should have 
 been introduced by our President, who 
 should herself have done the rapping 
 with the scissors. Flora Clark opened 
 her mouth to speak, but Mrs. White 
 clutched her arm and looked at her so 
 beseechingly that she kept quiet. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson continued, utterly un- 
 conscious of having given any offence. 
 We supposed that she did not once think 
 it possible that we knew what the usages 
 196 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 of ladies' societies were. "Ladies," said 
 she, " I am sure that you will all prefer 
 having your minds improved and your 
 spheres enlarged by the study and con- 
 templation of one of the greatest authors 
 of any age, to indulging in narrow vil- 
 lage gossip. I will now read to you a 
 selection from Robert Browning." 
 
 Mrs. Jameson said Eobert Browning 
 with such an impressive and triumphantly 
 introductory air that it was almost im- 
 possible for a minute not to feel that 
 Browning was actually there in our sew- 
 ing circle. She made a little pause, too, 
 which seemed to indicate just that. It 
 was borne upon Mrs. White's mind that 
 she ought to clap, and she made a feeble 
 motion with her two motherly hands 
 which one or two of us echoed. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson began to read the selec- 
 tion from Robert Browning. Now, as I 
 have said before, we have a literary soci- 
 ety in our village, but we have never 
 attempted to read Browning at our meet- 
 197 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 h»gs. Some of us read him a little and 
 strive to appreciate him, but we have 
 been quite sure that some other author 
 would interest a larger proportion of the 
 ladies. I don't suppose that more than 
 three of us had ever read or even heard 
 of the selection which Mrs. Jameson read. 
 It was, to my way of thinking, one of 
 the most difficult of them all to be under- 
 stood by an untrained mind, but we lis- 
 tened politely, and with a semblance, at 
 least, of admiring interest. 
 
 I think Harriet Jameson was at first 
 the only seriously disturbed listener, to 
 judge from her expression. The poor 
 child looked so anxious and distressed 
 that I was sorry for her. I heard after- 
 ward that she had begged her mother not 
 to take the Browning book, saying that 
 she did not believe the ladies would like 
 it; and Mrs. Jameson had replied that she 
 felt it to be her duty to teach them to 
 like it, and divert their minds from the 
 petty gossip which she had always heard 
 198 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 was the distinguishing feature of rural 
 sewing meetings. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson read and read; when 
 she had finished the first selection she 
 read another. At half -past four o'clock, 
 Mrs. White, who had been casting dis- 
 tressed glances at me, rose and stole out 
 on tiptoe. 
 
 I knew why she did so ; Mrs. Bemis' 
 hired girl next door was baking her bis- 
 cuits for her that she need not heat her 
 house up, and she had brought them in. 
 I heard the kitchen door open. 
 
 Presently Mrs. White stole in again 
 and tried to listen politely to the reading, 
 but her expression was so strained to 
 maintain interest that one could see the 
 anxiety underneath. I knew what wor- 
 ried her before she told me, as she did 
 presently. " I have rolled those biscuits 
 up in a cloth," she whispered, "but I am 
 dreadfully afraid that they will be spoiled." 
 
 Mrs. Jameson began another selection, 
 and I did pity Mrs. White. She whis- 
 199 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 pered to me again that her table was not 
 set, and the biscuits would certainly be 
 spoiled. 
 
 The selection which Mrs. Jameson was 
 then reading was a short one, and I saw 
 Mrs. White begin to brighten as she evi- 
 dently drew near the end. But her joy 
 was of short duration, as Mrs. Jameson 
 began another selection. 
 
 However, Mrs. White laid an implor- 
 ing hand on Flora Clark's arm when she 
 manifested symptoms of rising and inter- 
 rupting the reading. Flora was getting 
 angr} 7 — I knew by the way her forehead 
 was knitted and by the jerky way she 
 sewed. Poor Harriet Jameson looked 
 more and more distressed. I was sure 
 she saw Mrs. White holding back Flora, 
 and knew just what it meant. Harriet 
 was sitting quite idle with her little 
 hands in her lap ; we had set her to hem- 
 ming a ruffle for the missionary's wife's 
 dress, but her stitches were so hopelessly 
 uneven that I had quietly taken it from 
 5 200 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 her and told her I was out of work and 
 would do it myself. The poor child had 
 blushed when she gave it up. She evi- 
 dently knew her deficiencies. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson read selections from 
 Robert Browning until six 'oclock, and 
 by that time Mrs. White had attained to 
 the calmness of despair. At a quarter of 
 six she whispered to me that the biscuits 
 were spoiled, and then her face settled 
 into an expression of stony peace. When 
 Mrs. Jameson finally closed her book 
 there was a murmur which might have 
 been considered expressive of relief or 
 applause, according to the amount of self- 
 complacency of the reader. Mrs. Jame- 
 son evidently considered it applause, for 
 she bowed in a highly gracious manner, 
 and remarked : " I am very glad if I have 
 given you pleasure, ladies, and I shall be 
 more than pleased at some future time to 
 read some other selections even superior 
 to these which I have given, and also to 
 make some remarks upon them." 
 201 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 There was another murmur, which 
 might have been of pleasure at the pros- 
 pect of the future reading, or the respite 
 from the present one; I was puzzled to 
 know which it did mean. 
 
 We always had our supper at our sew- 
 ing meetings at precisely five o'clock, and 
 now it was an hour later. Mrs. White 
 rose and went out directly, and Flora 
 Clark and I followed her to assist. We 
 began laying the table as fast as we could, 
 while Mrs. White was cutting the cake. 
 The ladies of the society brought the cake 
 and pie, and Mrs. White furnished the 
 bread and tea. However, that night it 
 was so very warm we had decided to have 
 lemonade instead of tea. Mrs. White 
 had put it to vote among the ladies when 
 they first came, and we had all decided in 
 favor of lemonade. There was another 
 reason for Mrs. White not having tea: 
 she has no dining-room, but eats in her 
 kitchen summer and winter. It is a very 
 large room, but of course in such heat as 
 202 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 there was that day even a little fire would 
 have made it unendurably warm. So she 
 had planned to have her biscuits baked in 
 Mrs. Bemis' stove and have lemonade. 
 
 Our preparations were nearly com- 
 pleted, and we were placing the last things 
 on the table, when my sister-in-law, 
 Louisa Field, came out, and I knew that 
 something was wrong. 
 
 "What is the matter? " said I. 
 
 Louisa looked at Flora as if she were 
 almost afraid to speak, but finally it came 
 out: Mrs. Jameson must have some hot 
 water to prepare her health food, as she 
 dared not eat our hurtful cake and pie, 
 especially m such heat. 
 
 Flora Clark's eyes snapped. She could 
 not be repressed any longer, so she turned 
 on poor Louisa as if she were the offender. 
 * Let her go home, then ! " said she. " She 
 sha'n't have any hot water in this 
 house ! ' 
 
 Flora spoke very loud, and Mrs. White 
 was in agony. " Oh, Flora ! don't, don't I " 
 203 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 said she. But she looked at the cold 
 kitchen stove in dismay. 
 
 I suggested boiling the kettle on Mrs. 
 Bemis' stove ; but that could not be done, 
 for the hired girl had gone away buggy- 
 riding with her beau after she had brought 
 in the biscuits, and Mrs. Bemis was not 
 at the sewing circle : her mother, in the 
 next town, was ill, and she had gone to 
 see her. So the Bemis house was locked 
 up, and the fire no doubt out. Mrs. 
 White lives on an outlying farm, and 
 there was not another neighbor within a 
 quarter of a mile. If Mrs. Jameson must 
 have that hot water for her hygienic food 
 there was really nothing to do but to 
 make up the fire in the kitchen stove, no 
 matter how uncomfortable we all might 
 be in consequence. 
 
 Flora Clark said in a very loud voice, 
 and Mrs. White could not hush her, that 
 she would see Mrs. II. Boardman Jame- 
 son in Gibraltar first; and she was so in- 
 dignant because Mrs. White began to put 
 204 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 kindlings into the stove that she stalked 
 off into the other room. Mrs. White 
 begged me to follow her and try to keep 
 her quiet, but I was so indignant myself 
 that I was almost tempted to wish she 
 would speak out her mind. I ran out 
 and filled the tea-kettle, telling Mrs. 
 White that I guessed Flora wouldn't say 
 anything, and we started the fire. 
 
 It was a quarter of seven before the 
 water was hot, and we asked the ladies 
 to walk out to supper. Luckily, the gen- 
 tlemen were not coming that night. It 
 was haying-time, and we had decided, 
 since we held the meeting principally be- 
 cause of the extra work, that we would 
 not have them. We often think that the 
 younger women don't do as much work 
 when the gentlemen are coming ; they are 
 upstairs so long curling their hair and 
 prinking. 
 
 I wondered if Flora Clark had said 
 anything. I heard afterward that she 
 had not, but I saw at once that she was 
 205 
 
Mis. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 endeavoring to wreak a little revenge 
 upon Mrs. Jameson. By a series of very 
 skilful and scarcely perceptible manoeu- 
 vres she gently impelled Mrs. Jameson, 
 without her being aware of it, into the 
 seat directly in front of the stove. I 
 knew it was not befitting my age and 
 Christian character, but I was glad to 
 see her there. The heat that night was 
 something terrific, and the fire in the 
 stove, although we had made no more 
 than we could help, had increased it de- 
 cidedly. I thought that Mrs. Jameson, 
 between the stove at her back and the 
 hot water in her health food, would have 
 her just deserts. It did seem as if she 
 must be some degrees warmer than any 
 of the rest of us. 
 
 However, who thought to inflict just 
 deserts upon her reckoned without Mrs. 
 H. Boardman Jameson. She began stir- 
 ring the health food, which she had 
 brought, in her cup of hot water; but 
 suddenly she looked around, saw the stove 
 206 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 at her back, and sweetly asked Mrs. 
 White if she could not have another seat, 
 as the heat was very apt to affect her 
 head. 
 
 It was Harriet, after all, upon whom 
 the punishment for her mother's thought- 
 lessness fell. She jumped up at once, 
 and eagerly volunteered to change seats 
 with her. 
 
 " Indeed, my place is quite cool, mam- 
 ma," she said. So Mrs. Jameson and her 
 daughter exchanged places ; and I did not 
 dare look at Flora Clark. 
 
 Though the kitchen was so hot, I think 
 we all felt that we had reason to be thank- 
 ful that Mrs. Jameson did not beseech us 
 to eat health food as she did at the pic- 
 nic, and also that the reading was over 
 for that day. 
 
 Louisa, when we were going home that 
 night, said she supposed that Mrs. Jame- 
 son would try to improve our literary 
 society also; and she was proved to be 
 right in her supposition at the very next 
 207 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 meeting. Mrs. Jameson came, and she 
 not only read selections from Browning, 
 but she started us in that mad problem 
 of Shakespeare and Bacon. Most of the 
 ladies in our society had not an intimate 
 acquaintance with either, having had, if 
 the truth were told, their minds too fully 
 occupied with such humble domestic 
 questions of identity as whether Johnny 
 or Tommy stole the sugar. 
 
 However, when we were once fairly 
 started there was no end to our interest; 
 we all agonized over it, and poor Mrs. 
 Sim White was so exercised over the 
 probable deception cf either Bacon or 
 Shakespeare, in any case, that she told 
 m 3 privately that she was tempted to 
 leave the literary society and confine her- 
 self to her Bible. 
 
 There was actual animosity between 
 some members of our society in conse- 
 quence. Mrs. Charles Eoot and Rebecca 
 Snow did not speak to each other for 
 weeks because Mrs. Boot believed that 
 208 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Shakespeare was Bacon, and Eebecca be* 
 lieved he was himself. Rebecca even 
 stayed away from church and the society 
 on that account. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson expressed herself as very 
 much edified at our interest, and said she 
 considered it a proof that our spheres 
 were widening. 
 
 Louisa and I agreed that if we could 
 only arrive at a satisfactory conclusion in 
 the matter we should feel that ours were 
 wider; and Flora Clark said it did not 
 seem of much use to her, since Shake- 
 speare and Bacon were both dead and 
 gone, and we were too much concerned 
 with those plays which were written any- 
 how, and no question about it, to bother 
 about anything else. It did not seem to 
 her that the opinion of our literary soci- 
 ety would make much difference to either 
 of them, and that possibly we had better 
 spend our time in studying the plays. 
 
 At the second meeting of our society 
 which Mrs. Jameson attended she gave 
 209 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 us a lecture, which she had written and 
 delivered before her Shakespeare club in 
 the city. It was upon the modem drama, 
 and we thought it must be very instruc- 
 tive, only as few of us ever went to the 
 theatre, or even knew the name of a 
 modem playwright, it was almost like a 
 lecture in an unknown tongue. Mrs. 
 Ketchum went to sleep and snored, and 
 told me on the way home that she did 
 not mean to be ungrateful, but she could 
 not help feeling that it would have been 
 as improving for her to stay at home and 
 read a new Sunday-school book that she 
 was interested in. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson did not confine herself 
 in her efforts for our improvement to our 
 diet and our literary tastes. After she 
 had us fairly started in our bewildering 
 career on the tracks of Bacon and Shake- 
 speare — doing a sort of amateur detective 
 work in the tombs, as it were — and after 
 she had induced the storekeeper to lay in 
 a supply of health food — which ho finally 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 fed to the chickens — she turned her atten- 
 tion to our costumes. She begged us to 
 cut off our gowns at least three inches 
 around the bottoms, for wear when en- 
 gaged in domestic pursuits, and she tried 
 to induce mothers to take off the shoes 
 and stockings of their small children, and 
 let them run barefoot. Children of a 
 larger growth in our village quite gener- 
 ally go barefoot in the summer, but the 
 little ones are always, as a rule, well 
 shod. Mrs. Jameson said that it was 
 much better for them also to go without 
 shoes and stockings, and Louisa and I 
 were inclined to think she might be right 
 — it does seem to be the natural way of 
 things. But people rather resented her 
 catching their children on the street and 
 stripping off their shoes and stockings, 
 and sending the little things home with 
 then in their hands. However, their 
 mothers put on the shoes and stockings, 
 and thought she must mean well. Very 
 few of them said anything to her by way 
 
Mrs. Jameson Improves Us 
 
 of expostulation ; but the children finally 
 ran when they saw her coming, so they 
 would not have their shoes and stockings 
 taken off. 
 
 All this time, while Mrs. H. Boardman 
 Jameson was striving to improve us, her 
 daughter Harriet was seemingly devoting 
 all her energies to the improvement of 
 Harry Liscom, or to the improvement of 
 her own ideal in his heart, whichever it 
 may have been ; and I think she succeeded 
 in each case. 
 
 Neither Mrs. Liscom nor Mrs. Jame- 
 son seemed aware of it, but people began 
 to say that Harry Liscom and the eldest 
 Jameson girl w r ere going together. 
 
 I had no doubt of it after what I had 
 seen in the grove ; and one evening during 
 the last of July I had additional evidence. 
 In the cool of the day I strolled down the 
 road a little way, and finally stopped at 
 the old Wray house. Nobody lived there 
 then; it had been shut up for many a 
 year. I thought I would sit down on the 
 
 212 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 old doorstep and rest, and I had barely 
 settled myself when I heard voices. They 
 came around the corner from the south 
 piazza, and I could not help hearing 
 what they said, though I rose and went 
 away as soon as I had my wits about me 
 and fairly knew that I was eavesdropping. 
 
 "You are so far above me," said a boy's 
 voice which I knew was Harry Lis corn's. 
 
 Then came the voice of the girl in 
 reply: "Oh, Harry, it is you who are so 
 far above me. " Then I was sure that they 
 kissed each other. 
 
 I reflected as I stole softly away, lest 
 they should discover me and be ashamed, 
 that, after all, it was only love which 
 could set people upon immeasurable 
 heights in each other's eyes, and stimu- 
 late them to real improvement and to live 
 up to each other's ideals. 
 
 213 
 
IV 
 
 THEY TAKE A FARM 
 
 I had wondered a little, after Mrs. 
 Jameson's frantic appeal to me to secure 
 another boarding-place for her, that she 
 seemed to settle down so contentedly 
 at Caroline Liscom's. She said nothing 
 more about her dissatisfaction, if she felt 
 any. However, I fancy that Mrs. Jame- 
 son is one to always conceal her distaste 
 for the inevitable, and she must have 
 known that she could not have secured 
 another boarding-place in Linnville. As 
 for Caroline Liscom, her mouth is always 
 closed upon her own affairs until they 
 have become matters of history. She 
 never said a word to me about the Jame- 
 sons until they had ceased to be her 
 boarders, which was during the first week 
 214 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 in August. My sister-in-law, Louisa 
 Field, came home one afternoon with the 
 news. She had been over to Mrs. Gregg's 
 to get her receipt for blackberry jam, and 
 had heard -it there. Mrs. Gregg always 
 knew about the happenings in our village 
 before they fairly gathered form on the 
 horizon of reality. 
 
 "What do you think, Sophia?" said 
 Louisa when she came in — she did not 
 wait to take off her hat before she began 
 — "the Jamesons are going to leave the 
 Lis corns, and they have rented the old 
 Wray place, and are going to run the farm 
 and raise vegetables and eggs. Mr. Jame- 
 son is coming on Saturday night, and 
 they are going to move in next Monday. * 
 
 I was very much astonished; I had 
 never dreamed that the Jamesons had 
 any taste for farming, and then, too, it 
 was so late in the season. 
 
 " Old Jonas Martin is planting the gar- 
 den now," said Louisa. " I saw him as I 
 came past." 
 
 215 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 "The garden," said I; "why, it is the 
 first of August ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Jameson thinks that she can raise 
 late peas and corn, and set hens so as to 
 have spring chickens very early in the sea- 
 son, " replied Louisa, laughing; "at least,, 
 that is what Mrs. Gregg says. The Jame- 
 sons are going to stay here until the last of 
 October, and then Jonas Martin is going to 
 take care of the hens through the winter. " 
 
 I remembered with a bewildered feel- 
 ing what Mrs. Jameson had said about 
 not wanting to board with people who 
 kept hens, and here she was going to keep 
 them herself. 
 
 Louisa and I wondered what kind of a 
 man Mr. H. Boardman Jameson might 
 be ; he had never been to Linnville, being 
 kept in the city by his duties at the 
 custom-house. 
 
 " I don't believe that he will have much 
 to say about the farm while Mrs. Jame- 
 son has a tongue in her head," said 
 Louisa; and I agreed with her. 
 6 216 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 When we saw Mr. H. Boardman Jame- 
 son at church the next Sunday we were 
 confirmed in our opinion. 
 
 He was a small man, much smaller 
 than his wife, with a certain air of de- 
 funct style about him. He had quite a 
 fierce bristle of moustache, and a nervous 
 briskness of carriage, yet there was some- 
 thing that was unmistakably conciliatory 
 and subservient in his bearing toward 
 Mrs. Jameson. He stood aside for her 
 to enter the pew, with the attitude of 
 vassalage ; he seemed to respond with an 
 echo of deference to every rustle of her 
 silken skirts and every heave of her wide 
 shoulders. Mrs. Jameson was an Episco- 
 palian, and our church is Congregational. 
 Mrs. Jameson did not attempt to kneel 
 when she entered, but bent her head for- 
 ward upon the back of the pew in front 
 of her. Mr. Jameson waited until she 
 fcras fairly in position, with observant and 
 anxious eyes upon her, before he did like- 
 wise. 
 
 217 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 This was really the first Sunday on 
 which Mrs. Jameson herself had appeared 
 at church. Ever since she had been in 
 our village the Sundays had been excep- 
 tionally warm, or else rainy and disagree- 
 able, and of course Mrs. Jameson was 
 in delicate health. The girls and Cobb 
 had attended faithfully, and always sat 
 in the pew with the Lis coins. To-day 
 Harry and his father sat in the Jones 
 pew to make room for the two elder 
 Jamesons. 
 
 There was an unusual number at meet- 
 ing that morning, partly, no doubt, be- 
 cause it had been reported that Mr. Jame- 
 son was to be there, and that made a 
 little mistake of his and his wife's more 
 conspicuous. The minister read that 
 morning the twenty-third Psalm, and 
 after he had finished the first verse Mrs. 
 Jameson promptly responded with the 
 second, as she would have done in her 
 own church, raising her solitary voice 
 with great emphasis. It would not have 
 218 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 been so ludicrous had not poor Mr. Jame- 
 son, evidently seeing the mistake, and his 
 face blazing, yet afraid to desert his wife's 
 standard, followed her dutifully just a 
 few words in the rear. While Mrs. 
 Jameson was beside the still waters, Mr. 
 Jameson was in the green pastures, and 
 so on. I pitied the Jameson girls. Har- 
 riet looked ready to cry with mortifica- 
 tion, and Sarah looked so alarmed that I 
 did not know but she would run out of 
 the church. As for Cobb, he kept staring 
 at his mother, and opening his mouth to 
 speak, and swallowing and never saying 
 anything, until it seemed as if he might 
 go into convulsions. People tried not to 
 laugh, but a little repressed titter ran over 
 the congregation, and the minister's voice 
 shook. Mrs. Jameson was the only one 
 who did not appear in the least disturbed ; 
 she did not seem to realize that she had 
 done anything unusual. 
 
 Caroline Liscom was not at church — 
 indeed, she had not been much since the 
 219 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 boarders arrived ; she had to stay at home 
 to get the dinner. Louisa and I won- 
 dered whether she was relieved or dis- 
 turbed at losing her boarders, and whether 
 we should ever know which. When we 
 passed the Wray house on our way home, 
 and saw the blinds open, and the fresh 
 mould in the garden, and the new shin- 
 gles shining on the hen-house roof, we 
 speculated about it. 
 
 "Caroline had them about nine weeks, 
 and at fifteen dollars a week she will have 
 one hundred and thirty-five dollars," said 
 Louisa. "That will buy her something 
 extra. " 
 
 " I know that she has been wanting 
 some portieres for her parlor, and a new 
 set for her spare chamber, and maybe that 
 is what she will get," said I. And I said 
 furthermore that I hoped she would feel 
 paid for her hard work and the strain it 
 must have been on her mind. 
 
 Louisa and I are not very curious, but 
 the next day we did watch — though 
 220 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 rather furtively — the Jamesons moving 
 into the old Wray house. 
 
 All day we saw loads of furniture pass- 
 ing, which must have been bought in 
 Orover. So many of the things were 
 sewed up in burlap that we could not tell 
 much about them, which was rather un- 
 fortunate. It was partly on this account 
 that we did not discourage Tommy Gregg 
 — who had been hanging, presumably 
 with his mother's connivance, around the 
 old Wray house all day — from reporting 
 to us as we were sitting on the front door- 
 step in the twilight. Mrs. Peter Jones 
 and Amelia Powers had run over, and 
 were sitting there with Louisa and me. 
 Little Alice had gone to bed ; we had re- 
 fused to allow her to go to see what was 
 going on, and yet listened to Tommy 
 Gregg's report, which was not, I suppose, 
 to our credit. I have often thought that 
 punctilious people will use cats '-paws to 
 gratify curiosity when they would scorn 
 to use them for anything else. Still, 
 
 221 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 neither Louisa nor I would have actually* 
 beckoned Tommy Gregg up to the door, 
 as Mrs. Jones did, though I suppose we 
 had as much cause to be ashamed, for we 
 certainly listened full as greedily as she. 
 
 It seemed to me that Tommy had seen 
 all the furniture unpacked, and much of 
 it set up, by lurking around in the silent, 
 shrinking, bright-eyed fashion that he 
 has. Tommy Gregg is so single-minded 
 in his investigations that I can easily 
 imagine that he might seem as impersonal 
 as an observant ray of sunlight in the 
 window. Anyway, he had evidently seen 
 everything, and nobody had tried to stop 
 him. 
 
 "It ain't very handsome," said Tommy 
 Gregg with a kind of disappointment and 
 wonder. " There ain't no carpets in the 
 house except in Grandma Cobb's room, 
 and that's jest straw mattin' ; and there's 
 some plain mats without no roses on 'em ; 
 and there ain't no stove 'cept in the 
 kitchen; jest old andirons like mother 
 222 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 keeps up garret; and there ain't no stuffed 
 furniture at all ; and they was eatin' sup- 
 per without no table-cloth." 
 
 Amelia Powers and Mrs. Jones thought 
 that it was very singular that the Jame- 
 sons had no stuffed furniture, but Louisa 
 and I did not feel so. We had often 
 wished that we could afford to change the 
 haircloth furniture, which I had had 
 when I was married, for some pretty rat- 
 tan or plain wood chairs. Louisa and I 
 rather fancied the Jamesons' style of 
 house-furnishing when we called there. 
 It was rather odd, certainly, from our 
 Tillage standpoint, and we were not ac- 
 customed to see bare floors if people 
 could possibly buy a carpet; the floors 
 were pretty rough in the old house, too. 
 It did look as if some of the furniture 
 was sliding down-hill, and it was quite 
 a steep descent from the windows to the 
 chimney in all the rooms. Of course, a 
 carpet would have taken off something of 
 that effect. Another thing struck us as 
 223 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 odd, and really scandalized the village at 
 large: the Jamesons had taken down 
 every closet and cupboard door in the 
 house. They had hung curtains before 
 the clothes- closets, but the shelves of the 
 pantry which opened out of the dining- 
 room, and the china-closet in the parlor, 
 were quite exposed, and furnished with, 
 to us, a very queer assortment of dishes. 
 The Jamesons had not one complete set, 
 and very few pieces alike. They had 
 simply ransacked the neighborhood for 
 forsaken bits of crockery-ware, the rem- 
 nants of old wedding-sets which had been 
 long stored away on top shelves, or used 
 for baking or preserving purposes. 
 
 I remember Mrs. Gregg laughing, and 
 saying that the Jamesons were tickled to 
 death to get some old blue cups which 
 she had when she was married and did 
 not pay much for then, and had used for 
 fifteen years to put up her currant jelly 
 in; and had paid her enough money for 
 them to make up the amount which she 
 224 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 had been trying to earn, by selling eggs, 
 to buy a beautiful new tea-set of a brown- 
 and- white ware. I don't think the Jame- 
 sons paid much for any of the dishes 
 which they bought in our village ; we are 
 not very shrewd people, and it did not 
 seem right to ask large prices for articles 
 which had been put to such menial uses. 
 I think many things were given them. 
 I myself gave Harriet Jameson an old 
 blue plate and another brown one which 
 I had been using to bake extra pies in 
 when my regular pie-plates gave out. 
 They were very discolored and cracked, 
 but I never saw anybody more pleased 
 than Harriet was. 
 
 I suppose the special feature of the 
 Jamesons' household adornments which 
 roused the most comment in the village 
 was the bean-pots. The Jamesons, who 
 did not like baked beans and never cooked 
 them, had bought, or had given them, 
 a number of old bean-pots, and had them 
 fitting about the floor and on the tables 
 225 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 with wild flowers in them. People could 
 not believe that at first; they thought 
 they must be some strange kind of vase 
 which they had had sent from New York. 
 They cast sidelong glances of sharpest 
 scrutiny at them when they called. When 
 they discovered that they were actually 
 bean-pots, and not only that, but were 
 sitting on the floor, which had never been 
 considered a proper place for bean-pots in 
 any capacity, they were really surprised. 
 Mora Clark said that for her part her 
 bean-pot went into the oven with beans in 
 it, instead of into the corner with flowers 
 in it, as long as she had her reason. But 
 I must say I did not quite agree with her. 
 I have only one bean-pot, and we eat 
 beans, therefore mine has to be kept 
 sacred to its original mission ; and I must 
 say that I thought Mrs. Jameson's with 
 goldenrod in it really looked better than 
 mine with beans. I told Louisa that I 
 could not see why the original states of 
 inanimate things ought to be remembered 
 226 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 against them when they were elevated to 
 finer uses any more than those of people, 
 and now that the bean-pot had become a 
 vase in a parlor why its past could not be 
 forgotten. Louisa agreed with me, but 
 I don't doubt that many people never 
 looked at those pots full of goldenrod 
 without seeing beans. It was to my 
 way of thinking more their misfortune 
 than the Jamesons' mistake; and they 
 made enough mistakes which were not to 
 be questioned not to have the benefit of 
 any doubt. 
 
 Soon the Jamesons, with their farm, 
 were the standing joke in our village. I 
 had never known there was such a strong 
 sense of humor among us as their pro- 
 ceedings awakened. Mr. H. Boardman 
 Jameson did not remain in Fairville long, 
 as he had to return to his duties at 
 the custom-house. Mrs. Jameson, who 
 seemed to rouse herself suddenly from 
 the languid state which she had assumed 
 at times, managed the farm. She cer- 
 227 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 tainly had original ideas and the courage 
 of her convictions. 
 
 She stopped at nothing; even Nature 
 herself she had a try at, like some met- 
 tlesome horse which does not like to be 
 balked by anything in the shape of a 
 wall- 
 Old Jonas Martin was a talker, and he 
 talked freely about the people for whom 
 he worked. "Old Deacon Sears had a 
 cow once that would jump everything. 
 Wa'n't a wall could be built that was 
 high enough to stop her," he would say. 
 " 'Tain't no ways clear to my mind that 
 she ain't the identical critter that jumped 
 the moon ; — and I swan if Mis' Jameson 
 ain't like her. There ain't nothin' that's 
 goin' to stop her; she ain't goin' to be 
 hendered by any sech little things as 
 times an' seasons an' frost from raisin' 
 corn an' green peas an' flowers in her 
 garden. 'The frost'll be a-nippin' of 'em, 
 marm,' says I, 'as soon as they come up, 
 marm/ 'I wish vou to leave that to me, 
 228 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 my good man,' says she. Law, she ain't 
 a-goin' to hev any frost a-nippin' her gar- 
 den unless she's ready for it. And as for 
 the chickens, I wouldn't like to be in 
 their shoes unless they hatch when Mis 1 
 Jameson she wants 'em to. They have 
 to do everything else she wants 'em to, 
 and I dunno but they'll come to time on 
 that. They're the fust fowls I ever see 
 that a woman could stop scratchm'." 
 
 With that, old Jonas Martin would 
 pause for a long cackle of mirth, and his 
 auditor would usually join him, for Mrs. 
 Jameson's hens were enough to awaken 
 merriment, and no mistake. Louisa and 
 I could never see them without laughing 
 enough to cry; and as for little Alice, 
 who, like most gentle, delicate children, 
 was not often provoked to immoderate 
 laughter, she almost went into hysterics. 
 "We rather dreaded to have her catch 
 sight of the Jameson hens. There were 
 twenty of them, great, fat Plymouth 
 Rocks, and every one cf them in shoes, 
 229 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 ■which were made of pieces of thick cloth 
 sewed into little bags and tied firmly 
 around the legs of the fowls, and they 
 were effectually prevented thereby from 
 scratching up the garden seeds. The 
 gingerly and hesitating way in which 
 these hens stepped around the Jameson 
 premises was very funny. It was quite 
 a task for old Jonas Martin to keep the 
 hens properly shod, for the cloth buskins 
 had to be often renewed; and distressed 
 squawkings amid loud volleys of aged 
 laughter indicated to us every day what 
 was going on. 
 
 The Jamesons kept two Jersey cows, 
 and Mrs. Jameson caused their horns to 
 be wound with strips of cloth terminating 
 in large, soft balls of the same, to prevent 
 their hooking. When the Jamesons first 
 began farming, their difficulty in suiting 
 themselves with cows occasioned much 
 surprise. They had their pick of a num- 
 ber of fine ones, but invariably took them 
 on trial, and promptly returned them 
 230 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 with the message that they were not sat- 
 isfactory. Old Jonas always took back 
 the cows, and it is a question whether or 
 not he knew what the trouble was, and 
 was prolonging the situation for his own 
 enjoyment. 
 
 At last it came out. Old Jonas came 
 leading back two fine Jerseys to Sim 
 White's, and he said, with a great chuckle : 
 " Want to know what aib these ere crit- 
 ters, Sim? Well, I'll tell ye: they ain't 
 got no upper teeth. The Jamesons ain't 
 goin' to git took in with no cows without 
 no teeth in their upper jaws, you bet." 
 
 That went the rounds of the village. 
 Mrs. White was so sorry for the Jame- 
 sons in their dilemma of ignorance cf our 
 rural wisdom that she begged Sim to go 
 over and persuade them that cows were 
 created without teeth in their upper jaw, 
 and that the cheating, if cheating there 
 were, was done by Nature, and all men 
 alike were victimized. I suppose Mr. 
 White must have convinced her, for they 
 2 3* 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 bought the cows ; but it must have been 
 a sore struggle for Mrs. Jameson at least 
 to swallow instruction, for she had the 
 confidence of an old farmer in all matters 
 pertaining to a farm. 
 
 She, however, did listen readily to one 
 singular piece of information which 
 brought much ridicule upon them. She 
 chanced to say to Wilson Gregg, who is 
 something of a wag, and had just sold the 
 Jamesons a nice little white pig, that she 
 thought that ham was very nice in alter- 
 nate streaks of fat and lean, though she 
 never ate it herself, and only bought the 
 pig for the sake of her mother, who had 
 old-fashioned tastes in her eating and 
 would have pork, and she thought that 
 home-raised would be so much healthier. 
 
 "Why, bless you, ma'am," said he, "if 
 you want your ham streaky all you have 
 to do is to feed the pig one day and starve 
 him the next." 
 
 Tiie Jamesons tried this ingenious plan ; 
 then, luckilv for the pig, old Jonas, who 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 had chuckled over it for a while, revealed 
 the fraud and put him on regular rations. 
 I suppose the performance of the Jame- 
 sons which amused the village the most 
 was setting their hens on hard-boiled 
 eggs for sanitary reasons. That seemed 
 incredible to me at first, but we had it on 
 good authority — that of Hannah Bell, a 
 farmer's daughter from the West Corners, 
 who worked for the Jamesons. She 
 declared that she told Mrs. Jameson 
 that hens could not set to any pur- 
 pose on boiled eggs; but Mrs. Jameson 
 had said firmly that they must set upon 
 them or none at all ; that she would not 
 have eggs about the premises so long 
 otherwise ; she did not consider it sani- 
 tary. Finally, when the eggs would 
 not hatch submitted to such treatment, 
 even at her command, she was forced 
 to abandon her position, though even 
 then with conditions of her surrender t« 
 Nature. She caused the nests to be well 
 soaked with disinfectants. 
 233 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 The Jamesons shut the house up the 
 last of October and went back to the city, 
 and I think most of us were sorry. I 
 was, and Louisa said that she missed 
 them. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson had not been what we 
 call neighborly through the summer, when 
 she lived in the next house. Indeed, I 
 think she never went into any of the 
 village houses in quite a friendly and 
 equal way, as we visit one another. 
 Generally she came either with a view 
 toward improving us — on an errand of 
 mercy as it were, which some resented — - 
 or else upon some matter of business. 
 Still we had, after all, a kindly feeling 
 for her, and especially for Grandma Cobb 
 and the girls, and the little meek boy. 
 Grandma Cobb had certainly visited us, 
 and none of us were clever enough to find 
 ©ut whether it was with a patronizing 
 spirit or not. The extreme freedom 
 which she took with our houses, almost 
 seeming to consider them as her own, 
 2 34 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 living in them some days from dawn till 
 late at night, might have indicated either 
 patronage or the utmost democracy. 
 We missed her auburn-wigged head ap- 
 pearing in our doorways at all hours, and 
 there was a feeling all over the village as 
 if company had gone home. 
 
 I missed Harriet more than any of 
 them. During the last of the time she 
 had stolen in to see me quite frequently 
 when she was released from her mother's 
 guardianship for a minute. None of our 
 village girls were kept as close as the 
 Jamesons. Louisa and I used to wonder 
 whether Mrs. Jameson kept any closer 
 ward because of Harry Liscom. He cer- 
 tainly never went to the Jameson house. 
 We knew that either Mrs. Jameson had 
 prohibited it, or his own mother. We 
 thought it must be Mrs. Jameson, for 
 Harry had a will of his own, as well as 
 his mother, and was hardly the man te 
 yield to her in a matter of this kind with- 
 out a struggle. 
 
 235 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 Though Harry did not go to the Jame- 
 son house, I, for one, used to see two sus- 
 picious-looking figures steal past the house 
 in the summer evenings ; but I said noth- 
 ing. There was a little grove on the 
 north side of our house, and there was a 
 bench under the trees. Often I used to 
 see a white flutter out there of a moon- 
 light evening, and I knew that Harriet 
 Jameson had a little white cloak. Louisa 
 saw it too, but we said nothing, though 
 we more than suspected that Harriot 
 must steal out of the house after her 
 mother had gone to her room, which we 
 knew was early. Hannah Bell must 
 know if that were the case, but she kept 
 their secret. 
 
 Louisa and I speculated as to what 
 was our duty if we were witnessing clan- 
 destine meetings, but we could never 
 bring our minds to say anything. 
 
 The night before the Jamesons left it 
 was moonlight and there was a hard frost, 
 and I saw those young things stealing 
 236 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 down the road for their last stolen meet- 
 ing, and I pitied them. I was afraid, too, 
 that Harriet would take cold in the sharp 
 air. I thought she had on a thin cloak. 
 Then I did something which I never 
 quite knew whether to blame myself for 
 or not. It did seem to me that, if the 
 girl were a daughter of mine, and would 
 in any case have a clandestine meeting 
 with her lover, I should prefer it to be in 
 a warm house rather than in a grove on 
 a frosty night. So I caught a shawl 
 from the table, and ran out to the front 
 door, and called. 
 
 " Harry ! " said I, " is that you ? " They 
 started, and I suppose poor Harriet was 
 horribly frightened ; but I tried to speak 
 naturally, and as if the two being there 
 together were quite a matter of course. 
 
 " I wonder if it will be too much for 
 me to ask of you," said I, when Harry 
 had responded quite boldly with a " Good- 
 evening, Aunt Sophia " — he used to call 
 me Aunt when he was a child, and still 
 237 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 kept it up — " I wonder if it will be too 
 much to ask if you two will just step in 
 here a minute while I run down to Mrs. 
 Jones' ? I want to get a pattern to use 
 the first thing in the morning. Louisa 
 has gone to meeting, and I don't like to 
 leave Alice alone." 
 
 They said they would be glad to come 
 in, though, of course, with not as much 
 joy as they felt later, when they saw that 
 I meant to leave them to themselves for 
 a time. 
 
 I stayed at Mrs. Jones' until I knew 
 that Louisa would be home if I waited 
 any longer, and I thought, besides, that 
 the young people had been alone long 
 enough. Then I went home. I suppose 
 that they were sorry to see me so soon, 
 but they looked up at me very gratefully 
 when I bade them good-night and thanked 
 them. I said quite meaningly that it 
 was a cold night and there would be a 
 frost, and Harriet must be careful and 
 not take cold. I thought that would be 
 -238 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 enough for Harry Liscom, unless being in 
 love had altered him and made him self- 
 ish. I did not think he would keep his 
 sweetheart out, even if it were his last 
 chance of seeing her alone for so long, if 
 he thought she would get any harm by it, 
 especially after he had visited her for a 
 reasonable length of time. 
 
 I was right in my opinion. They did 
 not turn about directly and go home — I 
 did not expect that, of course — but they 
 walked only to the turn of the road the 
 other way; then I saw them pass the 
 house, and presently poor Harry returned 
 alone. 
 
 I did pity Harry Liscom when I met 
 him on the street a few days after the 
 Jamesons had left. I guessed at once 
 that he was missing his sweetheart 
 sorely, and had not yet had a letter from 
 her. He looked pale and downcast, 
 though he smiled as he lifted his hat to 
 me, but he colored a little as if he sus- 
 pected that I might guess his secret. 
 239 
 
They Take a Farm 
 
 I met him the next day, and his face 
 was completely changed, all radiant and 
 glowing with the veritable light of youth- 
 ful hope upon it. lie bowed to me with 
 such a flash of joy in his smile that I 
 felt quite warmed by it, though it was 
 none of mine. I thought, though I said 
 nothing, " Harry Liscom, you have had a 
 letter." 
 
THEIR SECOND SUMMER 
 
 The Jamesons returned to Linnville 
 the first of June. For some weeks we 
 had seen indications of their coming. 
 All through April and May repairs and 
 improvements had been going on in their 
 house. Some time during the winter the 
 Jamesons had purchased the old Wray 
 place, and we felt that they were to be 
 a permanent feature in our midst. 
 
 The old Wray house had always been 
 ( painted white, with green blinds, as were 
 most of our village houses ; now it was 
 painted red, with blinds of a darker shade. 
 When Louisa and I saw its bright walls 
 through the budding trees we were some- 
 what surprised, but thought it might look 
 rather pretty when we became accustomed 
 241 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 to it. Very few of the neighbors agreed 
 with us, however; they had been so used 
 to seeing the walls of their dwellings white 
 that this startled them almost as much as 
 a change of color in their own faces would 
 have done. 
 
 " We might as well sot up for red In- 
 juns and done with it," said Mrs. Gregg 
 one afternoon at the sewing circle. 
 "What anybody can want anything any 
 prettier than a neat white house with 
 green blinds for, is beyond me." 
 
 Every month during the winter a let- 
 ter had come to our literary society in 
 care of the secretary, who was my sister- 
 in-law, Louisa Field. Louisa was al- 
 ways secretary because she was a school- 
 teacher and was thought to have her hand 
 in at that sort of work. Mrs. Jameson 
 wrote a very kind, if it was a somewhat 
 patronizing, sort of letter. She extended 
 to us her very best wishes for our im- 
 provement and the widening of our 
 spheres, and made numerous suggestions 
 242 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 which she judged calculated to advance 
 us in those respects. She recommended 
 selections from Eobert Browning to be 
 read at our meetings, and she sent us 
 some copies of explanatory and critical 
 essays to be used in connection with 
 them. She also in March sent us a copy 
 of another lecture about the modern 
 drama which she had herself written and 
 delivered before her current literature 
 club. With that she sent us some works 
 of Ibsen and the Belgian writer, Maeter- 
 linck, with the recommendation that we 
 devote ourselves to the study of them at 
 once, they being eminently calculated for 
 the widening of our spheres. 
 
 Flora Clark, who is the president of 
 the society; Mrs. Peter Jones, who is 
 the vice-president; Louisa, and I, who 
 am the treasurer, though there is nothing 
 whatever to treasure, held a council over 
 the books. We all agreed that while we 
 were interested in them ourselves, though 
 they were a strange savor to our mental 
 243 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 palates, yet we would not read Mrs. 
 Jameson's letter concerning them to the 
 society, nor advise the study of them. 
 
 " I, for one, don't like to take the re- 
 sponsibility of giving the women of this 
 village such reading," said Flora Clark. 
 " It may be improving and widening, and 
 it certainly is interesting, and there are 
 fine things in it, but it does not seem to 
 me that it would be wise to take it into 
 the society when I consider some of the 
 members. I would just as soon think of 
 asking them to tea and giving them noth- 
 ing but olives and Russian caviare, which, 
 I understand, hardly anybody likes at 
 first. I never tasted them myself. We 
 know what the favorite diet of this vil- 
 lage is ; and as long as we can eat it our- 
 selves it seems to me it is safer than to 
 try something which we may like and 
 everybody else starve on, and I guess we 
 haven't exhausted some of the older, sim- 
 pler things, and that there is some nour- 
 ishment to be gotten out of them yet for 
 244 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 all of us. It is better for us all to eat 
 bread and butter and pie than for two or 
 three of us to eat the olives and caviare, 
 and the rest to have to sit gnawing their 
 forks and spoons." 
 
 Mrs. Peter Jones, who is sometimes 
 thought of for the president instead of 
 Flora, bridled a little. "I suppose you 
 think that these books are above the ladies 
 of this village," said she. 
 
 " I don't know as I think they are so 
 much above as too far to one side," said 
 Flora. "Sometimes it's longitude, and 
 sometimes it's latitude that separates peo- 
 pie. I don't know but we are just as far 
 from Ibsen and Maeterlinck as they are 
 from us." 
 
 Louisa and I thought Flora might be 
 right. At all events, we did not wish 
 to set ourselves up in opposition to her. 
 We never carried the books into the soci- 
 ety, and we never read Mrs. Jameson's 
 letter about them, though we did feel 
 somewhat guilty, especially as we reflected 
 
 2 45 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 that Flora had never forgotten the affair 
 of the jumbles, and might possibly have 
 allowed her personal feelings to influence 
 her. 
 
 "I should feel very sorry," said Louisa 
 to me, " if we were preventing the women 
 of this village from improving them- 
 selves." 
 
 " Well, we can wait until next summer, 
 and let Mrs. Jameson take the responsi- 
 bility. I don't want to be the means of 
 breaking up the society, for one," said I. 
 
 However, when Mrs. Jameson finally 
 arrived in June, she seemed to be on a 
 slightly different tack, so to speak, of 
 improvement. She was not so active in 
 our literary society and our sewing circle 
 as she had been the summer before, but 
 now, her own sphere having possibly en- 
 larged, she had designs upon the village 
 in the abstract. 
 
 Hannah Bell came over from the West 
 Corners to open the house for them, and 
 at five o'clock we saw the Grover stage 
 246 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 rattle past with their trunks on top, and 
 Grandma Cobb and the girls and Cobb 
 looking out of the windows. Mrs. Jame- 
 son, being delicate, was, of course, leaning 
 back, exhausted with her journey. Jonas 
 Martin, who had been planting the gar- 
 den, was out at the gate of the Wray 
 house to help the driver carry in the 
 trunks, and Hannah Bell was there too. 
 
 Louisa and I had said that it seemed 
 almost too bad not to have some one of 
 the village women go there and welcome 
 them, but we did not know how Mrs. H. 
 Boardman Jameson might take it, and 
 nobody dared go. Mrs. White said that 
 she would have been glad to make some 
 of her cream biscuits and send them over, 
 but she knew that Mrs. Jameson would 
 not eat them, of course, and she did not 
 know whether she would like any of the 
 others to, and might think it a liberty. 
 
 So nobody did anything but watch. It 
 was not an hour after the stage coach ar- 
 rived before we saw Grandma Cobb com* 
 247 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 ing up the road. We did not know 
 whether she was going to Amelia Powers', 
 or Mrs. Jones', or to our house; but she 
 turned in at our gate. 
 
 We went to the door to meet her, and 
 I must say she did seem glad to see us, 
 and we were glad to see her. In a very 
 short time we knew all that had happened 
 in the Jameson family since they had left 
 Linnville, and with no urging, and with 
 even some reluctance on our part. It did 
 not seem quite right for us to know how 
 much Mrs. Jameson had paid her dress- 
 maker for making her purple satin, and 
 still less so for us to know that she had 
 not paid for the making of her black lace 
 net and the girls' organdy muslins, though 
 she had been dunned three times. The 
 knowledge was also forced upon us that 
 all these fine new clothes were left in New 
 York, since the shabby old ones must be 
 worn out in the country, and that Harriet 
 had cried because she could not bring 
 some of her pretty gowns with her. 
 8 248 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 * Her mother does not think that there 
 is any chance of her making a match here, 
 and she had better save them up till next 
 winter. Dress does make so much differ- 
 ence in a girl's prospects, you know," said 
 Grandma Cobb shrewdly. 
 
 I thought of poor Harry Liscom, and 
 how sorry his little sweetheart must have 
 felt not to be able to show herself in her 
 pretty dresses to him. However, I was 
 exceedingly glad to hear that she had 
 cried, because it argued well for Harry, 
 and looked as if she had not found another 
 lover more to her mind in New York. 
 
 Indeed, Grandma Cobb informed us pre- 
 sently as to that. " Harriet does not seem 
 to find anybody," said she. " I suppose it 
 is because H. Boardman lost his money ; 
 young men are so careful nowadays." 
 
 Grandma Cobb stayed to tea with us 
 that night ; our supper hour came, and of 
 course we asked her. 
 
 Grandma Cobb owned with the greatest 
 frankness that she should like to stay. 
 249 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 u There isn't a thing to eat at our house 
 but hygienic biscuits and eggs/ said she. 
 " My daughter wrote Hannah not to cook 
 anything until we came; Hannah would 
 have made some cake and pie, otherwise. 
 I tell my daughter I have got so far along 
 in life without living on hygienic food, 
 and I am not going to begin. I want to 
 get a little comfort out of the taste of my 
 victuals, and my digestion is as good as 
 hers, in spite of all her fussing. For my 
 part," continued Grandma Cobb, who had 
 at times an almost coarsely humorous 
 method of expressing herself, " I believe 
 in not having your mind on your inwards 
 any more than you can possibly help. I 
 believe the best way to get along with 
 them is to act as if they weren't there." 
 
 After Grandma Cobb went home, as late 
 as nine o'clock, I saw a clinging, shadowy 
 couple stroll past our house, and knew it 
 was Harriet Jameson and Harry, as did 
 Louisa, and our consciences began to trou- 
 ble us again. 
 
 250 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 * I feel like a traitor to Caroline and to 
 Mrs. Jameson sometimes, " said I. 
 
 " Well, maybe that is better than to be 
 traitor to true love," said Louisa, which 
 did sound rather sentimental. 
 
 The next morning about eleven o'clock 
 Mrs. Jameson came in, and we knew at 
 once that she was, so to speak, fairly 
 rampant in the field of improvement for 
 our good, or rather the good of the village, 
 for, as I said before, she was now resolved 
 upon the welfare of the village at large, 
 and not that of individuals or even socie- 
 ties. 
 
 "I consider that my own sphere has 
 been widened this winter," said Mrs. 
 Jameson, and Louisa and I regarded her 
 with something like terror. Flora Clark 
 said, when she heard that remark of Mrs. 
 Jameson's, that she felt, for her part, as if 
 a kicking horse had got out of the pasture, 
 and there was no knowing where he would 
 stop. 
 
 We supposed that it must be an evi- 
 2 5i 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 dence of Mrs. Jameson's own advance in 
 improvement that she had adopted such 
 a singular costume, according to our ideas. 
 She was dressed no longer in the rich 
 fabrics which had always aroused our ad- 
 miration, but, instead, wore a gown of 
 brown cloth cut short enough to expose 
 her ankles, which were, however, covered 
 with brown gaiters made of cloth like her 
 dress. She wore a shirt-waist of brown 
 silk, and a little cutaway jacket. Mrs. 
 Jameson looked as if she were attired for 
 riding the wheel, but that was a form of 
 exercise to which she was by no means 
 partial either for herself or for her daugh- 
 ters. I could never understand just why 
 she was not partial to wheeling. Wheels 
 were not as fashionable then as now, but 
 Mrs. Jameson was always quite up with, 
 if not in advance of, her age. 
 
 Neither of us admired her in this cos- 
 tume. Mrs. Jameson was very stout, and 
 the short skirt was not, to our way of.' 
 thinking, becoming. 
 
 252 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 * Don't you think that I have adopted 
 a very sensible and becoming dress for 
 country wear? " said she, and Louisa and 
 I did not know what to say. We did 
 not wish to be untruthful and we disliked 
 to be impolite. Finally, Louisa said 
 faintly that she thought it must be very 
 convenient for wear in muddy weather, 
 and I echoed her. 
 
 " Of course, you don't have to hold it 
 up at all," said I. 
 
 " It is the only costume for wear in the 
 country," said Mrs. Jameson, "and I hope 
 to have all the women in Linnville wear- 
 ing it before the summer is over." 
 
 Louisa and I glanced at each other in 
 dismay. I think that we both had men- 
 tal pictures of some of the women whom 
 we knew in that costume. Some of our 
 good, motherly, village faces, with their 
 expressions of homely dignity and Chris- 
 tian decorousness, looking at us from un- 
 der that jaunty English walking-hat, in 
 lieu of their sober bonnets, presented them- 
 253 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 selves to our imaginations, and filled us 
 with amusement and consternation. 
 
 " Only think how Mrs. Sim White would 
 look," Louisa said after Mrs. Jameson had 
 gone, and we both saw Mrs. White going 
 down the street in that costume indicative 
 of youthful tramps over long stretches of 
 road, and mad spins on wheels, instead of 
 her nice, softly falling black cashmere 
 skirts covering decently her snowy stock- 
 ings and her cloth congress boots ; and we 
 shuddered. 
 
 "Of course, she would have to wear 
 gaiters like Mrs. Jameson," said Louisa, 
 "but it would be dreadful." 
 
 "Well, there's one comfort," said I; 
 " Mrs. White will never wear it. " 
 
 "Nor anybody else," said Louisa. 
 
 Still we did feel a little nervous about 
 it; there is never any estimating the in- 
 fluence of a reformer. However, we were 
 sure of ourselves. Louisa and I agreed 
 that we never would be seen out in any 
 such costume. Not very many in the 
 2 54 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 village were. There were a few women, 
 who were under the influence of Mrs. 
 Jameson, who did cut off some of their 
 old dresses and make themselves some 
 leggings with hers for a pattern. After 
 their housework was done they started off 
 for long tramps with strides of indepen- 
 dence and defiance, but they did not keep 
 it up very long ; none of them after Mrs. 
 Jameson went away. To tell the truth, 
 most of the women in our village had so 
 much work to do, since they kept no ser- 
 vants, that they could not take many ten- 
 mile walks, no matter what length skirts 
 they wore. However, many wore the 
 short ones while doing housework, which 
 was very sensible. 
 
 During that morning call, Mrs. Jame- 
 son, besides the reformed costume, advo- 
 cated another innovation which fairly took 
 our breaths away. She was going to beau- 
 tify the village. We had always consid- 
 ered the village beautiful as it was, and 
 we bridled a little at that. 
 255 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 " There is scarcely a house in this vil- 
 lage which is overgrown with vines," said 
 she. "I am going to introduce vines." 
 
 Louisa ventured to say that she thought 
 vines very pretty, but she knew some peo- 
 ple objected to them on the score of spi- 
 ders, and also thought that they were bad 
 for the paint. We poor, frugal village 
 folk have always to consider whether 
 beauty will trespass on utility, and con- 
 sequently dollars and cents. There are 
 many innocent slaves to Mammon in our 
 midst. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson sniffed in her intensely 
 scornful way. " Spiders and paint ! " said 
 she. " I am going to have the houses of 
 this village vine-clad. It is time that 
 the people were educated in beauty." 
 
 "People won't like it if she does go to 
 planting vines around their houses with- 
 out their permission, even if she does 
 mean well," said Louisa after she had 
 gone. 
 
 " She never will dare to without their 
 256 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 permission," said I ; but I wondered while 
 I spoke, and Louisa laughed. 
 
 "Don't you be too sure of that," said 
 she — and she was right. 
 
 Permission in a few cases Mrs. Jame- 
 son asked, and in the rest she assumed. 
 Old Jonas Martin ransacked the woods 
 for vines — clematis and woodbine — then 
 he, with Mrs. Jameson to superintend, 
 set them out around our village houses. 
 The calm insolence of benevolence with 
 which Mrs. Jameson did this was inim- 
 itable. People actually did not know 
 whether to be furious or amused at this 
 liberty taken with their property. They 
 saw with wonder Mrs. Jameson, with old 
 Jonas following laden with vines and 
 shovel, also the girls and Cobb, who had 
 been pressed, however unwillingly, into 
 service, tagging behind trailing with wood- 
 bine and clematis ; they stood by and saw 
 their house-banks dug up and the vines set, 
 and in most cases said never a word. If 
 they did expostulate, Mrs. Jameson only 
 257 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 directed Jonas where to put the next vine, 
 and assured the bewildered owner of the 
 premises that he would in time thank her. 
 
 However, old Jonas often took the irate 
 individual aside for a consolatory word. 
 " Lord a-massy, don't ye worry," old Jonas 
 would say, with a sly grin; "ye know 
 well enough that there won't a blamed 
 one of the things take root without no 
 sun an' manure ; might as well humor her 
 long as she's sot on 't." 
 
 Then old Jonas would wink slowly 
 with a wink of ineffable humor. There 
 was no mistaking the fact that old Jonas 
 was getting a deal of solid enjoyment out 
 of the situation. He had had a steady, 
 hard grind of existence, and was for the 
 first time seeing the point of some of 
 those jokes of life for which his natural 
 temperament had given him a relish. He 
 acquired in those days a quizzical cock to 
 his right eyebrow, and a comically confi- 
 dential quirk to his mouth, which were 
 in themselves enough to provoke a laugh * 
 258 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Mrs. Jameson, however, did not confine 
 herself, in her efforts for the wholesale 
 decoration of our village, to the planting 
 of vines around our house -walls; and 
 there were, in one or two cases, serious 
 consequences. 
 
 When, thinking that corn-cockles and 
 ox-eyed daisies would be a charming com- 
 bination at the sides of the country road, 
 she caused them to be sowed, and thereby 
 introduced them into Jonas Green's wheat- 
 field, he expostulated in forcible terms, 
 and threatened a suit for damages; and 
 when she caused a small grove of promis- 
 ing young hemlocks to be removed from 
 Eben Betas' woodland and set out in the 
 sandy lot in which the schoolhouse stands, 
 without leave or license, it was generally 
 conceded that she had exceeded her priv- 
 ileges as a public benefactress. 
 
 I said at once there would be trouble, 
 when Louisa came home and told me 
 about it. 
 
 " The schoolhouse looks as if it were set 
 259 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 in a shady grove," said she, "and is ever 
 so pretty. The worst of it is, of course, 
 the trees won't grow in that sand-hill." 
 
 " The worst of it is, if she has taken 
 those trees without leave or license, as I 
 suspect, Eben Belts will not take it as a 
 joke," said I; and I was right. 
 
 Mr. IT. Boardman Jameson had to pay 
 a goodly sum to Eben Betts to hush the 
 matter up; and the trees soon withered, 
 and were cut up for firewood for the 
 schoolhouse. People blamed old Jonas 
 Martin somewhat for his share of this 
 transaction, arguing that he ought not to 
 have yielded to Mrs. Jameson in such a 
 dishonest transaction, even in the name 
 of philanthropy; but he defended himself, 
 saying: "It's easy 'nough to talk, but 
 I'd like to see any of ye stand up agin 
 that woman. When she gits headed, it's 
 either git out from under foot or git 
 knocked over." 
 
 Mrs. Jameson not only strove to estab- 
 lish improvements in our mids^, but she 
 260 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 attacked some of our time-honored insti- 
 tutions, one against which she directed 
 all the force of her benevolent will being 
 our front doors. Louisa and I had always 
 made free with our front door, as had some 
 others ; but, generally speaking, people in 
 our village used their front doors only for 
 weddings, funerals, and parties. The side 
 doors were thought to be good enough for 
 ordinary occasions, and we never dreamed, 
 when dropping in for a neighborly call, 
 of approaching any other. Mrs. H. 
 Boardman Jameson resolved to do away 
 with this state of things, and also with 
 our sacred estimate of the best parlors, 
 which were scarcely opened from one 
 year's end to the other, and seemed redo- 
 lent of past grief and joy, with no dilu- 
 tion by the every-day occurrences of life. 
 Mrs. Jameson completely ignored the side 
 door, marched boldly upon the front one, 
 and compelled the mistress to open it to 
 her resolute knocks. Once inside, she 
 advanced straight upon the sacred pre- 
 261 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 cincts of the best parlor, and seated her- 
 self in the chilly, best rocking-chair with 
 the air of one who usurps a throne, asking 
 with her manner of sweet authority it' the 
 blinds could not be opened and the sun 
 let in, as it felt damp to her, and she was 
 very susceptible to dampness. It was 
 told, on good authority, that in some 
 cases she even threw open the blinds and 
 windows herself while the person who 
 admitted her was calling other members 
 of the family. 
 
 It was also reported that she had on 
 several occasions marched straight up W 
 a house which she had no design of enter 
 ing, thrown open the parlor blinds, and 
 admitted the sunlight, with its fading in- 
 fluence, on the best carpet, and then pro- 
 ceeded down the street with the bearing 
 of triumphant virtue. It was related that 
 in a number of instances the indignant 
 housewife, on entering her best parlor, 
 found that the sun had been streaming in 
 there all day, right on the carpet. 
 262 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Mrs. Jameson also waged fierce war on 
 another custom dear to the average village 
 heart, and held sacred, as everything 
 should be which is innocently dear to 
 one's kind, by all who did not exactly 
 approve of it. 
 
 In many of our village parlors, some- 
 times in the guest-chambers, when there 
 had been many deaths in the family, hung 
 the framed coffin-plates and faded funeral 
 wreaths of departed dear ones. Now and 
 then there was a wreath of wool flowers, 
 a triumph of domestic art, which encircled 
 the coffin-plate instead of the original 
 funeral garland. Mrs. Jameson set her- 
 self to work to abolish this grimly pathetic 
 New England custom with all her might. 
 She did everything but actually tear them 
 from our walls. That, even in her fiery 
 zeal of improvement, she did not quite 
 dare attempt. She made them a constant 
 theme of conversation at sewing circle 
 and during her neighborly calls. She 
 spoke of the custom quite openly as grew- 
 263 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 some and barbarous, but I must say with- 
 out much effect. Mrs. Jameson found 
 certain strongholds of long-established 
 customs among us which were impregna- 
 ble to open rancor or ridicule — and that 
 was one of them. The coffin-plates and 
 the funeral wreaths continued to hang in 
 the parlors and chambers. 
 
 Once Flora Clark told Mrs. Jameson to 
 her face, in the sewing circle, when she 
 had been talking for a good hour about 
 the coffin-plates, declaring them to be 
 grewsome and shocking, that, for her part, 
 she did not care for them, did not have 
 one in her house — though every one of 
 her relations were dead, and she might 
 have her walls covered with them — but 
 she believed in respecting those who did ; 
 and it seemed to her that, however much 
 anybody felt called upon to interfere with 
 the ways of the living, the relics of the 
 dead should be left alone. Flora con- 
 cluded by saying that it seemed to her 
 that if the Linnville folks let Mrs. Jame- 
 9 264 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 son's bean-pots alone, she might keep her 
 hands off their coffin-plates. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson was quite unmoved even 
 by that. She said that Miss Clark did 
 not realize, as she would do were her 
 sphere wider, the incalculable harm that 
 such a false standard of art might do in a 
 community: that it might even pervert 
 the morals. 
 
 " I guess if we don't have anything to 
 hurt our morals any worse than our coffin- 
 plates, we shall do," returned Flora. She 
 said afterward that she felt just like dig- 
 ging up some of her own coffin-plates, and 
 having them framed and hung up, and 
 asking Mrs. Jameson to tea. 
 
 All through June and a part of July 
 Louisa and I had seen the clandestine 
 courtship between Harry Liscom and Har- 
 riet Jameson going on. We could scarcely 
 help it. "We kept wondering why neither 
 Caroline Liscom nor Mrs. Jameson seemed 
 aware of it. Of course, Mrs. Jameson 
 was so occupied with the village welfare 
 265 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 that it might account for it in her case, 
 but we were surprised that Caroline was 
 so blinded. We both of us thought that 
 she would be very much averse to the 
 match, from her well-known opinion of 
 the Jamesons ; and it proved that she was. 
 Everybody talked so much about Harry 
 and his courtship of Harriet that it seemed 
 incredible that Caroline should not hear 
 of it, even if she did not see anything her- 
 self to awaken suspicion. We did not 
 take into consideration the fact that a 
 strong-minded woman like Caroline Lis- 
 com has difficulty in believing anything 
 which she does not wish to be true, and 
 that her will stands in her own way. 
 
 However, on Wednesday of the second 
 week of July both she and Mrs. Jameson 
 had their eyes opened perforce. It was a 
 beautiful moonlight evening, and Louisa 
 and I were sitting at the windows looking 
 out and chatting peacefully. Little Alice 
 had gone to bed, and we had not lit the 
 lamp, it was so pleasant in the moonlight. 
 266 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Presently, about half-past eight o'clock, 
 two figures strolled by, and we knew who 
 they were. 
 
 M It is strange to me that Grandma Cobb 
 does not find it out, if Mrs. Jameson is 
 too wrapped up in her own affairs and 
 with grafting ours into them," said Louisa 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 I remarked that I should not be sur- 
 prised if she did know ; and it turned out 
 afterward that it was so. Grandma Cobb 
 had known all the time, and Harriet had 
 gone through her room to get to the back 
 stairs, down which she stole to meet 
 Harry. 
 
 The young couple had not been long 
 past when a stout, tall figure went hur- 
 riedly by with an angry flirt of skirts — 
 short ones. 
 
 " Oh, dear, that is Mrs. Jameson S " cried 
 Louisa. 
 
 We waited breathless. Harry and Har- 
 riet could have gone no farther than the 
 grove, for in a very short time back they 
 267 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 all came, Mrs. Jameson leading — almost 
 pulling — along her daughter, and Harry 
 pressing close at her side, with his arm 
 half extended as if to protect his sweet- 
 heart. Mrs. Jameson kept turning and 
 addressing him ; we could hear the angry 
 clearness of her voice, though we could 
 not distinguish many words; and finally, 
 when they were almost past we saw poor 
 Harriet also turn to him, and we judged 
 that she, as well as her mother, was beg- 
 ging him to go, for he directly caught 
 her hand, gave it a kiss, said something 
 which we almost caught, to the effect 
 that she must not be afraid — he would 
 take care that all came out right — and 
 was gone. 
 
 " Oh, dear," sighed Louisa, and I echoed 
 her. I did pity the poor young things. 
 
 To our surprise, and also to our dis- 
 may, it was not long before we saw Mrs. 
 Jameson hurrying back, and she turned 
 in at our gate. 
 
 Louisa jumped and lighted the lamp, 
 268 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 and I set the rocking-chair for Mrs. 
 Jameson. 
 
 "No, I can't sit down," said she, wav- 
 ing her hand. " I am too much disturbed 
 to sit down," but even as she said that 
 she did drop into the rocking - chair. 
 Louisa said afterward that Mrs. Jameson 
 was one who always would sit down dur- 
 ing all the vicissitudes of life, no matter 
 how hard she took them. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson was very much dis- 
 turbed; we had never seen her calm su- 
 periority so shaken; it actually seemed 
 as if she realized for once that she was 
 not quite the peer of circumstances, as 
 Louisa said. 
 
 " I wish to inquire if you have known 
 long of this shameful clandestine love 
 affair of my daughter's?" said she, and 
 Louisa and I were nonplussed. We did 
 not know what to say. Luckily, Mrs. 
 Jameson did not wait for an answer; 
 she went on to pour her grievance into 
 our ears, without even stopping to be sure 
 269 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 whether they were sympathizing ones or 
 not. 
 
 "My daughter cannot marry into one 
 of these village families," said she, with- 
 out apparently the slightest consideration 
 of the fact that we were a village family. 
 " My (laughter has been very differently 
 brought up. I have other views for her; 
 it is impossible; it must be understood at 
 once that I will not have it." 
 
 Mrs. Jameson was still talking, and 
 Louisa and I listening with more of dis- 
 may than sympathy, when who should 
 walk in but Caroline Liscom herself. 
 
 She did not knock — she never does ; 
 she opened the door with no warning 
 whatsoever, and stood there. 
 
 Louisa turned pale, and I know I must 
 have. I could not command my voice, 
 though I tried hard to keep calm. 
 
 I said "Good-morning," when it should 
 have been "Good-evening," and placed 
 Alice's little chair, in which she could 
 Bot by any possibility sit, for Caroline. 
 270 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 "No, I don't want to sit down," said 
 Caroline, and she kept her word better 
 than Mrs. Jameson. She turned directly 
 to the latter. " I have just been over to 
 your house," said she, "and they told me 
 that you had come over here. I want to 
 say something to you, and that is, I don't 
 want my son to marry your daughter, and 
 I will never give my consent to it, never, 
 never I " 
 
 Mrs. Jameson's face was a study. For 
 a minute she had not a word to say ; she 
 only gasped. Finally she spoke. " You 
 can be no more unwilling to have your 
 son marry my daughter than I am to have 
 my daughter marry your son," said she. 
 
 Then Caroline said something unex- 
 pected. "I would like to know what 
 you have against my son, as fine a young 
 man as there is anywhere about, I don't 
 care who he is," said she. 
 
 And Mrs. Jameson said something 
 unexpected. "I should like to inquire 
 271 
 
Their Second Summer 
 
 what you have against my daughter?" 
 said she. 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you one thing," returned 
 Caroline; "she doesn't know enough to 
 keep a doll-baby's house, and she ain't 
 neat." 
 
 Mrs. Jameson choked; it did not seem 
 as if she could reply in her usual manner 
 to such a plain statement of objections. 
 She and Caroline glared at each other a 
 minute; then to our great relief, for no 
 one wants her house turned into the seat 
 of war, Caroline simply repeated, " I shall 
 never give my consent to have my son 
 marry your daughter," and went out. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson did not stay long after 
 that. She rose, saying that her nerves 
 were very much shaken, and that she felt 
 it sad that all her efforts for the welfare 
 and improvement of the village should 
 have ended in this, and bade us a mourn- 
 ful good-evening and left. 
 
 Louisa and I had an impression that 
 she held us in some way responsible, and 
 272 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 we could not see why, though I did re- 
 flect guiltily how I had asked the lovers 
 into my house that October night. 
 Louisa and I agreed that, take it alto- 
 gether, we had never seen so much 
 mutual love and mutual scorn in 'wo 
 families. 
 
 273 
 
VI 
 
 THE CENTENNIAL 
 
 The older one grows, the less one won- 
 ders at the sudden, inconsequent turns 
 which an apparently reasonable person 
 will make in a line of conduct. Still I 
 must say that I was not prepared for 
 what Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson did in 
 about a week after she had declared that 
 her daughter should never marry Harry 
 Liscom : capitulated entirely, and gave her 
 consent. 
 
 It was Grandma Cobb who brought us 
 the news, coming in one morning before 
 we had our breakfast dishes washed. 
 
 "My daughter told Harriet last night 
 
 that she had written to her father and he 
 
 had no objections, and that she would 
 
 withdraw hers on further consideration, " 
 
 274 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 said Grandma Cobb, with a curious, un. 
 conscious imitation of Mrs. Jameson's 
 calm state of manner. Then she at once 
 relapsed into her own. "My daughter 
 says that she is convinced that the young 
 man is worthy, though he is not socially 
 quite what she might desire, and she does 
 not feel it right to part them if they have 
 a true affection for each other," said 
 Grandma Cobb. Then she added, with a 
 shake of her head and a gleam of mali- 
 cious truth in her blue eyes : " That is not 
 the whole of it; Eobert Browning was 
 the means of bringing it about." 
 
 " Robert Browning ! " I repeated. I 
 was bewildered, and Louisa stared at me 
 in a frightened way. She said afterward 
 that she thought for a minute that Grand- 
 ma Cobb was out of her head. 
 
 But Grandma Cobb went on to explain. 
 "Yes, my daughter seems to look upon 
 Eobert Browning as if everything he said 
 was written on tables of stone," said she; 
 " and last night she had a letter from Mrs. 
 275 
 
The Centennial 
 
 Addison Sears, who feels just the same 
 way. My daughter had written hei 
 about Harriet's love affair, and this was 
 in answer. Mrs. Sears dwelt a good dea) 
 upon Mr. Browning's own happy marriage ; 
 and then she quoted passages; and my 
 daughter became convinced that Robert 
 Browning would have been in favor of 
 the match, — and that settled it. My 
 daughter proves things by Browning al- 
 most the same way as people do by Scrip- 
 ture, it seems to me sometimes. I am 
 thankful that it has turned out so," 
 Grandma Cobb went on to say, "for I 
 like the young man myself; and as for 
 Harriet, her mind is set on him, and 
 she's something like me: once get her 
 mind set on anybody, that's the end of 
 it. My daughter has got the same trait, 
 but it works the contrary way : when she 
 once gets her mind set against anybody, 
 that's the end of it unless Robert Brown- 
 ing steps in to turn her." 
 
 Louisa and I were heartily glad to heat 
 276 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 of Mr. Browning's unconscious interces- 
 sion and its effect upon Mrs. Jameson, 
 but we wondered what Caroline Liscom 
 would say. 
 
 "It will take more than passages of 
 poetry to move her," said Louisa when 
 Grandma Cobb had gone. 
 
 All we could do was to wait for devel- 
 opments concerning Caroline. Then one 
 day she came in and completely opened 
 her heart to us with that almost alarm- 
 ing frankness which a reserved woman 
 often displays if she does lose her self- 
 restraint. 
 
 " I can't have it anyhow," said Caroline 
 Liscom ; and I must say I did pity her, 
 though I had a weakness for little Har- 
 riet. " I feel as if it would kill me if 
 Harry marries that girl — and I am afraid 
 he will; but it shall never be with my 
 consent, and he shall never bring her to 
 my house while I am in it." 
 
 Then Caroline went on to make revela- 
 tions about Harriet which were actually 
 277 
 
The Centennial 
 
 dire accusations from a New England 
 housewife like her. 
 
 " It was perfectly awful the way hei 
 room looked while she was at my house," 
 said Caroline ; " and she doesn't know how 
 to do one thing ahout a house. She can't 
 make a loaf of hread to save her life, and 
 she has no more idea how to sweep a room 
 and dust it than a baby. I had it straight 
 from Hannah Bell that she dusted her 
 room and swept it afterward. Think of 
 my boy, brought up the way he has been, 
 everything as neat as wax, if I do say it, 
 and his victuals always cooked nice, and 
 ready when he wanted them, marrying a 
 girl like that. I can't and I won't have 
 it. It's all very well now, he's capti- 
 vated by a pretty face; but wait a little, 
 and he'll find out there's something else. 
 He'll find out there's comfort to be con- 
 sidered as well as love. And she don't 
 even know how to do plain sewing. 
 Only look at the bottoms of her dress- 
 es, with the braid hanging ; and I kno"W 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 she never mends her stockings — I had 
 it from the woman who washes them. 
 Only think of my son, who has always 
 had his stockings mended as smooth as 
 satin, either going with holes in them, or 
 else having them gathered up in hard 
 bunches and getting corns. I can't and 
 I won't have it! " 
 
 Caroline finished all her remarks with 
 that, setting her mouth hard. It was 
 evident that she was firm in her decision. 
 I suggested mildly that the girl had never 
 been taught, and had always had so much 
 money that she was excusable for not 
 knowing how to do all these little things 
 which the Linnville girls had been forced 
 to do. 
 
 ■ I know all that," said Caroline ; " I am 
 not blaming her so much as I am her 
 mother. She had better have stopped 
 reading Browning and improving her own 
 mind and the village, and improved her 
 own daughter, so she could walk in the 
 way Providence has set for a woman 
 279 
 
The Centennial 
 
 without disgracing herself. But I am 
 looking at her as she is, without any 
 question of blame, for the sake of my 
 son. He shall not marry a girl who 
 don't know how to make his home com- 
 fortable any better than she does — not if 
 his mother can save him from it." 
 
 Louisa asked timidly — we were both 
 of us rather timid, Caroline was so fierce 
 ■ — if she did not think she could teach 
 Harriet. 
 
 " I don't know whether I can or not! " 
 said Caroline. " Anyway, I am not going 
 to try. What kind of a plan would it be 
 for me to have her in the house teaching 
 her, where Harry could see her every 
 day, and perhaps after all find out that 
 it would not amount to anything. I'd 
 rather try to cure drink than make a 
 good housewife of a girl who hasn't been 
 brought up to it. How do I know it's in 
 her? And there I would have her right 
 under Harry's nose. She shall never 
 marry him; I can't and I won't have it." 
 10 280 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Louisa and I speculated as to whether 
 Caroline would be able to help it, when 
 she had taken her leave after what 
 seemed to us must have been a most un- 
 satisfactory call, with not enough sym- 
 pathy from us to cheer her. 
 
 " Harry Liscom has a will, as well as 
 his mother, and he is a man grown, and 
 running the woollen factory on shares 
 with his father, and able to support a 
 wife. I don't believe he is going to 
 stop, now the girl's mother has consented, 
 because his mother tells him to," said 
 Louisa; and I thought she was right. 
 
 That very evening Harry went past to 
 the Jamesons, in his best suit, carrying 
 a cane, which he swung with the assured 
 air of a young man going courting where 
 he is plainly welcome. 
 
 "I am glad for one thing," said I, "and 
 that is there is no more secret strolling 
 in my grove, but open sitting up in her 
 mother's parlor." 
 
 Louisa looked at me a little uncertain- 
 281 
 
The Centennial 
 
 ly, and I saw that there was something 
 which she wanted to say and did not 
 quite dare. 
 
 "What is it? w said I. 
 
 "Well," said Louisa, hesitatingly, "I 
 was thinking that I supposed — I don't 
 know that it would work at all — maybe 
 her mother wouldn't be willing, and 
 maybe she wouldn't be willing herself — 
 but I was thinking that you were as good 
 a housekeeper as Caroline Liscom, and — 
 you might have the girl in here once in a 
 while and teach her." 
 
 " I will do it," said I at once, — " if I can, 
 that is." 
 
 I found out that I could. The poor 
 child was only too glad to come to my 
 house and take a few lessons in house- 
 keeping. I waylaid her when she was 
 going past one day, and broached the 
 subject delicately. I said it was a good 
 idea for a young girl to learn as much as 
 she could about keeping a house nice be- 
 fore she had one of her own, and Harriet 
 282 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 blushed as red as a rose and thanked me, 
 and arranged to come for her first lesson 
 the very next morning. I got a large 
 gingham apron for her, and we began. I 
 gave her a lesson in bread-making that 
 very day, and found her an apt pupil. 
 I told her that she would make a very 
 good housekeeper — I should not wonder 
 if as good as Mrs. Liscom, who was, I 
 considered, the best in the village; and 
 she blushed again and kissed me. 
 
 Louisa and I had been a little worried 
 as to what Mrs. Jameson would say; 
 but we need not have been. Mrs. Jame- 
 son was strenuously engaged in uprooting 
 poison-ivy vines, which grew thickly 
 along the walls everywhere in the vil- 
 lage. I must say it seemed Scriptural to 
 me, and made me think better in one 
 way of Mrs. Jameson, since it did require 
 considerable heroism. 
 
 Luckily, old Martin was one of the 
 few who are exempt from the noxious in- 
 fluence of poison -ivy, and he pulled up 
 2S3 
 
The Centennial 
 
 the roots with impunity, but I must say- 
 without the best success. Poison-ivy is 
 a staunch and persistent thing, and more 
 than a match for Mrs. Jameson. She 
 suffered herself somewhat in the conflict, 
 and went about for some time with her 
 face and hands done up in castor-oil, 
 which we consider a sovereign remedy 
 for poison-ivy. Cobb, too, was more or 
 less a victim to his mother's zeal for up- 
 rooting noxious weeds. 
 
 It was directly after the poison-ivy 
 that Mrs. Jameson made what may be 
 considered her grand attempt of the sea- 
 son. All at once she discovered what 
 none of the rest of us had thought of — I 
 suppose we must have been lacking in 
 public feeling not to have done so — that 
 our village had been settled exactly one 
 hundred years ago that very August. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson came into our house 
 
 with the news on the twenty-seventh 
 
 day of July. She had just foimd it out 
 
 in an old book which had been left be- 
 
 284 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 hind and forgotten in the garret of the 
 Wray house. 
 
 ""We must have a centennial, of 
 course," said she magisterially. 
 
 Louisa and I stared at her. " A cen- 
 tennial ! " said I feebly. I think visions 
 of Philadelphia, and exhibits of the prod- 
 ucts of the whole world in our fields and 
 cow-pastures, floated through my mind. 
 Centennial had a stupendous sound to 
 me, and Louisa said afterward it had to 
 her. 
 
 " How would you make it ? " asked 
 Louisa vaguely of Mrs. Jameson, as if a 
 centennial were a loaf of gingerbread. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson had formed her plans 
 with the rapidity of a great general on 
 the eve of a forced battle. "We will 
 take the oldest house in town," said she 
 promptly. " I think that it is nearly as 
 old as the village, and we will fit it up as 
 nearly as possible like a house of one 
 hundred years ago, and we will hold oui 
 >celebratk>n there." 
 
The Centennial 
 
 "Let me see, the oldest house is the 
 Shaw house," said I. 
 
 "Why, Emily Shaw is living there," 
 said Louisa in wonder. 
 
 "We shall make arrangements with 
 her," returned Mrs. Jameson, with confi- 
 dence. She looked around our sitting- 
 room, and eyed our old-fashioned high- 
 boy, of which we are very proud, and 
 an old-fashioned table which becomes 
 a chair when properly manipulated. 
 " Those will be just the things to go in 
 one of the rooms," said she, without so 
 much as asking our leave. 
 
 "Emily Shaw's furniture will have to 
 be put somewhere if so many other 
 things are to be moved in," suggested 
 Louisa timidly; but Mrs. Jameson dis- 
 missed that consideration with merely a 
 wave of her hand. 
 
 " I think that Mrs. Simeon White has 
 a swell-front bureau and an old looking- 
 glass which will do very well for one of 
 the chambers," she went on to say, "and 
 286 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Miss Clark has a mahogany table." Mrs. 
 Jameson went on calmly enumerating 
 articles of old-fashioned furniture which 
 she had seen in our village houses which 
 she considered suitable to be used in the 
 Shaw house for the centennial. 
 
 " I don't see how Emily Shaw is going 
 to live there while all this is going on," 
 remarked Louisa in her usual deprecatory 
 tone when addressing Mrs. Jameson. 
 
 " I think we may be able to leave her 
 one room," said Mrs. Jameson; and Lou- 
 isa and I fairly gasped when we reflected 
 that Emily Shaw had not yet heard a 
 word of the plan. 
 
 "I don't know but Emily Shaw will 
 put up with it, for she is pretty meek," 
 said Louisa when Mrs. Jameson had gone 
 hurrying down the street to impart her 
 scheme to others; "but it is lucky for 
 Mrs. Jameson that Flora Clark hasn't 
 the oldest house in town." 
 
 I said I doubted if Flora would even 
 consent to let her furniture be displayed 
 
 2 8 7 
 
The Centennial 
 
 in the centennial; but she did. Every- 
 body consented to everything. I don't 
 know whether Mrs. H. Boardman Jame- 
 son had really any hypnotic influence 
 over us, or whether we had a desire for 
 the celebration, but the whole village 
 marshalled and marched to her orders 
 with the greatest docility. All our cher- 
 ished pieces of old furniture were loaded 
 into carts and conveyed to the old Shaw 
 house. 
 
 The centennial was to be held the 
 tenth day of August, and there was nec- 
 essarily quick work. The whole village 
 was in an uproar; none of us who had 
 old - fashioned possessions fairly knew 
 where we were living, so many of them 
 were in the Shaw house; we were short 
 of dishes and bureau drawers, and coun- 
 terpanes and curtains. Mrs. Jameson 
 never asked for any of these things ; she 
 simply took them as by right of war, 
 and nobody gainsaid her, not even Flora 
 Clark. However, poor Emily Shaw was 
 288 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 the one who displayed the greatest meek- 
 ness under provocation. The whole affair 
 must have seemed revolutionary to her. 
 She was a quiet, delicate little woman, 
 no longer young. She did not go out 
 much, not even to the sewing circle or 
 the literary society, and seemed as fond 
 of her home as an animal of its shell — 
 as if it were a part of her. Old as her 
 house was, she had it fitted up in a mod- 
 ern, and, to our village ideas, a very pret- 
 ty fashion. Emily was quite well-to-do. 
 There were nice tapestry carpets on all 
 the downstairs floors, lace curtains at the 
 windows, and furniture covered with red 
 velvet in the parlor. She had also had the 
 old fireplaces covered up and marble slabs 
 set. There was handsome carved black 
 walnut furniture in the chambers; and 
 taken altogether, the old Shaw house was 
 regarded as one of the best furnished in the 
 village. Mrs. Sim White said she didn't 
 know as she wondered that Emily didn't 
 like to go away from such nice things. 
 289 
 
The Centennial 
 
 Now every one of these nice things 
 was hustled out of sight to make room 
 for the pieces of old-fashioned furniture. 
 The tapestry carpets were taken up and 
 stowed away in the garrets, the lace cur- 
 tains were pulled down. In their stead 
 were the old sanded bare floors and cur- 
 tains of homespun linen trimmed with 
 hand-knitted lace. Emily's nice Mar- 
 seilles counterpanes were laid aside for 
 the old blue-and-white ones which our 
 grandmothers spun and wove, and her 
 fine oil paintings gave way to old en- 
 gravings of Webster death-bed scenes and 
 portraits of the Presidents, and samplers. 
 Emily was left one room to herself — a 
 little back chamber over the kitchen — 
 and she took her meals at Flora Clark's, 
 next door. She was obliged to do that, for 
 her kitchen range had been taken down, 
 and there was only the old fireplace fur- 
 nished with kettles and crane to cook in. 
 
 " I suppose my forefathers used to get 
 all their meals there," said poor Emily 
 290 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Shaw, who has at all times a gentle, sad 
 way of speaking, and then seemed on the 
 verge of uncomplaining tears, " but I don't 
 quite feel competent to undertake it now. 
 It looks to me as if the kettles might 
 be hard to lift." Emily glanced at her 
 hands and wrists as she spoke. Emily's 
 hands and arms are very small and bony, 
 as she is in her general construction, 
 though she is tall. 
 
 The little chamber which she inhab- 
 ited during the preparation for the cen- 
 tennial was very hot in those midsummer 
 days, and her face was always suffused 
 with a damp pink when she came out of it ; 
 but she uttered no word of complaint, not 
 even when they took down her marble 
 slabs and exposed the yawning mouths of 
 the old fireplaces again. All she said was 
 once in a deprecatory whisper to me, to 
 the effect that she was a little sorry to 
 have strangers see her house looking so, 
 but she supposed it was interesting. 
 
 We expected a number of strangers. 
 291 
 
The Centennial 
 
 Mrs. Sim White's brother, who had gone 
 to Boston when he was a young man and 
 turned out so smart, being the head of a 
 large dry 7 -goods firm, was coming, and was 
 to make a speech; and Mr. Elijah M. 
 Mills, whose mother's people came from 
 Linnville, was to be there, as having a 
 hereditary interest in the village. Of 
 course, everybody knows Elijah M. Mills. 
 He was to make a speech. Mrs. Lucy 
 Beers Wright, whose aunt on her father's 
 side, Miss Jane Beers, used to live in 
 Linnville before she died, was to come 
 and read some selections from her own 
 works. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright writes 
 quite celebrated stories, and reads them 
 almost better than she writes them. She 
 has enormous prices, too, but she prom- 
 ised to come to the centennial and read 
 for nothing ; she used to visit her aunt in 
 linnville when she was a girl, and wrote 
 that she had a sincere love for the dear 
 old place. Mrs. Jameson said that we 
 were very fortunate to get her. 
 
 292 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 Mrs. Jameson did not stop, however, 
 at celebrities of local traditions ; she flew 
 higher still. She wrote the Governor of 
 the State, inviting him to be present, and 
 some of us were never quite certain that 
 she did not invite the President of thd 
 United States. However, if she had done 
 so, it seemed incredible that since he was 
 bidden by Mrs. II. Boardman Jameson he 
 neither came nor wrote a letter. The 
 Governor of the State did not come, but 
 he wrote a very handsome letter, express- 
 ing the most heartfelt disappointment 
 that he was unable to be present on such 
 an occasion ; and we all felt very sorry for 
 him when we heard it read. Mrs. Sim 
 White said that a governor's life must 
 be a hard one, he must have to deny 
 himself many pleasures. Our minister, 
 the Eev. Henry P. Jacobs, wrote a long 
 poem to be read on the occasion ; it was 
 in blank verse like Young's "Night 
 Thoughts," and some thought he had 
 imitated it; but it was generally consid- 
 293 
 
The Centennial 
 
 ered rery fine, though we had not the 
 pleasure of hearing it at the centennial — 
 why, I will explain later. 
 
 There was to be a grand procession, of 
 •ourse, illustrative of the arts, trades, 
 and professions in our village a hundred 
 years ago and at the present time, and 
 Mrs. Jameson engineered that. I never 
 Raw a woman work as she did. Louisa 
 and I agreed that she could not be so 
 very delicate after all. She had a finger 
 in everything except the cooking; that 
 she left mostly to the rest of us, though 
 she did break over in one instance to our 
 sorrow. We made pound-cake, and cup- 
 cake, and Indian puddings, and pies, and 
 we baked beans enough for a standing 
 army. Of course, the dinner was to be 
 after the fashion of one of a hundred years 
 ago. The old oven in the Shaw kitchen 
 was to be heated, and Indian puddings 
 and pies baked in it; but that would not 
 hold enough for such a multitude as we ex- 
 pected, so we all baked at home — that is, 
 294 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 all except Caroline Liscom. She would 
 not bake a thing because Mrs. Jameson 
 got up the centennial, and she declared 
 that she would not go. However, she 
 changed her mind, which was fortunate 
 enough as matters afterward transpired. 
 
 The tenth of August, which was the 
 one hundredth anniversary of the settle- 
 ment of our village, dawned bright and 
 clear, for which we were thankful, 
 though it was very hot. The exercises 
 were to begin at eleven o'clock in the 
 morning with the procession. We were 
 to assemble at the old Shaw house at 
 half -past twelve; the dinner was to be 
 at half -past one, after an hour of social 
 intercourse which would afford people an 
 opportunity of viewing the house, and a 
 few of us an opportunity of preparing the 
 dinner. After dinner were to be the 
 speeches and readings, which must be 
 concluded in season for the out-of-town 
 celebrities to take the Grover stage-coach 
 to connect with the railroad train. 
 2 95 
 
The Centennial 
 
 By eight o'clock people began to arrive 
 from other villages, and to gather on the 
 street corners to view the procession. It 
 was the very first procession ever organ- 
 ized in our village, and we were very 
 proud of it. For the first time Mrs. 
 Jameson began to be regarded with real 
 gratitude and veneration as a local bene- 
 factress. We told all the visitors that 
 Mrs. II. Boardman Jameson got up the 
 centennial, and we were proud that she 
 was one of us when we saw her driving 
 past in the procession. We thought it 
 exceedingly appropriate that the Jame- 
 sons — Mr. Jameson had come on from 
 New York for the occasion — should ride 
 in the procession with the minister and 
 the lawyer in a barouche from Grover. 
 Barouches seemed that day to be illustra- 
 tive of extremest progress in carriages, 
 in contrast with the old Linnville and 
 Wardville stage-coaches, and the old 
 chaise and doctor's sulky, all of which 
 had needed to be repaired with infinite 
 11 296 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 care, and were driven with gingerly fore- 
 sight, lest they fall to pieces on the line 
 of march. We really pitied the village 
 doctor in the aged sulky, for it seemed as 
 if he might have to set a bone for himself 
 by reason of the sudden and total col- 
 lapse of his vehicle. Mrs. Jameson had 
 decreed that he should ride in it, how- 
 ever, and there was no evading her man- 
 date. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson looked very imposing in 
 her barouche, and we were glad that she 
 wore one of her handsome black silks 
 instead of her sensible short costume. 
 There was a good deal of jet about the 
 waist, and her bonnet was all made of jet, 
 with a beautiful tuft of pink roses on the 
 front, and she glittered resplendently as 
 she rode past, sitting up very straight, aa 
 befitted the dignity of the occasion. 
 
 "That is Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson/ 
 
 said we, and we mentioned incidentally 
 
 that the gentleman beside her was Mr. 
 
 Jameson. We were not as proud of 
 
 297 
 
The Centennial N 
 
 Mm, since all that he had done which 
 we knew of was to lose all his money and 
 have his friends get him a place in the 
 custom-house; he was merely a satellite 
 of his wife, who had gotten up our cen- 
 tennial. 
 
 Words could not express the admira- 
 tion which we all felt for the procession. 
 It was really accomplished in a masterly 
 manner, especially taking into considera- 
 tion the shortness of the time for prepar- 
 ation ; but that paled beside the wonders 
 of the old Shaw house. I was obliged 
 to be in the kitchen all during that hour 
 of inspection and social intercourse, but I 
 could hear the loud bursts of admiration. 
 The house seemed full of exclamation- 
 points. Flora Clark said for her part she 
 could not see why folks could not look at 
 a thing and think it was pretty without 
 screaming; but she was tired, and proba- 
 bly a little vexed at herself for working 
 so hard when Mrs. Jameson had gotten 
 up the centennial. It was very warm in 
 298 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 the kitchen, too, for Mrs. Jameson had 
 herself started the hearth fire in order to 
 exemplify to the utmost the old custom. 
 The kettles on the crane were all steam- 
 ing. Flora Clark said it was nonsense 
 to have a hearth -fire on such a hot day 
 because our grandmothers were obliged 
 to, but she was in the minority. Most 
 of the ladies were inclined to follow Mrs. 
 Jameson's lead unquestionably on that 
 occasion. They even exclaimed admir- 
 ingly over two chicken pies which she 
 brought, and which I must say had a 
 singular appearance. The pastry looked 
 very hard and of a curious leaden color. 
 Mrs. Jameson said that she made them 
 herself out of whole wheat, without 
 shortening, and she evidently regarded 
 them as triumphs of wholesomeness and 
 culinary skill. She furthermore stated 
 that she had remained up all night to 
 bake them, which we did not doubt, as 
 Hannah Bell, her help, had been em- 
 ployed steadily in the old Shaw house. 
 299 
 
The Centennial 
 
 Mrs. Jameson had cut the pies before 
 bringing them, which Flora Clark whis- 
 pered was necessary. " I know that she 
 had to cut them with a hatchet and a 
 hammer/ whispered she ; and really when 
 we came to try them later it did not seem 
 so unlikely. I never saw such pastry, 
 anything like the toughness and cohe- 
 siveness of it ; the chicken was not sea- 
 soned well, either. We could eat very 
 little; with a few exceptions, we could 
 do no more than taste of it, which was 
 fortunate. 
 
 I may as well mention here that the 
 few greedy individuals, who I fancy fre- 
 quent all social functions with an under- 
 current of gastronomical desire for their 
 chief incentive, came to grief by reason 
 of Mrs. Jameson's chicken pies. She 
 baked them without that opening in the 
 upper crust which, as every good house- 
 wife knows, is essential, and there were 
 dire reports of sufferings in consequence. 
 The village doctor, after his precarious 
 300 
 
The Jameson,* 
 
 drive in the ancient sulky, had a night of 
 toil. Caleb — commonly called Kellup — 
 Bates, and his son Thomas, were the 
 principal sufferers, they being notorious 
 eaters and the terrors of sewing- circle 
 suppers. Flora Clark confessed to me 
 that she was relieved when she saw them 
 out again, since she had passed the pies to 
 them three times, thinking that such de- 
 vourers would stop at nothing and she 
 might as well save the delicacies for the 
 more temperate. 
 
 We were so thankful that none of the 
 out-of-town celebrities ate Mrs. Jame- 
 son's chicken pies, since they had a 
 rather unfortunate experience as it was. 
 The dinner was a very great success, and 
 Flora Clark said to me that if people a 
 hundred years ago ate those hearty, nour- 
 ishing victuals as these people did, she 
 didn't wonder that the men had strength 
 to found a Eepublic, but she did wonder 
 how the women folks who had to cook 
 for them had time and strength to live, 
 301 
 
The Centennial 
 
 After dinner the speechifying began. 
 The Rev. Henry P. Jacobs made the 
 opening address ; we had agreed that he 
 should be invited to do so, since he was 
 the minister. He asked the blessing be- 
 fore we began to eat, and made the open- 
 ing address afterward. Mr. Jacobs is 
 considered a fine speaker, and he is never 
 at a loss for ideas. We all felt proud of 
 him as he stood up and began to speak of 
 the state of the Linnville church a hun- 
 dred years ago, and contrasted those days 
 of fireless meeting-houses with the com- 
 forts of the sanctuary at the present time. 
 He also had a long list of statistics. I 
 began at last to feel a little uneasy lest 
 he might read his poem, and so rob the 
 guests who were to speak of their quotas 
 of time. Louisa said she thought he was 
 intending to, but she saw Mrs. Jameson 
 whisper to her husband, who immediately 
 tiptoed around to him with a scared and 
 important look, and said something in a 
 low voice. Then the minister, with a 
 302 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 somewhat crestfallen air, curtailed his 
 remarks, saying something about his 
 hoping to read a poem a little later on 
 that auspicious occasion, but that he 
 would now introduce Mrs. H. Boardman 
 Jameson, to whom they were all so much 
 indebted. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson arose and bowed to the 
 company, and adjusted her eyeglasses. 
 Her jets glittered, her eyes shone with a 
 commanding brightness, and she really 
 looked very imposing. After a few 
 words, which even Flora Clark acknowl- 
 edged were very well chosen, she read 
 the Governor's letter with great impres- 
 siveness. Then she went on to read other 
 letters from people who were noteworthy 
 in some way and had some association 
 with the village. Flora Clark said that 
 she believed that Mrs. Jameson had writ- 
 ten to every celebrity whose grandfather 
 ever drove through Linnville. She did 
 have a great many letters from people 
 who we were surprised to hear had ever 
 303 
 
The Centennial 
 
 heard of us, and they were very interest- 
 ing. Still it did take time to read them ; 
 and after she had finished them all, Mrs. 
 Jameson commenced to speak on her own 
 account. She had some notes which she 
 consulted unobtrusively from time to 
 time. She dwelt mainly upon the vast 
 improvement for the better in our condi- 
 tion during the last hundred years. She 
 mentioned in this connection Robert 
 Browning, the benefit of whose teaching 
 was denied our ancestors of a hundred 
 years ago. She also mentioned hygienic 
 bread as a contrast to the heavy, indiges- 
 tible masses of corn-meal concoctions and 
 the hurtful richness of pound-cake. Mrs. 
 Jameson galloped with mild state all her 
 little hobbies for our delectation, and the 
 time went on. AVe had sat very long at 
 dinner ; it was later than we had planned 
 when the speechifying began. Mrs. 
 Jameson did not seem to be in the least 
 aware of the flight of time as she peace- 
 fully proceeded ; nor did she see how we 
 3°4 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 were all fidgeting. Still, nobody spoke to 
 her; nobody quite dared, and then we 
 thought every sentence would be her last. 
 The upshot of it was that the Grover 
 stage-coach arrived, and Mrs. Sim White's 
 brother, Elijah M. Mills, and Mrs. Lucy 
 Beers Wright, besides a number of others 
 of lesser fame, were obliged to leave 
 without raising their voices, or lose their 
 trains, which for such busy people was 
 not to be thought of. There was much 
 subdued indignation and discomfiture 
 among us, and I dare say among the 
 guests themselves. Mrs. Lucy Beers 
 Wright was particularly haughty, even to 
 Mrs. Sim White, who did her best to ex- 
 press her regret without blaming Mrs. 
 Jameson. As for Elijah M. Mills, Louisa 
 said she heard him say something which 
 she would not repeat, when he was put- 
 ting on his hat. He is a fine speaker, 
 and noted for the witty stories which he 
 tells ; we felt that we had missed a great 
 deal. I must say, to do her justice, that 
 3°5 
 
The Centennial 
 
 Mrs. Jameson seemed somewhat per- 
 turbed, and disposed to be conciliating 
 when she bade the guests good-by; she 
 was even apologetic in her calmly supe- 
 rior way. 
 
 However, the guests had not been 
 gone long before something happened to 
 put it all out of our minds for the time. 
 The Rev. Henry P. Jacobs had just stood 
 up again, w r ith a somewhat crestfallen 
 air, to read his poem — I suppose he was 
 disappointed to lose the more important 
 part of his audience — when there was a 
 little scream, and poor Harriet Jameson 
 was all in a blaze. She wore a white 
 muslin dress, and somehow it had caught 
 — I suppose from a spark ; she had been 
 sitting near the hearth, though we had 
 thought the fire was out. Harry Lis com 
 made one spring for her when he saw 
 what had happened ; but he had not been 
 very near her, and a woman was before 
 him. She caught up the braided rug 
 from the floor, and in a second Harriet 
 306 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 was bome down under it, and then Harry 
 was there with his coat, and Sim White, 
 and the fire was out. Poor Harriet 
 was not much hurt, only a few trifling 
 burns; but if it had not been for the 
 woman she might easily have gotten her 
 death, and our centennial ended in a 
 tragedy. 
 
 It had all been done so quickly that 
 we had not fairly seen who the woman 
 who snatched up the rug was, but when 
 the fire was out we knew : Caroline Lis- 
 com. She was somewhat burned herself, 
 too, but she did not seem to mind that at 
 all. She was, to our utter surprise — for 
 we all knew how she had felt about Har- 
 ry's marrying Harriet — cuddling the girl 
 in her motherly arms, the sleeves of her 
 best black grenadine being all scorched, 
 too, and telling her that she must not be 
 frightened, the fire was all out, and call- 
 ing her my dear child, and kissing her. 
 I, for one, never knew that Caroline Lis- 
 com could display so much warmth of 
 307 
 
The Centennial 
 
 love and pity, and that toward a girl 
 whom she was determined her son should 
 not marry, and before so many. I sup- 
 pose when she saw the poor child all in a 
 blaze, and thought she would be burned 
 to death, her heart smote her, and she 
 felt that she would do anything in the 
 world if she only lived. 
 
 Harry Liscom was as white as a sheet. 
 Once or twice he tried to push his moth- 
 er away, as if he wished to do the com- 
 forting and cuddling himself; but she 
 would not have it. " Poor child ! poor 
 child ! " she kept repeating; " it's all over, 
 don't be frightened," as if Harriet had 
 been a baby. 
 
 Then Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson 
 came close to Caroline Liscom, and tears 
 were running down her cheeks quite 
 openly. She did not even have out her 
 handkerchief, and she threw her arms 
 right around the other woman who had 
 saved her daughter. "God bless you! 
 Oh, God bless you ! " she said ; then her 
 308 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 voice broke and she sobbed out loud. I 
 think a good many of us joined her. As 
 for Caroline Lis com, she sort of pushed 
 Harriet toward her son, and then she 
 threw her poor, scorched arms around 
 Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson and kissed 
 her. "Oh, let us both thank God!" 
 sobbed Caroline. 
 
 As soon as we got calm enough we 
 took Harriet upstairs ; her pretty muslin 
 was fluttering around her in yellow rags, 
 and the slight burns needed attention; 
 she was also exhausted with the nervous 
 shock, and was trembling like a leaf, her 
 cheeks white and her eyes big with ter- 
 ror. Caroline Lis com and her mother 
 came too, and Caroline concealed her 
 burns until Harriet's were dressed. 
 Luckily, the doctor was there. Then 
 Harriet was induced to lie down on the 
 north chamber bed on the old blue-and- 
 white counterpane that Mrs. Sim White's 
 mother spun and wove. 
 
 Rev. Henry P. Jacobs did not read his 
 3°9 
 
The Centennial 
 
 poem; we were too much perturbed to 
 listen to it, and nobody mentioned it to 
 him. Flora Clark whispered to me that 
 if he began she should go home ; for her 
 part, she felt as if she had gone through 
 enough that day without poetry. The 
 poem was delivered by special request at 
 our next sewing circle, but I think the 
 minister was always disappointed, though 
 he strove to bear it with Christian grace. 
 However, within three months he had to 
 console him a larger wedding fee than 
 often falls to a minister in Linnville. 
 
 The centennial dissolved soon after the 
 burning accident. There was nothing 
 more to do but to put the Shaw house to 
 rights again and restore the various arti- 
 cles to their owners, which, of course, 
 could not be done that day, nor for many 
 days to come. I think I never worked 
 harder in my life than I did setting things 
 to rights after our centennial ; but I had 
 one consolation through it, and that was 
 the happiness of the two young things, 
 310 
 
The Jamesons 
 
 who had had indirectly their love tangle 
 smoothed out by it. 
 
 Caroline Lis com and Mrs. Jameson 
 were on the very best of terms, and Har- 
 riet was running over to Caroline's house 
 to take lessons in housekeeping, instead 
 of to mine, before the week was out. 
 
 There was a beautiful wedding the last 
 of October, and young Mrs. Harry Lis- 
 com has lived in our midst ever since, 
 being considered one of the most notable 
 housekeepers in the village for her age. 
 She and her husband live with Caroline 
 Liscom, and Louisa says sometimes that 
 she believes Caroline loves the girl better 
 than she does her own son, and that she 
 fairly took her into her heart when she 
 saved her life. 
 
 "Some women can't love anybody ex- 
 cept their own very much unless they can 
 do something for them, " says Louisa ; and 
 I don't know but she is right. 
 
 The Jamesons are still with us every 
 summer — even Grandma Cobb, who does 
 3" 
 
The Centennial 
 
 not seem to grow feeble at all. Sarah is 
 growing to be quite a pretty girl, and 
 there is a rumor that Charlie White is 
 attentive to her, though they are both 
 almost too young to think of such things. 
 Cobb is a very nice boy, and people say 
 they had as soon have him come in and 
 sit a while and talk, as a girl. As for 
 Mrs. Jameson, she still tries to improve 
 us at times, not always with our full con- 
 currence, and her ways are still not alto- 
 gether our ways, provoking mirth, or 
 calling for charity. Yet I must say we 
 have nowadays a better understanding of 
 her good motives, having had possibly 
 our spheres enlarged a little by her, after 
 all, and having gained broader views 
 from the points of view of people outside 
 our narrow lives. I think .we most of us 
 are really fond of Mrs. H. Boardman 
 Jameson, and are very glad that the 
 Jamesons came to our village. 
 
 THB END 
 12 312 
 
THIS Rnmr t« 
 
 RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 TO— ^ 202 Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 
 Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 NOV 2 3 1991 
 
 A1IT0 MM SEP 10*31 
 
 UUN 1 3 1993 
 
 SEPiqTO 
 
 i AUTODECCIKC $ 
 
 EP07'93 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 FORM NO. DD6 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 yw*»$wy?. 
 
 •100»j-8,'34 
 
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CDD417S8b7 
 
 412089 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 / k 
 
 M" v ' 9 
 
 1947