ue 
 
 ua 
 
 am 
 
 Calhoun
 
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 OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
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 " You needn't tell me, Ma Potts I guess I know these pies."
 
 Blue Gingham Folks 
 
 BY 
 
 DOROTHY DONNELL CALHOUN 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI
 
 Copyright, 1915, by 
 DOROTHY DONNELL CALHOUN
 
 TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 11 
 
 Miss PATIENCE AND THE SAVAGES 33 
 
 HER PINK HOUR 51 
 
 A HAIRCLOTH MUTINY 67 
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 85 
 
 LATE BLOOMING 109 
 
 SAIRY ANN'S DYING 129 
 
 THE LORD'S KIND 147 
 
 A MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON 165 
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST 185 
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBERING . . . 207
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 "You needn't tell me, Ma Potts I guess I know these 
 
 pies." 2 
 
 With a flourish Tilly- Ann lifted the pot lid 44 
 
 Her eyes, peering into the shadowed recesses, sought 
 
 out other treasures 104 
 
 He had her in his arms with breathless words 204
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "T ^ 7HOA, Dolly, wh-oa !" Pa gave the reins 
 V V a reminding twitch and the old horse 
 ambled to an obedient standstill in front of 
 the barn door. The necessity of "whoa-ing" 
 Dolly departed with a frisky colthood, but Pa 
 still said it. Indeed, he did not know that the 
 "colt" had long ago grown to be an old horse 
 with graying hair and scanty mane. 
 
 As he clambered stiffly out over the edge of 
 the pung into the snowy yard the mild flurry 
 of excitement in his heart contradicted the 
 twinges in his legs and the protesting creaks 
 of his old joints in the cold. In the midst of 
 his unharnessing in the hay-sweet gloom of 
 the barn his fingers often sought the corner 
 of the stiff white envelope protruding from his 
 great-coat pocket, as if warming themselves 
 on it. 
 
 "Land a-livin', Dolly," chuckled Pa, softly, 
 into the great friendly ear nearest him, "ain't 
 we brought home a su'prise to Ma, you'n' me? 
 
 13
 
 14 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 To think we drove down town after a pound o' 
 coffee and a yeast cake and come back with 
 this!" 
 
 Jubilantly Pa's lips puckered into whistling 
 trim. The shrill cracked joyousness of "March- 
 ing through Georgia" trailed across the snowy 
 dusk of the yard to Ma, who was watching in 
 the kitchen window. Pa always marched 
 through Georgia when something pleased him. 
 
 In the wake of the sound came Pa himself, 
 shuffling the snow from his boots in cheerful 
 stamps upon the floor of the porch. A warm 
 whiff of good oven-odors hurried to meet him 
 at the door a hint of mince pies, a promise 
 of chicken stew and with them Ma, wiping 
 her hands on her blue gingham apron in a 
 plump little whirl of curiosity. 
 
 "Something's happened you needn't tell 
 me, Peter Potts !" she clamored, mildly insist- 
 ent. "I guess I know the happening sound o' 
 that whistle after bein' married to it goin' on 
 forty years." 
 
 Pa lingered pleasurably on the ragged edge 
 of his news, making a great task of struggling 
 out of his overcoat and knitted muffler. 
 
 "I see Miss Piper in the post office," he re- 
 marked, guilefully. "She wanted I should tell
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 15 
 
 you there was goin' to be a meetin' of the 
 Ladies' Aid to her house come Thursday and to 
 be sure to get down to it. The minister was 
 shovelling off the front piazza of the parsonage 
 when I drove by. The Carney young ones and 
 Lou Tibbit's boy has cleared off part of the 
 duck pond on the common, an' " 
 
 "Peter Potts!" Ma's tone held gentle exas- 
 peration. She reached up on tiptoe and cut 
 off Pa's flow of news with a firm hand. "Now 
 tell me." 
 
 Pa's fingers, fumbling obediently in the 
 cavern of his overcoat pocket, emerged with 
 the square white envelope. Solemnly he held 
 it out to Ma. Solemnly her water-reddened 
 fingers came to meet it. 
 
 "It it isn't? Pa, I'm afraid to look !" 
 
 "Good news don't bite, Ma." 
 
 Across the odorous kitchen the fussy hissing 
 of the teakettle and the saucepan lids bobbing 
 over the fire shared the friendly little silence 
 with the drip, drip of the melting snow on the 
 eaves outside. Suddenly Ma's hands sought 
 her apron strings, untying them jerkily. 
 
 "I've been wearing a blue-checked apron for 
 forty years," she said, slowly. "Now I guess 
 it's high time I took it off."
 
 16 
 
 She smoothed out the strings with absent 
 care and folded them primly, ceremoniously. 
 At the same time she seemed to have untied 
 the forty years of wearing it. 
 
 Suddenly she drew a long breath. "I'm goin' 
 to wear my second-best alpaca every day from 
 now on," she cried, radiantly, "and I'll get me 
 a new bunnit for meeting. Pa! Pa! I feel's 
 if I could be a better Methodist in a velvet 
 bunnit with a bunch o' pink roses on." She 
 laughed up at Pa in trembling excitement. 
 "We said when it got to ten thousand we'd stop 
 savin' and scrimpin' and start in livin'. We 
 set that as our stent, you remember, Pa?" 
 
 Peter Potts nodded, his eyes vague with 
 recollection. It had been a long time since 
 they had gloated together over the first tiny 
 entry in the blue bank book in Ma's hand. 
 
 The figures had toiled across its waiting 
 pages by slow stages. It is not easy to wring 
 ten thousand dollars from a rocky little farm 
 and a small carpenter's shop. In the wringing, 
 Pa's back had grown bent and Ma's fingers 
 housework-calloused. But now their stent was 
 finished. Pa nodded solemnly down at Ma. 
 
 "We'll retire from business, you'n' me, Ma. 
 We've aimed the right to a little pleasurin' if
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 17 
 
 anybody has, I guess. I've done my last job 
 carpentering you've baked your last pie " 
 
 "Land!" Ma dropped the precious letter 
 on the table in a panic of haste and hurried 
 ovenward with agitated steps, catching up the 
 blue gingham apron as she went. A pleasant, 
 unburned smell oozed reassuringly out into the 
 room and the tense anxiety of Ma's face relaxed 
 into relief. 
 
 "It doesn't pay to take your mind out o' the 
 oven, when there's pies in it," sighed Ma, self- 
 reproachfully. "I hope the maid'll remember 
 that. You needn't laugh, Peter Potts, I guess 
 I c'n call her maid if I want to. It sounds 
 more like folksy than plain 'hired girl' !" 
 
 Pa Potts was not laughing. Instead he 
 stooped down awkwardly over defiant little 
 Ma and in a clumsy, unaccustomed fashion 
 kissed her on her cheek. The kiss surprised 
 and embarrassed them both, lingering in the 
 lamp-bright kitchen like a pleasant unfamiliar 
 presence. In New England a kiss is an event. 
 
 "Land sakes, Pa!" breathed Ma in soft 
 amazement. 
 
 Forty years ago Peter had kissed her, over 
 the first entry in the little blue bank book. She 
 looked up at him now in queer and tender
 
 18 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 shyness, gently near-sighted to his bald spot 
 and the crook in his shoulders from carpenter- 
 ing. Then hastily she veered from the danger- 
 ous edge of sentiment, bustling across the room 
 to the stove with brisk rattling of saucepan lids 
 and pots. 
 
 "Mis' Deacon Clark was tellin' Sunday, 
 about a likely girl from round Ragged Hill 
 district that wanted to hire out," she called 
 back matter-of-factly from the fragrant cloud 
 of steam. "To-morrow you c'n hitch up Dolly 
 and we'll drive round there and see. Now it's 
 high time I got dinner dished up pa'snips 
 won't wait for bank books I can't abide 'em 
 when they get all mushed, standin'. And Pa" 
 Ma's voice dropped to the level of solemnity 
 fitting the occasion "you go to the spare room 
 cupboard an' bring out a jar o' my premium 
 damson preserves an' a loaf o' fruit cake. We'll 
 celebrate, Pa!" 
 
 The new life of Pa and Ma dated from the 
 coming of Gussie Doolittle of the Bagged Hill 
 district the next afternoon. At the first 
 glimpse of her, Ma saw the cherished plan of 
 a "maid" disappearing beneath a wide freckled 
 smile. Gussie was a hired girl from the tight 
 nub of her red hair to the broad soles of her
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 19 
 
 feet. She was unimaginable in a frilly cap 
 and beribboned apron. Her name, too, filled 
 Ma with grave doubts. Gussie Doolittle 
 sounded as if she would forget the pies ! 
 
 But she was hired and assumed her heritage 
 of blue-checked gingham apron under Ma's 
 critical eyes. The apron did not look at home 
 on a hired girl, somehow. Accustomed to Ma's 
 comfortable wideness of waist, it dangled 
 limply about Gussie's sharp knees in dis- 
 consolate folds. 
 
 "But you can't hire a girl to fit an apron," 
 sighed Ma later in the dim primness of the 
 tiny front parlor, where she and Pa were sit- 
 ting "like folks" in the strange luxury of idle- 
 ness. 
 
 Pa, stiffly erect on the uneasy edge of the 
 haircloth sofa, beneath the crayoned eyes of a 
 grim row of ancestors in black walnut frames, 
 looked up from Fox's Book of Martyrs with 
 obvious relief. The starched splendor of a 
 white shirt bosom chafed his chin unaceus- 
 tomedly, and his humble old shoulders sagged 
 abashed beneath the broadcloth dignity of his 
 Prince Albert coat. 
 
 "I don't know why 'tis," pondered Pa over 
 his Martyrs, "but a starched bosom always
 
 20 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 sort o' rasps my mind. Likely I'm not edu- 
 cated up to 'em yet." 
 
 "You'll get used to 'em, Pa, gradual," nodded 
 Ma across the marble-topped table. 
 
 She creaked to and fro in the red plush 
 rocker, looking down at the ample folds of the 
 second-best alpaca with innocent elation. Be- 
 ing a woman, Ma already was used to dressing 
 up. The creak was suspended abruptly. "I 
 been thinking, Peter," a sudden wistfulness of 
 appeal lurked in Ma's voice, "it's real nice, 
 isn't it, that little Joey'll have a chanct now 
 to be proud o' his pa'n' ma?" 
 
 "Yes, Ma, yes. 'Tis nice." 
 
 The rocker took up its creaking again, with 
 reminiscent pauses between jolts. Over the 
 dishpans in the kitchen a shrill, bony soprano 
 broke startlingly into the doxology above the 
 rattling of cups and saucers. 
 
 Pa and Ma Potts looked out across the snow- 
 rimmed landscape beyond the parlor window, 
 a sudden parent-look on their gentle old faces. 
 It almost seemed as though they were watching 
 a sturdy little figure toiling with joyous legs 
 up the white slope of the pasture, dragging a 
 sled behind him. 
 
 The names, Pa and Ma, had really belonged
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 21 
 
 to them only four days ; but they fitted so well 
 that they had stayed behind after the feeble 
 being who had thus graced them had wailed 
 his last tiny protest against the discomforts 
 of life. Some people are born Pa's and Ma's. 
 The pity of it that they are not always the ones 
 to have children ! 
 
 Often Ma had found a gingerbread horse 
 or soldier growing under her hands on her 
 molding board and hidden it in guilty haste 
 lest Pa should come in and discover her making 
 it; and across the cobwebbiest rafters of the 
 shop Pa had hidden a clumsy little sled 
 fashioned in his odd moments, fearful lest Ma 
 should see. 
 
 "Har-r-rk from th' To-o-om," sang Gussie 
 piercingly in the kitchen, "a do-o-oleful 
 so-o-ound." Closely following the words came 
 a crash of crockery. The hymn trailed off into 
 apprehensive silence. 
 
 "Gussie," wailed Ma, "Gussie, what've you 
 broke?" 
 
 "Nothin', Mis' Potts." Gussie's tone was 
 reassuring. "Nothing to mention 'cept just a 
 teapot. Don't you fret yourself none, Mis' 
 Potts." 
 
 Heroically Ma sat back in the embrace of
 
 22 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 the red plush rocker, gripping the arms, her 
 lips set firmly in a straight line as one deter- 
 mined to enjoy herself no matter what hap- 
 pens. At that moment Ma too would have 
 sympathized with the martyrs. "I was mar- 
 ried with that teapot," she sighed, mildly un- 
 complaining, "but it ain't her fault exactly. 
 Likely if I'd a been named Gussie I should 
 have broke it myself, long ago !" 
 
 In the days that followed, M"a tried to get 
 accustomed to her hands. She was not ac- 
 quainted with them in their inactivity. In 
 forty years of sweeping, darning, and baking 
 they had never learned the trick of folding 
 themselves; and now it was too late sixty is 
 too late to begin to learn idleness. Hands that 
 lie indolently in one's lap should not be 
 knotted and brown, with little calloused spots 
 in the palm that tell of hot ovens and rough- 
 ened finger-tips that stand for patches in socks 
 and trousers. 
 
 "They're not the right kind," decided Ma 
 regretfully. "Some hands was made white jest 
 on purpose to look nice and pretty on a 
 pianner, an' some was made to get a good holt 
 on a broom. Mine's the broom-kind. Land! 
 Seeni's if I just ache to red up things ! Gussie
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 23 
 
 means real well, but Ragged Hill folks are 
 sort o' shiftless. She don't sweep under or 
 behind. I'm ashamed to look my own pantry 
 in the face !" 
 
 Outwardly, however, Ma radiated placid 
 satisfaction as she sat in the stilted primness 
 of the little parlor and leisurely swayed to 
 and fro in the rocking chair. 
 
 "I'm doin' all the rockin' I never had a 
 chance to do before !" she told Pa, whimsically. 
 "It feels real prosperous rockin' does." 
 
 In the new Sunday bonnet with the pink 
 roses nodding prosperously on one side, she 
 went to call on the minister's wife and newest 
 baby; and drove beside Pa to church, behind 
 old Dolly, plodding middle-agedly through the 
 drifted roads with protesting asthmatic 
 wheezes. Dolly had not retired, and distinctly 
 resented it. 
 
 Except for the Sunday jog down to the vil- 
 lage Ma would have found it difficult to keep 
 tab on the days of the week, all strangely alike 
 to her from the point of view of the front- 
 parlor rocker. When Monday no longer means 
 wash tubs, nor Tuesday ironing boards when 
 Saturday is not redolent with the good smell 
 of spices and browning loaves what wonder
 
 24 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 that one gets mixed in one's calendar of living? 
 In her secret soul Ma worried a good deal 
 lest some day she and Pa might drive to church 
 on Monday by awful mistake, but she did not 
 hint her fears to Pa. 
 
 "I wouldn't have him suspicion that I was 
 hankering to roll out a batch of pies this 
 mortal minute, not for worlds I wouldn't," she 
 thought, apologetically. "I don't know what's 
 got into me, beiu' so restless-like lately. I 
 guess women folks is cur'ous anyhow. Give 
 'em a gingham apron an' a kitchen to putter 
 round in an' they can keep as happy an' con- 
 tented as old Tilly, but a man takes a sight of 
 comfort in just bein' Jike other folks." 
 
 To see Ma creaking peacefully to and fro, 
 her tired old hands painstakingly folded in her 
 second-best-alpaca lap, one would never have 
 guessed that inwardly her busy mind was tying 
 a familiar blue-checked apron around her waist 
 and briskly wielding a broom in the Gussie- 
 neglected corners of the house "behind and 
 under." 
 
 Pa Potts, watching her wistfully, did not 
 guess her thoughts. It did his heart good to 
 see Ma resting. 
 
 "Women folks is different," he reflected
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 25 
 
 wisely. "No woman ever gets too old to hanker 
 after style." 
 
 It was the first time he had ever admitted, 
 even to himself, that he and Ma were growing 
 old. His hands felt queerly stiff and useless, 
 fretting for the good feel of his plane, the 
 knotty toughness of a pine board under his 
 saw. 
 
 After three weeks of aimless wandering 
 about the house, Peter Potts struck. It was 
 on the afternoon when he drove Ma to a Ladies' 
 Aid meeting in the village. 
 
 At the door of the parsonage Ma turned to 
 call back: "Pa Pa Potts you needn't mind 
 about drivin' down after me I see the 
 Willoughby girls' pung hitched to the back 
 fence. I'll come home along o' them." 
 
 "Jest's you say, Ma." Pa's tone was care- 
 fully noncommittal, not a hint of his suddenly 
 conceived plan breathed in it; but his heart 
 thumped with excitement as he turned Dolly's 
 willing head homeward with a flurry of loose 
 snow under the runners and a confusion of 
 sleigh bells. 
 
 He could hardly wait to get back. Under 
 his impatient reining the old horse broke into 
 a faded resemblance of a trot, frisking her
 
 26 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 ancient gray tail coltishly with wheezy snorts 
 of excitement. 
 
 "Ma don't jest understand how 'tis, Dolly," 
 confided Pa as they turned into the dooryard 
 under the drooping arch of gray elm boughs. 
 "You can't expect a woman to feel same's a 
 man does about sawin' and hammerin' it's 
 agin nater. I reckon we hadn't better say any- 
 thing to Ma about it, Dolly." 
 
 In the familiar homey litter of the shop, Pa 
 drew a long breath. His eyes, peering eagerly 
 about the room, sought out old treasures be- 
 neath the film of dust streaking everything 
 here the rusty saw, there the yellow handle of 
 the plane, there the hammer half hidden under 
 a snarl of shavings. 
 
 Pa laid aside the hammer, fondling its use- 
 smoothed handle with reluctant fingers. A 
 hammer does not keep a secret well. Fumbling 
 about among the chips and sawdust on the 
 carpenter's bench, he found a board, unsawed, 
 unplaned, inviting. The handle of the plane 
 leaped to meet the eager grasp of his fingers. 
 Under the blade the shavings sprang up, 
 curled over and twisted into warm brown 
 spirals, redolent of clean wood odors. 
 
 Pa's lips puckered happily into whistling
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 27 
 
 curves then, softly a low sound like the con- 
 tented piping of a teakettle shrilled across the 
 silence of the shop ; Pa was marching through 
 Georgia. 
 
 Through the cracks in the window casings 
 the fine snow sifted into the shop in light 
 feathery piles upon the floor, but Pa did not 
 feel the cold. In his joyous absorption was no 
 crack for chill to penetrate. The stiff seams 
 of his Prince Albert hampered the sturdy swing 
 of his arms, the starched collar scraped his 
 neck unheeded. The short winter afternoon 
 had faded into indefinite twilight, bringing to 
 his absorbed ears the twitter of sleigh bells 
 from the roadway, before Pa looked from his 
 sawing to remember Ma with a guilty twinge 
 of conscience. 
 
 Hastily he brushed the tell-tall flakes of saw- 
 dust from his sleeves and stole stealthily, 
 round-aboutly, into the house through the 
 woodshed. He was waiting there for Ma when 
 she came in. 
 
 Over the supper table Pa smiled across at 
 Ma, guilelessly innocent. "Did a lot o' folks 
 turn out to the meetin'?" he inquired, amiably. 
 "I met old Lem Tibbitts drivin' Ann an' Lizzie 
 down from the crossroads when I come back."
 
 28 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "Yes, 'twas a real nice meetin'," agreed Ma, 
 absently. "We voted to send a missionary 
 barrel to Africa an' to paper the parsonage 
 bathroom." 
 
 She paused, testing the pie on her plate with 
 critical nibbles, then in a sort of resigned 
 triumph she shook her head. "Other folks' 
 cooking don't eat same's yours," she sighed, 
 plaintively. "It's the nutmeg this time. I 
 don't see why Gussie can't keep nutmeg in her 
 mind long enough to bake a pie." 
 
 It was that night that Ma made her dis- 
 covery. Night-times, long after the rest of the 
 household were asleep, Ma lay in a luxury of 
 worriment, "supposing" terrible things to her- 
 self, as : suppose Gussie's forgotten to put the 
 milk pans in the cellar-way or to set the 
 bread to rise on top of the stove; suppose, O, 
 suppose she's left the back door unhasped and 
 a tramp should come in and see the dust in 
 the corner and behind the stove ! Ma's house- 
 wifely soul shuddered at this suppose ! 
 
 In the dim flicker of the kerosene night- 
 lamp she slid cautiously out of bed and pat- 
 tered across the shivery floor in search of her 
 shoes. She must see whether the back door 
 was unhasped or not. On a chair by the
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 29 
 
 bureau Pa's clothes lay huddled, man-fashion, 
 in a crumpled heap. M& picked up the Prince 
 Albert with anxious care-wrinkles sprinkled 
 across her forehead. She had forgotten to 
 "suppose" that Pa hadn't hung that up. As 
 she smoothed out the tails, her fingers touched 
 an unexpected something, vaguely familiar, 
 dangling with the handkerchief from the back 
 pocket. Ma carried it over to the table to in- 
 vestigate. Then she gave a low exclamation, 
 muffled on account of Pa. 
 
 Trailing from Pa's pocket was a long pine 
 shaving, freshly white, crisp, curling. For 
 several minutes Ma stood there looking down 
 at it, a plump little figure with the dingy 
 yellow light of the night-light flicking shadows 
 over her full cotton nightgown. 
 
 "Land a-livin'!" she murmured, "Land 
 a-livin'!" 
 
 In the chill gray twilight of the following 
 day Pa plodded through the drifts. The cold 
 air, flecked with white wisps of snow, sent 
 little unadmitted twinges crawling through his 
 old legs and arms. 
 
 He hurried his unharnessing, with mittened 
 clumsiness over buckles and loops, and crossed 
 the drifty yard toward the inviting little
 
 30 
 
 twinkles of light in the kitchen windows. As 
 he stamped the clotted snow from his feet and 
 opened the door, a savory whiff of warm oven- 
 odors rushed to meet his surprised nostrils : the 
 familiar flavor of chicken stew, of Ma-pies and 
 behind them, Ma, unalpacaed, smiling up at 
 him over the edge of the blue-checked gingham 
 apron. 
 
 His brain staggered, seeking the support of 
 an explanation. Maybe he'd only dreamed that 
 he and Ma had retired. But no there was 
 Gussie he could never have dreamed Gussie ! 
 Suddenly he whirled on the radiant little Ma- 
 person before him. 
 
 "Something's happened," he laughed in quo- 
 tation marks. "You needn't tell me, Ma Potts 
 I guess I know these pies after bein' married 
 to 'em for goin' on forty year !" 
 
 "Gussie's gone." Subdued elation under- 
 toned Ma's voice. "Her ma's been ailin' for 
 awhile back an' to-day I told Gussie I thought 
 she ought to be to Bagged Hill takin' care of 
 her. 'She needs you worse'n we do,' I told her. 
 So I got Lem Tibbitts to take her over long of 
 him, when I see him drivin' by. I guess we can 
 make out somehow without her, Pa, me and 
 you."
 
 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 31 
 
 Pa paused, her tone taking on kindly retro- 
 spection. "She meant real well, Gussie did," 
 she said, charitably. Already she had forgot- 
 ten the dust "behind and under." In a sudden 
 important little flurry of haste she scurried 
 kitchenward, her words trailing back as she 
 went ! 
 
 "Draw right up to the table, Pa," she called. 
 "Everything's ready except a pan o' biscuit 
 and they're ready too! O, Pa, before you sit 
 down you go into the spare room and get a 
 jar of my damsons the premium kind." 
 
 Perhaps it was the ceremonial of the plums 
 which gave the homely little supper table the 
 air of festivity, perhaps it was the gentle satis- 
 faction on the faces of Ma and Pa. 
 
 "Deacon Tupper was by this afternoon," 
 said Ma, casually over her cup of tea. "He 
 was speakin' about shingling the loft to the 
 meetin' house, where the weather leaks onto 
 the choir's bunnits, wet spells. I s'pose since 
 his Melia's joined the choir he feels a sort o' 
 personal interest in the bunnits. The Deacon 
 was wondering whether you couldn't do the 
 job for 'em, as an accommodation," Ma paused, 
 but continued, "I told him I didn't know's 
 you'd feel to or not "
 
 32 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "Why, yes." Pa considered the matter 
 thoughtfully. "I'd just as soon do it as not, 
 Ma if they can't find anybody else." 
 
 Over her cutting of the pie Ma Potts nodded 
 across the table to Pa, the parent-look creeping 
 once more across her old face, gentling her old 
 voice. 
 
 "I been thinking, Pa," she said, shyly, "that 
 little Joey wasn't accustomed to seein' us sit- 
 tin' around, dressed up an' all. Likely he 
 wouldn't recognize us that way." She paused 
 and laughed a little, softly. "After all, I guess 
 you'n' me are the sort of folks that blue 
 checked gingham shirts and aprons are be- 
 comin' to, Pa !"
 
 MISS PATIENCE AND THE 
 SAVAGES
 
 MISS PATIENCE AND THE SAVAGES 
 
 MISS PATIENCE PINGKEE laid down 
 her pen and sat bolt upright in the 
 slender desk chair, every patrician line of her 
 tense with listening. Along the walls in their 
 prim walnut frames the dead-and-gone genera- 
 tions of Pingrees seemed to listen too; their 
 faded crayoned noses a-sniff with disapproval. 
 So might have waited the Pingree colonists in 
 their log fortress in Plymouth Town when the 
 little brass cannon sounded the Indian alarm. 
 Ancestrally, Miss Patience had heard much 
 the same sound before. Outside, beyond the 
 box hedge, the shrill whoop was taken up joy- 
 ously by another voice two others, three! 
 Miss Patience shuddered. 
 
 "The Savages again !" she murmured. "The 
 cotton don't keep them out a mite. Some- 
 times lately I almost wish I hadn't inherited 
 the Pingree ears !" 
 
 Always had it been one of Miss Patience's 
 innocent little boasts her good Pingree hear- 
 ing that never missed a word of the sermon in 
 
 35
 
 36 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 spite of the back-of-the-church family pew. 
 Grandfather Jotham had sat there at eighty- 
 five and listened. Miss Patience had a sudden 
 disquieting vision of herself at eighty-five sit- 
 ting as now with cotton in her ears trying not 
 to hear the Savages ! 
 
 "Tilly-Ann says there are only five," she 
 sighed, gently, "but Tilly-Ann must have 
 counted wrong. Five children could never 
 make so much noise." 
 
 On an impulse she got up and went over 
 to the window, letting up the shade. In the 
 yard of the little house across the hawthorn 
 hedge a tangle of thin, black-stockinged legs 
 and tousled towheads rolled ecstatically on the 
 snowy ground. Miss Patience grew dizzy try- 
 ing to count them two legs apiece, five chil- 
 dren surely there were more than ten stock- 
 ings! The heap careened into a snow bank 
 and broke into units with shrieks of glee. 
 
 "Wheel Wheel Betcher you can't make a 
 snowman quick as me!" 
 
 "Betcher I can so, Morrie Abbott !" 
 
 "Dare you to try! Bobs, you run get the 
 coal for the eyes tell mother we'll bring it 
 back!" 
 
 "Whee! Whee!"
 
 MISS PATIENCE AND SAVAGES 37 
 
 Miss Patience counted aloud, "There's the 
 Red-Headed Savage, and the Girl-One, and the 
 Savage Twins," she nodded, "and Bobs Tilly- 
 Ann was right. There are only five, and they 
 are all very young. It will take a good while 
 for them to grow up 
 
 She turned back into the room, facing the 
 accusing line of ancestors sadly. 
 
 "If I could have, I'd have bought the next 
 door house," she told them, apologetically, "but 
 there wasn't enough money. We'll just have 
 to make up our minds to bear it. But you 
 don't have to listen, poor things." 
 
 She went about the room, turning the walnut 
 frames face to the wall, with whimsical serious- 
 ness. Midway of her task the front doorbell 
 rang. A front door call at this time in the 
 morning at Shady Valley spoke a matter of 
 importance. In a little panic of haste Miss 
 Patience took the cotton out of her ears and 
 hurried down the hall. It was one of her con- 
 cessions to the Pingree ancestors not to answer 
 the bell herself. 
 
 "The white apron, Tilly-Ann," she prompted 
 anxiously, "and the best room, and you'll call 
 Miss Patience immediately. And, Tilly-Ann, 
 don't shake hands."
 
 38 
 
 Tilly- Ann's heavy footsteps jarred to the 
 door, and presently back again. 
 
 "It's the minister," she reported. "I steered 
 him t' the wing cheer where the worn place in 
 the carpet don't show, 'n' lusted up the shades. 
 Tain't time for his reg'lar call for a month yet, 
 so I guess he's got another heathen on his mind 
 or mebbe a church social." 
 
 "Good morning, Miss Pingree." The min- 
 ister wore his official manner. "Fine Thanks- 
 giving weather we're having. I told my wife 
 this morning 'Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiv- 
 ing unless its white.' I said, 'It might as well 
 be Fourth of July.' " 
 
 He laughed pleasantly at his own humor and 
 Miss Patience chimed in. 
 
 "I think so too," she nodded. "It's more like 
 the first Thanksgiving so." 
 
 "Ah, the first Thanksgiving." Mr. Griscom 
 leaned forward in his chair. "That is what my 
 errand is about, so to speak. The ladies of the 
 church are getting up a Thanksgiving sociable, 
 and they have delegated me to ask you whether 
 you will favor us with a paper on the Pilgrim 
 Fathers, bringing in the elder Bradford and 
 the Plymouth colony. I believe your own 
 family was represented on that occasion?"
 
 "Waitstill Pingree and Patience, his wife," 
 Miss Patience quoted. A faint flush of pride 
 tinged her faded cheeks. Through the meager, 
 dull-toned warp of her life ran but one bright 
 thread. If she had been born in China, Miss 
 Patience would have worshiped at the toinb of 
 her ancestors. 
 
 "Yes, we Pingrees came over on the May- 
 flower," she w r ent on, consciously. "I've got a 
 pewter spoon that came over with us, an' a 
 horn book that belonged to Waitstill's little 
 girl. I could show them at the sociable if you 
 think they'd be of an interest." 
 
 Ten minutes later Tilly-Ann looked up from 
 her raisin -stoning at a gently radiant Miss 
 Patience in the doorway. 
 
 "Well, was it a heathen ?" she asked, crisply, 
 "or did he want I should bake one o' my gold- 
 'n'-silver cakes for the sociable?" 
 
 "Not this time, Tilly- Ann," said her mistress. 
 "He come to ask me to write out a piece about 
 the first Thanksgiving dinner. You'd better 
 dish up lunch early to-day so's I can get a start 
 on it this afternoon. It's only two days to 
 Thanksgiving." 
 
 All the afternoon and the next day Miss 
 Patience sat over the mahogany secretary, his-
 
 40 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 tory books piled about her, wielding an un- 
 ready pen. Warm savory whiffs of oven odors 
 crept in from Tilly- Ann's domain, the gingery 
 hint of pumpkin pies, the fruity flavor of mince 
 and apple. Miss Patience savored the whiffs 
 critically. The Pingree Thanksgiving dinner 
 was an institution, a solemn tradition. It was 
 a matter of pride with her that each one of 
 them should be royally complete, perfect from 
 great, brown, fifteen-pound turkey down 
 through the vegetables and cranberry jelly, the 
 pies and plum pudding to the nuts and raisins. 
 Every year in lonely dignity Miss Patience sat 
 down to a dinner worthy of her ancestors. 
 
 "The Pingrees have always had a family 
 dinner Thanksgiving Day, and as long as I'm 
 a family they always shall," she said, firmly, 
 whenever some kindly neighbor asked her to 
 share their turkey. "I wouldn't feel as though 
 I was doing right by my forebears not to carve 
 my own turkey on Thanksgiving Day." 
 
 But this year across the pleasant bustle of 
 preparation shrilled the discord of the next- 
 door children. Miss Patience found it hard to 
 count her blessings. 
 
 "Though I suppose I ought to be thankful 
 there aren't six instead of five," she sighed.
 
 MISS PATIENCE AND SAVAGES 41 
 
 "Ma used to say when I was a little tyke an' 
 didn't like something, 'Remember your name, 
 Patience, remember your name,' but I don't 
 believe the recording angel would remember 
 his name with that noise going on around 
 him !" 
 
 The whoops without mixed themselves up 
 among the sentences of Miss Patience's piece. 
 She found it impossible to unravel them. 
 
 "I'm goin' to be cappen! I'm a boy! Who 
 ever heard o' a girl bein' cappen !" 
 
 "I'm the oldest, so there, Morrie Abbott ! An' 
 I guess a girl could be a cappen if she tried! 
 But I'd jus' as soon's be a Red Cross." 
 
 "What'll we be? What'll we be?" The Twin 
 Savages clamored. Their voices pranced up 
 and down. 
 
 "You're the cavalry an' you're the artil'ry, 
 and Bobs is the infantry 'cause he's only a 
 baby! Now! Shoulder arms (put your shovel 
 over your shoulder, Clem ) Mark time ! For- 
 ward, march !" 
 
 Miss Patience rose and went into the 
 kitchen. 
 
 "Tilly-Ann," she said, long-sufferingly, "I 
 want you should go out and suppress those 
 children! I can't stand their noise another
 
 42 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 minute, not another ! There's a special set of 
 nerves they get onto. I don't see how you can 
 hear yourself cook in this hubbub I sh'd 
 put sage in the puddin' an' raisins in the stuff- 
 ing if I were you !" 
 
 She went back to the secretary and the Puri- 
 tans set sail for America again. Ensued a 
 blessed silence without. Evidently, Tilly-Ann 
 was doing her work of suppression faithfully. 
 For an hour the pen hovered spasmodically 
 over the paper, then, unexpectedly, Miss 
 Patience laid it down. 
 
 "My land !" she exclaimed, fretfully, "I never 
 heard such a stillness ! It don't sound natural. 
 Where is everybody? Tilly- Ann! Tilly-Ann! 
 Tilly- Ann !" 
 
 She went down the hall to the kitchen and 
 pushed open the door then shrank back into 
 the shadows. 
 
 "Land a-livin'!" she murmured. "Land 
 a-livin' !" 
 
 For there in a row on the railing of the back 
 porch sat the Savages. Their long thin legs 
 dangled uncomfortably against the palings, 
 only one pair, the Girl Savage's, trailing on 
 the floor. Ought little children's legs to be so 
 thin? Miss Patience wondered uncomfortably.
 
 With a flourish Tilly- Ann lifted the pot lid.
 
 MISS PATIENCE AND SAVAGES 45 
 
 Above their shabby, out-at-elbows coats their 
 five small faces shone happily through a film 
 of cookie crumbs O Tilly-Ann ! Tilly-Ann ! 
 
 That soft-hearted person herself stood at the 
 stove, long iron spoon held aloft in the manner 
 of a bandmaster's baton. Miss Patience eyed 
 her in amazement. 
 
 "Ready?" said Tilly-Ann, hand on the shin- 
 ing lid of one of her pots. The Red-Headed 
 Savage marshaled his crew. 
 
 "Shut your eyes, everybody," he directed 
 clearly. "Marjie has the first smell 'cause she's 
 a lady, an' Bobs the next one 'cause he's little, 
 then the Twins, then me. Now! One, two, 
 three! Smell!" 
 
 With a flourish Tilly-Ann lifted the pot lid. 
 A warm savory steam issued forth into the 
 kitchen. 
 
 "M-m-mm-m !" sniffed the Girl Savage with 
 ecstatic little nose. "Quick, the rest of you 
 smell!" 
 
 The Savages drew in long noisy whiffs, lean 
 little chests rising and falling mightily. 
 
 "What's that?" demanded Tilly-Ann. "Some 
 o' you young ones had ought to know that it's 
 an easy one !" 
 
 "Onions!" guessed Morrie.
 
 46 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "Turnips !" the Hungriest Twin. 
 
 "Land, no!" Tilly- Ann was plainly scan- 
 dalized. "Didn't none of you never smell 
 steamed squash before? Well, well, shet your 
 eyes ! The next course is ready." 
 
 This time there was no mistake. In one 
 voice the Savages cried it aloud. 
 
 "Turkey !" 
 
 "And stuffin' !" added the Girl Savage, wist- 
 fully. "My ! My ! ain't that a nice smell ! Sniff 
 hard, Bobs-dearie, 'cause she's goin' t' shut the 
 oven door pretty soon." 
 
 "Want some more tur.key!" trembled Bobs 
 on the verge of tears as Tilly-Ann shut the 
 smell back into the oven. "Want t' smell 
 turkey adain !" 
 
 "Hush! Bobs, Hush!" reproved the Girl 
 Savage, hurriedly. "They's some more things 
 comin'. Do you want to miss the pun'kin pie?" 
 
 Course by course the Savages sniffed their 
 savory way through Miss Patience's Thanks- 
 giving dinner, small snub noses wrinkled and 
 anxious, small lean faces wistful with de- 
 light. The strange little dinner ended with 
 the smell of hot mince pie. 
 
 The Red-Headed Savage drew a long breath. 
 
 "Gee! But that was a bully dinner!" he
 
 MISS PATIENCE AND SAVAGES 47 
 
 cried, valiantly. "We've we've 'joyed it very 
 much, thank you." 
 
 "I don't believe I ever smelled a nicer 
 Thanksgivin' !" added the Girl One, faintly. 
 "We're very 'bliged !" 
 
 "Ve-wy !" chorused the Twins, rubbing their 
 small stomachs. 
 
 One Savage alone did not return thanks for 
 what he had just enjoyed. It was Bobs. He 
 resisted the efforts of his sister to lift him down 
 from his perch with angry kicks of his in- 
 finitesimal legs. 
 
 "No! No! No!" wailed Bobs. "Ise hun- 
 gwy ! Won't do home won't be dood boy ! Ise 
 hungwy !" 
 
 "Bobs Abbott, you'd oughter be 'shamed 
 most three years old !" reproved the Girl Sav- 
 age. Red humiliation touched her colorless 
 little face. "If you've got t' roar, roar soft for 
 pity's sake. She don't like noise! Come on 
 home now with sister an' she'll give you a nice 
 slice o' bread an' butter." 
 
 "Want Franksgivin' dinner!" wept Bobs 
 frantically. "Ain't no Franksgivin' dinner at 
 home !" 
 
 "Don't you let Mama-Dear hear you," the 
 Girl Savage's voice was taut with anxiety.
 
 48 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 " 'S if she could help this being a bad time o' 
 year for washings you'd ought to be thankful 
 for bread an' butter ! Lots o' folks don't have 
 the butter part. There, there, dearie! We'll 
 pretend a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey 
 an' squash " 
 
 "An' cramberry sauce an' stuffin?" anxiously 
 from the Hungriest Twin. 
 
 "Yes, an' mince pie an' nuts an' raisings!" 
 cried the Girl Savage, brightly. "Come on 
 now, all o' you. An' don't you dast to let 
 Mama-Dear hear you a-cryin' !" 
 
 Back in the library Miss Patience faced her 
 ancestors with wet eyes. 
 
 "Well?" she questioned them, "Well?" The 
 grim crayoned faces seemed strangely gentled 
 seen through a film of shamed tears. 
 
 "I'd ought to have been named Impatience !" 
 quavered Miss Patience. "A Pilgrim Pather'd 
 be ashamed to own me, and a Pilgrim Mother 
 Land a-living! What would a Pilgrim 
 Mother say?" 
 
 She sank dow T n at the secretary and stared 
 absently at the article she had been writing. 
 Suddenly the last sentence of it sprang to her 
 eyes clearly as though a voice had spoken. 
 
 "And so on the First Thanksgiving Day the
 
 MISS PATIENCE AND SAVAGES 49 
 
 Pilgrims invited the Savages to sit down to 
 dinner with them." 
 
 Miss Patience gave a queer little laugh that 
 was tangled up with a sob. She sprang to her 
 feet with a gesture that seemed to draw the 
 bygone pictured Pingrees down to her side. 
 
 "Us Pingrees!" she cried. "Us Pingrees 
 and those poor little thin-legged Savages, and 
 their mother over next door. Praise be! The 
 turkey'll stretch ! I'll run this minute and tell 
 Tilly- Ann to bake up another pie !"
 
 HER PINK HOUR
 
 HER PINK HOUR 
 
 be sure an' flounce me twict around 
 the bottom, Abby." Mrs. Bemis paused 
 at the gate, her large face taking on lines of 
 pleased importance. "Sence Albion's been 
 'lected selectman,, I feel it's no more'n right 'n' 
 fittin' that I sh'd have two flounces on my 
 wrappers." 
 
 The little dressmaker in the doorway 
 watched the stout form of her visitor anxiously 
 as it billowed and swayed in the tiny strip of 
 path, threatening the pansy bed on one hand, 
 the sweetpea vines on the other. "Don't you 
 worry none, Mis' Bemis," she called, reassur- 
 ingly, "I'll flounce you. Yes, you c'n drop in 
 of a Tuesday week and try 'em on Yes, yes. 
 Good evenin'." 
 
 With a swan song of cautions and admoni- 
 tions Mrs. Bemis heaved slowly away. Abigail 
 Bliss drew a relieved breath that would have 
 been a sigh if she had been the sighing kind. 
 "Wrappers!" she said aloud in gentle resent- 
 ment, "an' brown caliker ones at that. I was 
 53
 
 54 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 sort o' lottin' on the next ones bein' pink, may- 
 be, or red land sakes !" she broke into a de- 
 lighted giggle at the idea "I hadn't ought to 
 be uncharitable enough to wish Mis' Bemis in 
 a red caliker wrapper, law no ! But sometimes 
 I hanker to make somethin' pretty for some- 
 body." 
 
 "Evenin', Abby." 
 
 Abigail Bliss peered nearsightedly through 
 the dusk. "Why, if it ain't Mis' Timmins," she 
 cried, heartily. "Come in an' wait a while, do. 
 I ain't set eyes on you for a month o' Sundays." 
 
 Mrs. Timmins rested her basket on the fence, 
 her pleasant face creasing in humorous lines. 
 "It's easy to guess you ain't married, Abby 
 Bliss," she laughed, comfortably. "I just see 
 the stage drive in an' my men folks can't abide 
 supper bein' dished up late no, I can't stop in. 
 I just thought I'd leave a message for Horace 
 Walker as I was passin' by I s'pose likely 
 he'll be droppiu' in this evening?" 
 
 "Likely he will." Abby's voice was mildly 
 conscious, but only mildly so. Whatever 
 romance there might once have been in Horace 
 Walker's calls had almost disappeared after 
 fifteen years of staid, neighborly dropping in 
 to talk of town meeting and the potato pros-
 
 HER PINK HOUR 55 
 
 pects. They had become a habit, an accepted 
 matter-of-fact like mail-time and the inevita- 
 bility of Thanksgiving and Conference. Fif- 
 teen years erases so many things! 
 
 "Well, I wish you'd tell him that Abner 
 Timmins wants he should haul a load o' 
 kindlin' wood from the wood-lot on a Monday 
 thank you, Abby yes, I'm going to try to 
 get around next week to see you about some 
 gingham aprons for the next missionary 
 barrel." 
 
 "Pink gingham aprons?" demanded Abby, 
 hopefully. Mrs. Timmins' surprise almost up- 
 set the market basket from the top of the fence. 
 
 "Land no, pink gingham for the heathen, 
 Abby Bliss?" She was plainly scandalized. 
 " 'Twouldn't be proper nor suitable. The 
 Ladies' Aid has bought a whole bolt of brown 
 checked we think it'll make up real nice and 
 tasty. Well, so long, Abby. Don't forget to 
 tell Horace about the w r ood." 
 
 Abby Bliss looked after the hurrying market 
 basket in gentle defiance. "If I were a heathen 
 an' wore aprons, I sh'd want 'em pink," she 
 murmured, stubbornly. "I believe pink ging- 
 ham is more religious than brown-checked any- 
 way. I shouldn't wonder if I'd 'a' been a
 
 56 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 better woman this livin' minute if I'd ever had 
 a pink satin dress with a train to it an' a lace 
 collar." She gazed dreamily down the village 
 street. A small, square boy was driving a 
 straggling herd of cows across the common 
 with important shouts of authority. By the 
 Soldiers' Monument a shrill tinkle of child 
 voices announced a game of follow-my-leader. 
 Behind the chilly white square of the Meth- 
 odist steeple a rose and yellow sunset was 
 lingering, sprinkled across by drooping ara- 
 besques of elm twigs. 
 
 "It's a sightly evening," murmured the little 
 dressmaker, happily. She often held mild little 
 conversations with herself for lack of another 
 audience. "I always think anything nice 
 might happen when it gets all peace-colored 
 and happy, like it is to-night. To-morrow I'll 
 get up good and airly and get Mis' Silas Bean's 
 second husband's shirts off my mind; then 
 I'll start in on them wrappers. But I shan't 
 touch 'em till then. I don't feel like a w r rapper 
 to-night. Them posies down there smell just 
 like like" her vocabulary faltered "just 
 like that sunset looks! Land! Abby Bliss, 
 how you do talk !" 
 
 She smiled indulgently. Her own queer little
 
 HER PINK HOUR 57 
 
 fancies amused her and often startled her 
 prosaic inheritance of New England common 
 sense. It was the fancy part of Abigail Bliss 
 that planted colorful pansies and a rainbow 
 hedge of sweet peas where her neighbors pre- 
 ferred well-weeded asparagus beds or the 
 sprawling usefulness of rhubarb. But it was 
 her traditional birthright of prose that bade 
 her dress her gentle spinsterhood in prim dark 
 prints and the dreary middle-aged common- 
 places of chocolate-hued calicoes, when a young 
 heart in her cried out rebelliously for colors, 
 daintiness, and girlish pretties. She was like 
 one who has passed the pleasant stopping- 
 place of youth in the dark and now sought it 
 wistfully when it lay behind. 
 
 With a caressing movement she bent over 
 the twisted unsightliness of the ancient rose- 
 bush beside the path. It was weather-beaten 
 and knotted, like a rheumatic old woman whom 
 life has buffeted, but on its topmost branch 
 it bore one small frail bud, almost open. 
 
 "Ain't it wonderful?" she crooned, brushing 
 it with gentle fingers. "That rosybush's most 
 as old as I be, and it ain't never had a posy 
 on it before. I hope it'll be a pink one seem's 
 like it deserves a pink one waitin' so long !"
 
 58 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 The cracked bell in the Methodist steeple 
 began to clamor a summons to Thursday night 
 prayer meeting in a wavering insistent series 
 of jerks. In answer the soberly shawled forms 
 of old Miss Parker and her mother came out 
 of their yard and turned primly churchward 
 across the common. The minister's wife with 
 a swarm of ministerial children came out on 
 the parsonage piazza to wave goodby to the 
 minister. In guilty haste Abigail Bliss shrank 
 back into the concealing shadows of the front 
 hall and shut the door noiselessly upon the 
 godly procession of churchgoers. 
 
 "I ain't goin' to meetin' !" she drew a quaver- 
 ing breath of excitement. "There ain't any 
 chance of anyone's droppin' in durin' service 
 and I'm goin' to get out The Dress and try it 
 on !" The capital letter was apparent in her 
 voice. Twin excitement spots flared in her 
 cheeks what would folk think if folk knew? 
 
 "Brother Peel'd read the 'Vanity of vani- 
 ties' chapter and say 'twas wicked, but it 
 ain't!" she declared, stubbornly, "an' I don't 
 care if 'tis!" She w r as amazed at the daring 
 of her own words, but she came of the reckless 
 stock that had flung the tea into the patriotic 
 waters of Boston Harbor and she did not hesi-
 
 HER PINK HOUR 59 
 
 tate. One of the solemn family portraits hang- 
 ing in that very hall had signed the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. 
 
 "Women folks have got a right to a little 
 vanity or the Lord wouldn't 'a' made 'em like 
 they are," she reasoned. "An' it don't do any- 
 body a mite o' harm not a mite !" 
 
 She pulled down the green paper shades in 
 her prim little parlor. The air of the room 
 w r as clammy and unsunned, but the thought of 
 using the warm everydayness of her sitting- 
 room for trying on The Dress was not accord- 
 ing to Abigail Bliss's ideas of fitness. She 
 lighted the oil lamp with its green and purple 
 glass on the center table. Beside the plush 
 album lay a pile of nondescript calico. It was 
 like a grim slap on her eager imagination. She 
 bundled it out of sight with ungentle hands. 
 To-morrow she would begin on wrappers, but 
 to-night 
 
 With anxious care she spread an armful of 
 newspapers over the carpet. Then she un- 
 locked the rusty hasp of the top drawer of the 
 secretary and drew out a folded sheet. In some 
 things Abigail Bliss, spinster, had never quite 
 grown up. Now, like a child that dallies with 
 a pleasure to make it spend longer, she stood
 
 60 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 looking down at the white bundle, hesitating 
 to open it, the color coming in jerks to her 
 white cheeks. Then with lingering delight 
 she unpinned the corners of the sheet and drew 
 them apart, revealing a fluffy cloud of sheer 
 white and a frostwork of embroidered sprays, 
 hand-wrought with exquisite delicacy. In the 
 common, stuffy room with its ancestral plush 
 furniture, the dress shone like a bit of Paris 
 and far-away, luxurious places. 
 
 Little Abby Bliss, with her tight primness of 
 hair and her poor figured percale gown, was an 
 alien before this beauty, but Abby Bliss did 
 not know that. In her glowing imagination 
 she saw herself attired in the dress, young, 
 graceful, pretty, like one of the lissome crea- 
 tures of the fashion books, with waves of hair, 
 puffs, curls, dimples. If she had been a poet, 
 even a spinster poet in the "mute inglorious" 
 concealment of a tiny country village, Abigail 
 Bliss would have written one song with the 
 pulse of youth and the ache of beauty in it 
 but she was a dressmaker, so she had sewn 
 her fancy into the fairy folds of this dress. It 
 was her poem her one flight of imagination. 
 It was a dress of Youth its dear, foolish 
 raptures, its pretty frivolities.
 
 HER PINK HOUR 61 
 
 It stood to her for that night, years ago, 
 when Horace Walker had taken her in his new 
 buggy to ride through the summer fields. She 
 had stitched into it a memory of a walk home 
 from a church sociable, when Horace and she 
 had lagged behind the rest and watched a 
 copper moon loom hot and huge behind the 
 ragged haystacks. 
 
 Once before she had had a shy unspoken 
 plan for such a dress, but that had been 
 before Horace's mother had broken her hip, 
 and his brother had left the sad legacy of 
 his widow and babies to Horace's care on 
 his little run-down farm. Since then there 
 had been brown and gray wrappers, missionary 
 aprons, coarse blue shirts and overalls, and 
 stout little dresses for small folk to romp in. 
 But she had never made anything soft, white, 
 frilly no wonderful fine baby clothes, no 
 party gowns, no wedding dress for a pretty 
 country bride. So at odd moments stolen from 
 her stripes and checks, she had worked on this 
 dress, putting into it the humble best of her 
 art as she understood it, prolonging the pleas- 
 ure of its wee perfect stitches to make it last. 
 And now it was done. Her New England in- 
 heritance jeered at her scornfully.
 
 62 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "Land, Abby Bliss," it laughed with unkind 
 directness, "how'll you look all tricked out in 
 them furbelows at your time o' life I guess 
 you've forgotten how old you be, ain't you?" 
 
 "I'm thirty-five!" cried the young heart of 
 Abigail, hotly. "An' I ain't never had a pretty 
 youngish dress I think it's high time I had 
 one if I'm ever going to." She shook out the 
 loose folds and held The Dress up. Its soft 
 lengths trailed a little graciously over the 
 newspapers with a subtle suggestion of a long 
 veil a shower bouquet. 
 
 "I s'pose you know what it looks like?" ruth- 
 lessly demanded her Inheritance. Abigail 
 Bliss clasped the dress to her breast and 
 whirled around with blazing cheeks and defiant 
 eyes. 
 
 "Yes, I do it looks like a wedding dress!" 
 she cried aloud, stormily. "Well? It's the 
 only chance I'll have to see how I'd look in one, 
 an' I'm gain' to see!" 
 
 Her fingers blundered over the unaccus- 
 tomed frailness of tiny crochet buttons as she 
 dressed herself in the dainty w r hite dress, 
 thrusting her ugly print gown in a crumpled 
 heap under the sofa, her thoughts in an un- 
 bridled riot of pleasant fancies. Suppose it
 
 HER PINK HOUR 63 
 
 were fifteen years ago and Horace's mother 
 hadn't broken her hip suppose when she 
 looked in the glass she should see a wondrous 
 fashion-plate Abigail Bliss with masses of 
 hair, pink youngness of cheeks, a figure that 
 was not thin and flat-chested suppose sup- 
 pose 
 
 So deep was she in her happy pretense that 
 she had forgotten the passing of time. When 
 one has rubbed out fifteen years in a breath, 
 an hour more or less by the clock passes un- 
 noticed. Slow footsteps plodded niiddle-agedly 
 up the walk, creaked on the door-stone, but she 
 did not notice. With eager fingers she jerked 
 and pulled the tight strands of her hair until 
 they fell in a loose frame about her little, 
 pointed face. Then with a long breath of 
 anticipation she faced the mirror hanging in 
 the tarnished importance of a gilt frame on 
 the wall. 
 
 She gave a wordless little wail of disappoint- 
 ment. The Abigail Bliss of her fancy had not 
 had thin, graying hair, or fine lines in her soft 
 cheeks. Her eyes searched the reflection wist- 
 fully, but she saw w r ith cruel distinctness a 
 faded plain face above a girl's fluffy dress. 
 Her hands went out in a gesture as though she
 
 64 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 were saying good-by to the other young Abi- 
 gail. 
 
 "No, I don't belong," she said in sad accept- 
 ance. "I've waited too long. I guess maybe 
 I never belonged. I was born an old maid and 
 they made it worse by naming me Abigail. If 
 it had 'a' been Evelyn or Mildred, now, maybe 
 I'd 'a' had yaller hair and blue eyes." She 
 laughed, but the attempt was rather a sorry 
 failure with the misfit reflection of herself 
 before her eyes. "The dress doesn't look ac- 
 quainted with me. I don't feel introduced !" 
 
 In the doorway Horace Walker gazed at the 
 sight before him with dazed astonishment. 
 This was not the Abigail Bliss, dressmaker, 
 that he had been calling on, in staid dull calls, 
 for fifteen years this was the Abby he had 
 called on the first time. Once he had hoped 
 she would wear a dress like that for him. Old 
 dormant recollections stirred in Horace 
 Walker's mind. Their awakening bewildered 
 him. He and Abby were too old for such 
 things old? Abby? Why, Abby was young 
 in the frilly lace dress ! 
 
 He started forward in the doorway with 
 clumsy hesitating feet. The old boards 
 squeaked beneath his steps and Abigail Bliss,
 
 HER PINK HOUR 65 
 
 startled from the sad little wreckage of her 
 fancy, saw in his face the reflection that the 
 mirror had denied her the pretty, girl- 
 Abigail. 
 
 "Why why Horace," she cried in her sur- 
 prise. Shamed red burned in her cheeks. Her 
 hands fluttered piteously to her loosened hair. 
 "I didn't hear you I guess I'd forgotten what 
 time it was." 
 
 "The door was unhasped," the big man an- 
 swered, slowly. His good, homely, bearded 
 face turned toward her with a bewildered glad- 
 ness. "Why, Abby!" he cried, huskily. His 
 great ungainly hands clutched and twisted 
 his soft hat in pitiful unease. "Abby, you look 
 just like you used to when we went riding 
 that time I always thought I meant " his 
 words stumbled and tripped over each other 
 in a helpless, unused sort of way. " 'Twas 
 mother's fall and Sist' Libby's husband being 
 took so sudden like I was poor then, Abby." 
 
 A soft, gentle little silence waited in the 
 room. Outdoors in the summer dusk a phono- 
 graph, distance-sweet, prattled of "love" and 
 "dove" and silly young sentiment. Feet of 
 youthful stragglers on their way home from 
 prayer meeting lingered along the sidewalk.
 
 66 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "Abby!" cried Horace Walker and held out 
 his arms. She drew back in tremulous agita- 
 tion before the unspoken words of his eyes. 
 
 "Be careful the dress you'll crush it, 
 Horace!" she cried; but the outflung, needle- 
 rough hands, the wistful eyes, the whole little 
 fluttering self of her invited him. 
 
 "Go an' put on another dress, then quick," 
 he cried, impatient. "I guess I've waited long 
 enough fifteen years is long enough Lord, 
 Abby, what a fool I been !" 
 
 His voice caught in a groan. With the 
 mother-instinct of comfort she went to him. 
 
 "Never mind the dress, Horace," she whis- 
 pered. 
 
 Later in the evening Abigail Bliss stood on 
 the worn door-stone and leaned over the old 
 rosebush. In the faint blur of moonlight the 
 bud on the topmost branches swung open-eyed 
 and perfect. It seemed an echo of the joy that 
 had bloomed for her in the wonderful evening. 
 
 "See, ain't it beautiful?" she cried, softly. 
 "It waited for a posy for a long time, but when 
 it came 'twas worth waitin' for. Look, Horace 
 it's a pink one !"
 
 A HAIRCLOTH MUTINY
 
 EUPHRASIA TIBBITTS sugared and 
 creamed her husband's coffee with com- 
 pressed lips. It was a very important cup of 
 coffee. Large issues hung on its flavor. A mite 
 too much cream or too little sugar, now ! 
 Her thin, knuckley hands almost trembled as 
 she pushed it across the red-checked cloth 
 toward Samuel, in total eclipse behind the 
 local paper. His broad, stubby fingers came 
 groping out to meet the cup, lifted it an 
 appreciative gurgling sound behind the paper, 
 and the cup returned to the level of her 
 anxious gaze empty. 
 
 Euphrasia drew a gaspy breath. Her hands 
 clutched the table edge as though to keep her- 
 self from running away. It was, to her, a 
 desperate thing she was about to do. In nearly 
 twenty-five colorless years of wifehood she had 
 never tested Samuel before. Between him and 
 Shady Valley's estimation of him she had 
 erected her pitiable barrier of pretense, and 
 with petty little economies and brave shams 
 
 69
 
 70 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 had built a decent wall about his stinginess, 
 trying loyally to hide it even from her own 
 eyes. 
 
 "Thrifty, that's what Sam'l is," she had 
 taught herself in her long years of schooling. 
 "I ain't never asked him for anything he didn't 
 give me, hev I? If I ever did, I guess folks 
 would see !" 
 
 And now she was going to ask. She had 
 come to the end of her resources, but an inner 
 voice warned her not to go on. With all the 
 strength of her soul she did not want to see 
 Sam'l as others saw him. Yet it was now or 
 never it was now. 
 
 "Sam'l!" it came out with a little rush, 
 "Sam'l" 
 
 "M-m-rn what say?" The paper did not 
 lower. Samuel was reading the market reports 
 with pleased calculating eye. Flour two cents 
 lower potatoes firm. His lips made little 
 gruff, twittery noises, reckoning it up in 
 dollars and cents. 
 
 "I want I will you hev 'nother cup 
 coffee?" 
 
 At the last moment her courage had balked. 
 She filled the cup, aquiver with shame at her- 
 self. Did she doubt Sam'l, then, that she was
 
 71 
 
 afraid to speak out plain? She drew back the 
 refilled cup with a sudden sharp jerk that 
 splashed a brown stain across the cloth. 
 
 "Sam'l, won't you please put dow r n the 
 paper, jest for a minute?" she said, palely. 
 "I there's somethin' I want to speak to you 
 about." 
 
 The paper rustled with impatience. "Well 
 I'm a-listening." 
 
 "Sam'l," she said, then, clearly, "I want you 
 should give me a hundred dollars." 
 
 The words had the odd effect of an explosion, 
 bringing the front legs of Samuel's chair crash- 
 ing down. His broad red face, ludicrous with 
 amazement, peered over the lowered News. 
 She met his gaze calmly, though beneath the 
 cloth her knees chattered together. 
 
 "I guess you better let me hev it to-day, 
 Sam'l," she went on, steadily. "You could git 
 it soon's the bank opens up, an' send Willie 
 Pratt over with it. Or I c'n stop at the store 
 if Willie's busy " 
 
 "Send Willie Pratt over with it," he re- 
 peated, heavily, "or you c'n stop at the store 
 a hundred dollars be you stark, ravin' 
 crazy, Euphrasia Tibbitts?" 
 
 She gathered herself in hand and stood up,
 
 72 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 a lean, blue-ginghamed little figure of revolt 
 that he hardly recognized. 
 
 "No, I ain't crazy, Sam'l ;" her voice was low 
 with the effect of shrilling ; "I'll tell you what 
 I want it for to buy me a new parlor set cov- 
 ered with red rep, an' a new flowered Brus- 
 sels rug for the front room that's what I 
 want it for. I guess mebbe you don't know 
 how long I've hed that haircloth set, Sam'l." 
 
 " 'Twas mother's," said Samuel Tibbitts 
 with a tightening of the heavy red muscles of 
 his jaw. "I guess what was good 'nough for 
 mother is good 'nough for us. I guess we got 
 no call t' go spendin' our hard-come-by money 
 on such foolishness. Why, Euphrasie, I never 
 heerd the like! D'ye s'pose money grows on 
 trees?" 
 
 "But you got it ain't you, Sam'l?" she 
 trembled, doggedly persistent. "O, Sam'l, I 
 want to hev the Ladies' Aid all the other 
 women has hed it 'cept me, time an' again. 
 They think it's queer, you the biggest grocer 
 in town, an' able t' git the refreshments at 
 cost, so. An' the sofy's worn clean through to 
 the bones, Sam'l, an' they ain't one of the 
 chairs I'd resk Mis' Silas Bean sittin' down on, 
 heavy as she be. O, Sam'l, I ain't never ast
 
 A HAIKCLOTH MUTINY 73 
 
 for anythin' afore an' I won't agin ! Just this 
 oncet, Sam'l. It's been a good year to the store, 
 ain't it? Mebbe I could do with some less. I 
 seen an advertisement in the Centerville 
 Gazette where rugs was marked 'way down 
 you wouldn't believe how cheap they was, 
 Sam'l. I I guess I could make seventy-five 
 stretch, only seventy-five, Sam'l O, Sam'l!" 
 
 Her husband pushed back his chair noisily 
 and rose. She watched him take down his 
 alpaca store coat, and struggle into it, and 
 knew by the stubborn set of his shoulders that 
 she had failed. Slow difficult tears filmed her 
 faded eyes. 
 
 "I ain't got money to throw away, Euphra- 
 sie," said Samuel Tibbitts, with not unkindly 
 firmness, "an' it's just as well the Ladies' Aid 
 shouldn't meet here; they's plenty of folks to 
 hev it, without their eatin' us out of house and 
 home." He went out, then paused in the door- 
 way. "You take the rest o' that mutton ? n' 
 turn it into a stew for dinner," he directed, 
 briskly. "I'll be home 'bout one or ha' past. 
 An' don't you go to frettin' over red rep sofys, 
 Euphrasie. You'd ought to be thankful we c'n 
 keep out o' the poorhouse, livin' 's high as 'tis 
 these days."
 
 74 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 Euphrasia Tibbitts stood a long while after 
 her husband's heavy footsteps had plodded 
 down the gravel walk, a dull flush reddening 
 her thin cheeks. Suddenly she felt ashamed. 
 It was not for herself, not for her shabby, form- 
 less clothing or unlovely home, but for Samuel. 
 She remembered Mrs. Bisbee's covert glance 
 in her direction at the last Aid meeting, and 
 the whisper she had overheard : 
 
 "Samuel Tibbitts could buy out any of us 
 twice over, but he wouldn't give a red cent 
 toward sendin' the gospel to the Chinee." 
 
 And the reply, barbed with malice : 
 
 "When the Ladies' Aid sets in the Tibbitts's 
 front room, an' drinks the Tibbitts's fifty-cent 
 tea, an' eats the Tibbitts's layer cake the mil- 
 lennium'll be pretty nigh due." 
 
 It had been the sting of this eavesdropping 
 that had prodded her on to ask Samuel, and 
 now Samuel had refused. Her pitiably built 
 ideal of him lay in shattered fragments about 
 her feet. She had an impulse to get broom 
 and dust pan and sweep them up in a hurry 
 so that no one else should see. 
 
 "Though I don't know's it makes much dif- 
 ference what other folks think," she cried in a 
 sudden flare of bitterness aloud. "It's what /
 
 A HAIRCLOTH MUTINY 75 
 
 think that matters ! Here I be, forty-three, an' 
 what hev I got for all my scrimpin' an' savin' 
 an' goin' without all these years! A rug so 
 faded you can't see the pattern, an' a broken- 
 down haircloth sofy, an' mutton stew!" She 
 laughed out harshly over the last item. The 
 accumulated revolt of twenty-five years was 
 upon her in a whirl of forbidden thoughts and 
 ideas. "Sam'l's got so he likes stews better 'n 
 sirloin steak !" she stormed on inwardly. "He 
 likes bread puddings, an' tapioca, an' biled 
 rice, but I don't! I been starvin' slow these 
 twenty- five year !" 
 
 A knock at the back door called her to the 
 kitchen. The butcher's boy stood on the steps, 
 pencil poised perfunctorily over his order book. 
 To her suddenly sensitive vision there seemed 
 to be derision in the hovering pencil, waiting 
 to write down "a pound 'n' a half of mutton," 
 or "corned beef, the twelve-cent kind." A sud- 
 den wild impulse to confound it seized her in 
 its grip. 
 
 "Mornin', Mis' Tibbitts something for you 
 to-day?" nodded the butcher boy, politely. He 
 was making ready to shut up his book. 
 
 "Mornin', Johnny," said Euphrasia Tibbitts 
 with a kind of ferocity twin excitement spots
 
 76 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 blazed in the hollows of her cheeks. "Yes, I 
 do want somethin' for dinner to-day. Let's see. 
 "S'pose you bring me a couple pounds your 
 best top sirloin you got some real nice and 
 tender, Johnny?" 
 
 The pencil wavered with surprise. Johnny 
 hesitated. "Best sirloin's thirty cents a 
 pound," he ventured. "We got some round 
 steak, now, at twenty-four " 
 
 Euphrasia's lips tightened. 
 
 "If there's anythin' I can't abide its cheap 
 cuts o' steak," she sniffed. "Two o' the sirloin, 
 Johnny and, Johnny never mind about put- 
 tin' in the trimmin's !" 
 
 Alone in the kitchen she faced herself defi- 
 antly. "Sixty cents !" she said aloud in slow, 
 luxurious syllables, as though she liked the 
 taste of the words. "I ain't spent sixty cents 
 on dinner sence I was a girl." Her eyes shone. 
 "An' I'm goin' to hev lemon pie for dessert," 
 she cried. "Eggs is thirty-five cents a dozen, 
 an' lemons is awful high I could use corn 
 starch an' extract, but I ain't a-goln } to!" 
 
 She bustled about her morning's work, revel- 
 ing guiltily in the sense of the unusual. When 
 Willie Pratt, her husband's delivery boy, went 
 by the house on his morning rounds she hailed
 
 A HAIRCLOTH MUTINY 77 
 
 him with a list of groceries that quite paled 
 his brickish complexion under its freckle film. 
 
 "Send 'em right over, Willie," she bade him, 
 briskly. "An' don't bother Mr. Tibbitts about 
 'em he's goin' to be dretful busy this mornin' 
 makin' out bills." 
 
 Rebellion is apt to go to the head a little. 
 Euphrasia was intoxicated with her sip of it. 
 She broke open a whole dozen eggs for the pure 
 joy of hearing the crisp crack of their shells. 
 She measured out butter and sugar and lemon 
 juice with a lavish hand. The pie, finished at 
 length, steamed in a huge succulent golden 
 circlet on the pantry shelf. She gloated gently 
 over it as over a work of art. 
 
 "What'll Sam'l say?" asked her conscience, 
 sharply. "I guess you ain't thought about 
 that, hev you?" 
 
 "I don't know what Sam'l will say, an' I 
 don't care!" cried the new Euphrasia, mili- 
 tantly. She caught up a broom and bustled 
 into the front room to evade the accusing voice. 
 Somewhere under the tingle of her daring she 
 was aghast at herself, but she would not pause 
 to think. 
 
 "I been sorter workin' an' spilin' inside, like 
 a jar of preserves," she thought, breathlessly.
 
 78 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "I been screwed down an' bottled up so long 
 that somethin's liable to happen." 
 
 She had reached the front room door, and 
 paused, broom suspended in midair. The 
 whole shabby, starved room seemed to cry out 
 to her with a hundred silent little clamors: 
 the curtains she had patched and repatched, 
 the napless carpet with the bloom worn off 
 its fruits and flowers, the ugly oil paintings in 
 their carved black walnut frames, the hair- 
 cloth raveling and prickly, the old sofa with 
 its stuffing protruding from unmendable rents 
 in its arms, like an out-at-elbows tramp who 
 has seen better days. 
 
 "I've mended till there ain't anything but a 
 hole left to mend !" she murmured, hopelessly. 
 "It ain't fit for anything now but the bonfire." 
 
 She sank down on one of the rickety chairs, 
 quite faint at the wild idea that had flashed 
 through her mind. The grandfather's clock in 
 the hall ticked five minutes, apprehensively 
 and warningly, before she stirred. Then she 
 stood up straight and pale, and gripped the 
 chair by its unsure arms. 
 
 "There ain't nothin' in the marriage cere- 
 mony or the Bible about not burnin' up a hair- 
 cloth parlor set," muttered Euphrasia Tibbitts
 
 A HAIRCLOTH MUTINY 79 
 
 through compressed lips. "Mebbe it's ag'in' 
 the law but I'll risk it !" 
 
 She carried the chair, bumping awkwardly 
 against her thin knees, across the hall and into 
 the front yard. The Tibbitts' house stood at 
 the end of the village, a vacant lot on either 
 side. Into one of these lots Euphrasia and the 
 chair toiled painfully and halted under a 
 gnarled oak tree. She put the chair down and 
 hurried back to the house for another. Six 
 trips she made back and forth. On the last 
 one the curtains and rug were added to the 
 pile. When she came at length to the sofa she 
 was limp and breathless. She sank down on 
 it a moment to rest. About her the dismantled 
 room looked oddly large and unfamiliar. 
 Square spots of color on the faded wall paper 
 showed where the pictures had hung. 
 
 "His Aunt Emmeline painted 'em," she 
 thought, hardily. "They was wedding pres- 
 ents, 'cause she could do 'em cheaper than 
 buyin' anything. She was a Tibbitts through 
 and through. The 'Spanish Fishermaiden' 
 one took the first prize at the art booth at the 
 country fair. I allers thought 'twas dretful 
 ugly myself. She never traveled any nearer 
 furren parts than Boston, Aunt Emmeline
 
 80 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 didn't. Queer how folks that live amongst 
 apple orchards an' piney woods an' Yankees all 
 their lives choose Alps an' Eyetalians an' out- 
 landish clothes when they come to do some 
 art" 
 
 The clock striking half-past eleven brought 
 her from her reflections to her tired feet in a 
 panic of haste. She bent her whole frail 
 strength to the sofa, and it moved ponderously, 
 with protesting rheumatic squeaks and groans, 
 as though conscious it was headed toward its 
 doom. Through doorways, down steps, across 
 the lawn Euphrasia's determination generaled 
 the unwieldy thing. Gray wisps of hair hung 
 streakily against her damp cheeks, her bony 
 wrists and middle-aged joints protesting twing- 
 ingly, but she panted on. 
 
 Five minutes later a shocked voice from the 
 gate aroused her from her work of destruction. 
 She turned, kerosene oil can in her hand. 
 
 "Land o' Goshen ! Euphrasie Tibbitts, what 
 air you doin'? You clean out o' your mind, I 
 want to know?" Mrs. Bisbee looked from 
 Euphrasia's resolute figure to the parlor set, 
 already spouting flames, and back again to 
 Euphrasia, mouth ajar. Indeed, there was 
 something almost uncanny about the sight.
 
 A HAIRCLOTH MUTINY 81 
 
 Against the bright destruction of her house- 
 hold goods Euphrasia's bony form, in its blow- 
 ing gingham skirts, and the wisps of gray hair 
 tangled about her face, took on the aspect of 
 some old Druid sorceress performing an un- 
 hallowed rite to strange deities. But Euphra- 
 sia's tone Avas quite matter-of-fact, as though 
 burning haircloth parlor sets was a natural 
 part of the day's work. 
 
 "O, it's you, Mis' Bisbee," she called, cheer- 
 ily. "Walk in and set, won't you? I'll be 
 through here in a jiffy." 
 
 Mrs. Bisbee gave a frightened look at her. 
 She had never heard that sudden insanity ran 
 in the Bennett family, and yet 
 
 "But, Euphrasie ain't that your parlor 
 set?" she faltered. "An' there's one o' Emine- 
 line Tibbitts's oil paintings jest catchin' an' 
 your rug O, Euphrasie, I never heerd of sech 
 a thing !" 
 
 "They look real pretty burnin', don't they?" 
 said Euphrasia Tibbitts calmly. "Those paint- 
 ings burn specially nice. I was sick an' tired 
 of 'em." 
 
 She bent over to poke one of the chairs fur- 
 ther into the flame. Her eyes sparkled de- 
 fiantly as she faced her visitor again. "They
 
 82 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 was gettin' dretful shabby," she said, largely. 
 "Sam'l's goin' to buy me a red rep set an' a 
 body Brussels next week, an' I thought I might 
 as well git this one out o' the way. I despise 
 to clutter up my attic with old trash, don't 
 you?" 
 
 The tide of her invention swept her on reck- 
 lessly. She held her head higher. They 
 thought Sam'l was stingy, did they? She 
 would show them ! 
 
 "And just as soon's it comes I'm goin' to hev 
 the Ladies' Aid to a supper social," she fin- 
 ished, briskly. "I been meanin' to for a long 
 spell." 
 
 Samuel Tibbitts came home to dinner early, 
 with a grievance. He carried it in his hand 
 with him the list of groceries his wife had 
 ordered that morning. Below it was the amaz- 
 ing, incredible total, "$1.85." The figures 
 drove his feet in angry thuds along the side- 
 walk. He would find out what Euphrasie 
 meant by such doin's; he would tell her once 
 an' for all, plain 
 
 At the gate of his home he stopped. It was 
 not from intention, but because his legs would 
 not bear him further. They actually wabbled 
 under him. By the great Horn Spoon, what
 
 A HAIRCLOTH MUTINY 83 
 
 was Euphrasie up to now? He opened his 
 mouth to speak, but no words came, and he 
 forgot to close it. 
 
 His wife glanced up and saw him. For an 
 instant she quailed, feeling the new mantle of 
 her independence slipping from her stooping 
 shoulders, under SamTs furious gaze. Then 
 her spirit put up determined fingers and jerked 
 it on again. With careful lack of haste she 
 poked the Spanish Fisherniaiden into the heart 
 of the flame and dusted her hands daintily on 
 her apron. Then, head high, she crossed the 
 lawn to Samuel. 
 
 He watched her helplessly, big jaw wagging 
 without sound. 
 
 "I've burnt up the parlor set, Sam'l," said 
 Euphrasia, gently. "I knew you'd want I 
 should if you reely stopped to think. 'Twas 
 gittin' so old it warn't hardly respectable. To- 
 morrow you an' me'll drive over to Center- 
 ville an' pick out a new one. I've allers said 
 red rep, but if you'd rather w T e'll get green." 
 
 Samuel Tibbitts gazed at his wife in a kind 
 of awe. Was this the meek, fluttering Eu- 
 phrasie he had sat across the table from for 
 twenty five years, this bright-eyed, pink- 
 cheeked, eager little woman person with the
 
 84 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 straight backbone? Why, she looked more like 
 the Euphrasie he had gone a-courting long ago. 
 His wondering glance fell on her bony little 
 hands and thin wrists protruding from her 
 scanty sleeves, and suddenly, unaccountably, 
 his eyes filled. 
 
 " 'Twas too heavy for you, Euphrasie," 
 he muttered, difficultly. "You'd ought to hev 
 got me to help you move 'em." 
 
 Euphrasia looked up at him in sudden queer 
 shyness. The distressed helplessness in his big 
 flabby red face called to the mother of her for 
 comforting. She laid a timid hand on his 
 alpaca sleeve. 
 
 "Come in an' I'll hev dinner ready, quick as 
 you can say Jack Robinson!" she said with a 
 brisk striving for commonplaceness. "It won't 
 take a minute to fry the steak. I guess mebbe 
 you're hungry, ain't you, Sam'l?" 
 
 "Euphrasie ! Honey !" 
 
 She felt his awkward kiss on her forehead 
 and her cheeks flamed like a girl's. 
 
 "Sam'l!" she reproved him, joyously. "O, 
 Sam'l, what will the neighbors say?"
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER
 
 "T BELIEVE Great Aunt Em'line '11 just 
 JL about cover that new spot." Paula Pren- 
 tiss surveyed the damp patch on the faded rose 
 and gold of the wall paper, head doubtfully 
 a-tilt. "It's sort of square, and Aunt Em'line's 
 round, but I guess she'll stretch" a faint sug- 
 gestion of an unsighed sigh undertoned the 
 words. She moved across the dim little parlor 
 to the cupboard with a slow r , gracefully stilted 
 step it was as if one of her own slender 
 straight old Chippendale chairs had taken on 
 motion. From the prim miscellany of old pic- 
 tures beneath the shelves she drew out an oval 
 frame of black w r alnut carved into varnished 
 bunches of grapes, and dusted it off tenderly. 
 
 "It's real lucky," smiled Paula, whimsically, 
 "to have so many ancestors they come in 
 handy, ancestors do, in covering up spots in 
 folks' lives. But I do sort of wish I could get 
 clapboarded and painted up, or else that Shady 
 Valley didn't have quite so much weather." 
 87
 
 88 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 This time the sigh was unmistakable. Paula 
 Prentiss looked about the dingy little parlor 
 with eyes that tried their wistful best not to 
 see the patternless parts of the woven rug, the 
 scratches webbing the ancient highboy, the 
 quaint card table, toppling on three spidery 
 legs, and the Webster's Dictionary. 
 
 Ancestors were about the only things she did 
 have, ancestors and the dim dignity of the 
 Prentiss name and the gentle heritage of the 
 Prentiss pride that hovered over the thread- 
 bare gentility of the room like a vague odor 
 of dried lavender flowers. It was pride that 
 untied her dusting apron, now, in a panic of 
 haste at the shrill warning of the front door 
 bell. In Shady Valley morning calls are ordi- 
 narily made through the friendly unceremony 
 of back doors, or over neighborly fences the 
 ringing of the bell augured the unusual. At 
 the same time on the boards of the porch 
 shuffled impatiently the black, cloth-gaitered 
 feet of one bearing ill tidings. Paula whisked 
 the apron out of sight, smoothed her hair, and 
 hurried to the door. 
 
 They were Mrs. Bisbee's feet ; and from Mrs. 
 Bisbee's rolled-up wrapper sleeves and the 
 steamy redness of her elbows it was apparent
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 89 
 
 that the news had seized her unexpectedly 
 over her Monday wash tubs. 
 
 "I suppose you've heard tell?" asked Mrs. 
 Bisbee, breathlessly, before the door was quite 
 open. "No, Paula, don't ast me in I'm in 
 soak this minute and I haven't no kind of faith 
 in the new-fangled washin' powder I'm usin' 
 I must hurry along back. But when Mr. B. 
 told me about the trolley scheme I says to him, 
 I says, 'I'm goin' straight over to Paula Pren- 
 tiss' I know how bad she'll feel to hear it,' I 
 says, 'seein' how she's one of the first settlers 
 on her grandfather's side, an', anyhow, I 
 shouldn't wonder a mite if Paula used to know 
 Prather McDowell,' I says to Mr. B." Mrs. 
 Bisbee paused for breath. 
 
 "Prather McDowell !" Faint consciousness 
 vied in Paula's voice with utter bewilderment. 
 "I ain't heard of Prather McDowell in years 
 I went to 'Cademy with him, and he was real 
 smart and up-and-coming, Prather was." 
 
 Mrs. Bisbee smiled grimly. "He still is, 
 then," she nodded. "They say he invented a 
 new suspender buckle and made a pile o' money 
 out o' it. Now he's bought up the Centerville 
 street car company an' aims to run a trolley 
 line through Shady Valley straight through
 
 90 
 
 the middle o' the street, past the Methodist 
 meetin' house, an' by the Soldiers' Monument 
 on the Common." 
 
 "Land a mercy, you don't say !" 
 
 The two women looked at each other in a 
 subdued elation of distress, Mrs. Bisbee plain- 
 tively triumphant over the effect of her words. 
 
 "Folks is consider'ble worked up," she said. 
 "Mr. B. claims he ain't seen so much excite- 
 ment sence Doctor Whipple voted Democratic 
 back in the 'lection of ninety-five." 
 
 "It's dretful." Paula's voice quavered with 
 gentle indignation. "It hadn't ought to be 
 allowed noisy cars clanging by and strange 
 folks staring out at us. Why, I always set my 
 clock by seeing Ben Crosby driving the Center- 
 ville stage up to the post office, nights, with 
 the mail." 
 
 After Mrs. Bisbee had hurried away tubward 
 Paula stood looking distressfully down the 
 elm-arched street vista where a grocer's cart 
 ambled sleepily, leaf -flecked with shadows. To 
 her troubled imagination it was a trolley car, 
 blatantly yellow, disturbingly inappropriate to 
 a quiet old-time village in the contented back- 
 water of life. 
 
 "Mrs. Bisbee can't feel it same's if she was
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 91 
 
 an old resident," thought Paula from the 
 gentle superiority of her grandfather. In 
 Shady Valley people were still "new folks" 
 after fifteen years. And Prather McDowell 
 the name had a flavor of youngness about it, 
 a memory of honest freckles and big blunder- 
 ing boy's hands that carried her strap of books 
 home from the Academy, an echo of sing-song 
 voices droning through the second conjugation, 
 "Moneo, moneas,, moneaf." Paula's hands stole 
 to her hair, touching it tentatively as though 
 they almost expected to find tightly braided 
 pigtails strained back and tied with stiff, wide 
 ribbon bows. Through unwilling finger tips 
 she could feel the gray. 
 
 "Likely he's bald-headed and got grand- 
 children," sighed Paula with a whimsical little 
 shake of the head. "Twenty-five years is a 
 dretful long hyphen between times." She 
 turned back into the house w r ith brisk haste. 
 "I'll go finish dustin' off Great Aunt Em'line 
 and hang her," she planned. "Then I'll pick 
 a bunch of cinnamon pinks to set on the front 
 room table in case any of the neighbors should 
 happen in." 
 
 In the hall on the way to Aunt Em'line 
 Paula paused before the hatrack, peering into
 
 92 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 the dusky depths of the mirror with wistful 
 eyes. She was searching for a reminding trace 
 of pigtails. 
 
 But Prather McDowell saw them. On the 
 edge of dusk that afternoon he strode accus- 
 tomedly up the tiny strip of path to the porch 
 where Paula was sewing under the honeysuckle 
 fringe. Twenty-five years had covered the 
 freckles with a Vandyke beard, but the hands 
 that seized Paula's heartily in a firm friendly 
 grip were the same that had carried the book 
 strap for her she would have known them 
 anywhere. 
 
 "Why, Prather McDowell, if you don't look 
 real lifelike!" cried Paula, quaintly. She 
 gazed up at him in a little flutter of excite- 
 ment. "Have you studied your Latin lesson 
 for to-morrow?" 
 
 The big man fitted his great bulk carefully 
 into the chair beside her, shaking his head. 
 "It's the subjunctive again, and I hate sub- 
 junctives!" smiled Prather, old-timily. "I 
 tell you what, Paula, you write my sentences 
 for me an' I'll take you fishin' in Shaller Crick, 
 honest an' true, black an' blue, I will." 
 
 It is a very little way from Yesterday to To- 
 day, after all !
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 93 
 
 "We've got a lot of remembering to do, 
 Paula, you and I." Prather settled back in Ms 
 chair in comfortable preparation. "I want to 
 know what everybody's been doing since I went 
 away who's got married, and who hasn't. I 
 suppose Hiram Saunders is still courting 
 Lydia Ann Smith, up on the Cross Roads." 
 
 "Land, Prather, he isn't payin' her attention 
 now they've been married twenty years come 
 next Christmas !" 
 
 Prather's eyes twinkled appreciatively. 
 "And Amos Todd the old rascal?" 
 
 "O, Amos got converted right after the San 
 Francisco earthquake he's real steady now, 
 Prather. They 'lected him First Selectman, 
 last town-meetin'. Mrs. Amos is real set up, 
 bein' First Selectwoman after folks have spent 
 so much time pitying her on account of mar- 
 ryin' Amos." 
 
 The talk rambled on through the pleasant 
 byways of reminiscence, detailing the quiet 
 chronicles of Shady Valley. In the crannies 
 of conversation Paula stole sly glances over 
 her sewing at the big man opposite, noting the 
 indefinable air of success in the broad, square 
 shoulders the spruce prosperity of his busi- 
 ness suit.
 
 94 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 The evening stage rattled up to the post 
 office in an important cloud of dust. Along the 
 wooden sidewalk under the elms, a few couples 
 strolled toward the drug store soda fountain ; 
 a man in overalls, bent under the weight of a 
 clumsy ladder, plodded by, pausing to light 
 the kerosene street lamps behind their dim 
 glass frames. Prather McDowell watched the 
 smoky flame of the lamps flicker down the 
 street in the wake of the ladder. 
 
 "By Jove, if that isn't natural!" he cried, 
 boyishly. "Same old lamps we used to shy 
 stones through same old holes the stones 
 made, I do believe! Shady Valley hasn't 
 changed much, Paula, since I've been away." 
 
 "O, yes," Paula corrected him, gently. 
 "We've shingled the meetin' house twice and 
 painted the school building yellow, and last 
 year the Ladies' Aid fenced in the cemetery 
 with an oyster supper and put a cupola on the 
 Town Hall with a strawberry festival. They's 
 been quite a lot of improvements, Prather." 
 
 In the dimness of the hall the grandfather's 
 clock on the stair quavered seven strokes, 
 agedly, bringing Prather to his feet in guilty 
 haste. 
 
 "Don't tell me I've worn out my welcome,"
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 95 
 
 he laughed, ruefully, "because I'm coming 
 again, soon, Paula." 
 
 Long after he had gone, striding erectly 
 away in the evening light, Paula sat looking 
 vaguely out into the dusk over her idle sewing. 
 "I'd really ought to have a new dress of some 
 kind," she pondered aloud. "If it wasn't such 
 a chore to get over to Centerville, I believe I'd 
 go shopping. But when the trolley gets to 
 running it'll be easier." 
 
 At these revolutionary words a long line of 
 Prentiss ancestors shuddered in their respect- 
 able frames. 
 
 Every prim line of Paula's sedate parlor ex- 
 pressed its disapproval of Prather McDowell's 
 visits in the weeks that followed ; the straight- 
 backed chairs had the effect of standing more 
 stiffly rigid when he lounged in them careless, 
 man wise; the shaky center table trembled in- 
 dignantly on its aristocratic legs under his 
 emphatic hand; from their black walnut 
 grapes and wreaths of wooden roses the 
 forefathers and foremothers looked down 
 haughtily, faded crayon noses atilt, as though 
 sniffing the new, strange tobacco scent in the 
 unaccustomed air. Prather, pampered by his 
 years of city ease, found the cramped, stilted
 
 96 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 place inexpressibly hideous pitiful in its 
 shabbiness, its moldy dignity, its faded relics 
 of a prosperous long ago. If he had been at 
 all subtle, he would have discerned the ex- 
 quisite care that breathed through the room, 
 the fine darns in the old lace curtains, the 
 patient polish on the mahogany. It was as 
 though Poverty itself had paused genteelly on 
 the threshold of Paula's home to wipe its feet 
 upon the mat before entering. But his eyes, 
 seeing man-fashion, darkly, traced its dingy 
 tracks over everything. 
 
 "I went away too soon," Prather McDowell 
 thought, self-reproachfully, "or I didn't come 
 back soon enough." 
 
 He watched Paula moving gently among 
 her time-scarred Lares and Penates, a faint, 
 indefinable youthfulness about her, uncontra- 
 dicted by the time-colored hair, as if she had 
 grown up unwillingly before she had gotten 
 through being young. And as he smoked and 
 told her tales of his city life, his great bulk 
 cramped uncomfortably in the unfriendly 
 angles of the Chippendale rocker, an idea grew 
 slowly in Prather McDowell's mind and it 
 was not an idea connected in the least with 
 trolley lines.
 
 The neighbors put gossipy heads together 
 over back fences, discussing the affair with 
 significant little nudges and nods. 
 
 "To think of a Prentiss marrying suspender 
 buckles/' sighed Mrs. Bisbee, mournfully. 
 "An' she a first settler on her grandfather's 
 side!" 
 
 "O, well, suspenders is respectable/' Mrs. 
 Deacon Tupper's tone was doubtful. "I expect 
 when you come right down to it her grand- 
 father wore 'em. But I don't believe she'll 
 marry him. Paula's sort o' got into the habit 
 o' bein' an old maid." 
 
 Mrs. Deacon, an undisputed authority on 
 strawberry preserves, was no matrimonial 
 prophet. In late August, when the first stray 
 maple leaves, pricked with scarlet, came float- 
 ing lazily down across the common and the 
 burrs of the horse chestnuts began to show 
 their satin linings, Prather McDowell asked 
 Paula to marry him, his big, brisk voice shaky 
 with honest anxiety. 
 
 Paula did not answer him at once. For 
 several moments she looked before her raptly, 
 as at the visibling of a cherished dream. Then 
 she drew a long breath. "I've always hankered 
 to go on a wedding trip!" cried Paula, un-
 
 98 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 evenly. "That and a pink silk parasol seern's 
 if I was born wantin' 'em!" 
 
 "You shall have them both," laughed Pra- 
 ther, tenderly, "the pinkest sort the wed- 
 dingest kind Washington Niagara Falls." 
 
 "Have you ever been there?" she asked him, 
 anxiously. 
 
 "Of course not I've never been married be- 
 fore !" he reassured her. 
 
 "Then I'd rather Washington," chose Paula. 
 "I've seen Shallow Crick Falls and the mill- 
 dam, but I never saw a President." 
 
 They were married in the parsonage, very 
 quietly, as though to get it over before the 
 Prentiss ancestors could hear of it, and then 
 they started out to see the President. Before 
 he left Prather set his surprise in motion. It 
 w r as to be his wedding present to Paula. 
 
 "The nicest thing about going away is the 
 coming home part!" Paula leaned forward in 
 the swaying red plush seat, urging the car on 
 with little jerks of impatience. "All the time 
 I was seeing Congress and the Supreme Court 
 in Washington I kept wondering what the 
 Carneys had named the baby, and whether 
 they'd 'lected Mrs. Bean president of the
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 99 
 
 Foreign Missions or not. Washington's a real 
 sightly place to look at, Prather, but Shady 
 Valley's sightlier to be born an' raised in, an' 
 buried in I shouldn't enjoy bein' buried any- 
 wheres else, seems though." Her eyes wan- 
 dered to the flying hills contentedly. "I hope 
 they decided on Emma Marie, after the baby's 
 grandmother," she mused. "It's no more'n 
 right an' fitting to hand down a grandmother 
 to your children." 
 
 All the way down the afternoon-shadowed 
 street from the station Paula found little ex- 
 citements to exclaim over mildly. Mrs. Deacon 
 Tupper must have company the spare room 
 blinds were open. Silas Penny had painted 
 his pump blue seems as if it was sort of a 
 pity he hadn't chose red to match the barn; 
 Mrs. Bisbee's geraniums were looking real 
 thrifty, there in the window; and here they 
 were home! Paula paused incredulously. 
 Even in the mantling dusk the house shone out 
 dazzling, cheery with clean white paint and 
 new clapboards. Paula's hands went out to it 
 joyously. 
 
 "Prather O, Prather !" she cried. 
 
 "Just you wait a jiffy." He was hurrying 
 her up the path, fumbling with the key. Then
 
 100 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 the door creaked open and he drew her inside. 
 An odor of newness came to meet them, the 
 mingled tang of varnish and unused up- 
 holstery. On the threshold of the parlor Paula 
 paused with a little cry, staring before her 
 unfamiliarly. In place of the sober line of 
 ancestors, bright oil paintings flaunted their 
 gilt frames on the wall, a flowered carpet 
 smothered the floor with a riot of roses and 
 foliage. Unw r eathered paper covered the walls. 
 The damasked furniture, plump, puffy, unsit- 
 table, had the haughty appearance of staring 
 coldly at her through supercilious lorgnettes. 
 The whole gay modern little room was un- 
 Prentissed, refurbished, vaguely terrifying. 
 
 Then through her bewilderment Paula saw 
 Prather smiling at her across the folded arms 
 of achievement in every broad sturdy line 
 of him she could read his satisfaction. It 
 shone around the edges of his Vandyke 
 beard and lurked pridefully in the tones 
 of his voice. "Well, honey," smiled Prather, 
 "rather an improvement what? Guess I 
 know what kind of a parlor a woman likes even 
 if I haven't been married long or often !" 
 
 With sudden wedded intimacy of under- 
 standing Paula ran to him, her heart's dismay
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 101 
 
 transmuted by some miracle of woman-alchemy 
 into a semblance of delight. "It's beautiful, 
 Prather," she whispered against the rough 
 frieze of his coat. And the recording angel, 
 weakly tender to love's divine forgeries, did 
 not dip his pen into the ink to make an entry 
 here. 
 
 "It makes me feel as though I had new kid 
 gloves on my mind!" Paula hesitated on the 
 outskirts of the rejuvenated room, the next 
 afternoon. Prather was away, trolley-tending. 
 Lacking him, the bald, shiny prosperity of the 
 parlor was a thing to dazzle eyes that longed 
 homesickly for old loved worn places, shabbi- 
 ness, weather spots on the walls. 
 
 "It don't look hardly respectab le V 
 sighed Paula. With sudden determination she 
 turned and hurried away up the staircase. 
 From the attic the old furniture, the ancestors 
 in their walnut frames seemed to be calling her 
 to them piteously. Breathlessly she panted up 
 the steep stair and pushed open the squeaky 
 door at the top. Through the afternoon win- 
 dow, webbed across by spider webs, vague with 
 dust, the faint fall sunlight fell in a stain of 
 gentle light across the attic miscellany, quiver- 
 ing on the limp pathos of dangling garments,
 
 102 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 shattered into misty little pools of reflection 
 on the polished mahogany of the ancient high- 
 boy, the center table leaning dejectedly against 
 the eaves, the shabby dignity of the Chippen- 
 dale chairs, erect and stately even in their 
 banishment like proud old gentlewomen, 
 aristocratic in rags. Paula's arms went out 
 to them in an ecstasy of welcome. Motherwise 
 she hovered over them, crooning gentle little 
 words. Her eyes peering into the shadowed 
 recesses sought out other treasures here the 
 chipped blue Wedgwood bowl, there her wax 
 flowers, there Aunt Em'line tilted rakishly 
 against the wall. It was Aunt Em'line that 
 suggested the plan. In the grip of it Paula 
 stared about the attic, arranging it swiftly in 
 her mind washing the tiny windows, rolling 
 the woven carpet across the bare rough boards, 
 here beside the door the highboy, there the 
 table, on that cross-beam Aunt Em'line. 
 
 "It'll be a place to set while Prather's away, 
 afternoons," planned Paula, joyously. "I 
 couldn't rest easy on the roses and peonies 
 downstairs !" 
 
 Ideas are much more easily moved than 
 heavy chests and highboys. It took several 
 secret afternoons, damp with soapsuds, brisk
 
 Her eyes, peering into the shadowed recesses, sought out 
 other treasures.
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 105 
 
 with brooms and dusting cloths before the old 
 parlor appeared again, reconstructed under 
 Paula's busy hands. The tall old furniture 
 had the effect of bumping its head uncomfort- 
 ably against the rafters under the sloping 
 eaves, on the low beams the ancestors seemed 
 to be trailing long ancestral legs on the floor, 
 and the uneven planking, billowed into unex- 
 pected hillocks, fell into unexpected hollows 
 beneath the faded, familiar rug. Blit Paula's 
 eyes had learned to be nearsighted to imperfec- 
 tions. From the point of view of the Chippen- 
 dale rocker she reviewed her work with gentle 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "When you miss something it's like having 
 a toothache in your mind," she reflected, 
 whimsically. "It's sort of hard work living 
 up to a gilt parlor at my time o' life." 
 
 In the evenings with Prather reading his 
 newspaper under the garish blaze of the new 
 brass reading lamp, Paula sat in heroic unease, 
 perched on the slippery edge of the damask 
 sofa, her sewing clutched tensely in her fingers. 
 It hardly seemed fitting to darn stockings or 
 put in patches in the dressed-up atmosphere 
 of the room. The afternoons were her safety 
 valves. The trolley, grudgingly accepted at
 
 106 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 last by Shady Valley, called Prather away for 
 long hours at a time. Then Paula, gathering 
 up her mending basket, hurried up the narrow 
 attic stairs to her little haven of shabby con- 
 tent under the eaves. Through the crannies 
 of the window casings the brisk autumn air 
 crept in, rattling the starchy bones of the worn 
 old lace curtains, swaying the red-stained 
 woodbine ropes in long shadows across the 
 floor. Unconfessed, Paula shivered over her 
 darning, bending low to catch the short fall 
 sunshine before it blazed out into a frosty sun- 
 set behind the stark-ribbed maple boughs. 
 
 It was this way that Prather came upon 
 her on the dusky edge of a chill November 
 evening when he returned early from his work. 
 A little Paula trail led him upstairs a hook 
 and eye a scrap of white muslin and up he 
 went, following them to the half-open attic 
 door. In the Chippendale rocker sat Paula 
 swaying peacefully to and fro among her be- 
 loved household goods. The creak, creak of 
 the rocker shared the gentle silence with the 
 scuffle of drying leaves across the roof and 
 the drone of the evening wind among the 
 rafters. In its unfamiliar setting the old fur- 
 niture looked pathetically out of place. One
 
 ANCESTORS AND PRATHER 107 
 
 brief glance told Prather the whole story. He 
 tiptoed down the stairs in clumsy haste. 
 
 That evening he glanced guilelessly over his 
 teacup. "By the way," said Prather, off- 
 handedly, "Mrs. Deacon Tibbits told me to be 
 sure to remind you of the missionary meeting 
 in the vestry this evening." 
 
 Paula sighed gently. "It's on Torquay. 
 Somehow I can't seem to get up much interest 
 in Torquay," she confessed ; "it seems like such 
 a dretful ways off. But I ought to go, seein' 
 it's Mrs. Tibbits' night to lead." 
 
 It was late when the missionary society sepa- 
 rated with a gentle clatter of conversation at 
 the church door. Paula hurried along the side- 
 walk, bending against the sturdy wind that 
 whirled the gnomelike leaves, brown, wrinkled, 
 in gusty flight across her path. Over the 
 church yard a half-erased, blurry moon 
 smeared across by thin clouds glowed sulkily. 
 The warm shine of the windows along the 
 street cast cheery little flickers of home into 
 the lonely night a sudden need of Prather 
 sent Paula's feet hurrying up the path. In the 
 lighted square of the parlor door, she paused 
 amazed. About the room in their old places 
 stood the stately dignity of Chippendale chair
 
 108 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 and mahogany table, familiar, friendly, and 
 among them Prather, shirt-sleeved and warm, 
 smiling at her over his folded arms. 
 
 "Prather!" cried Paula, inadequately it 
 was a little syllable of joy. 
 
 "Rather an improvement eh, honey?" Pra- 
 ther nodded. He pointed a rueful finger at 
 the wall. "But I managed to scrape off a good 
 bit of the wall paper with a corner of the high- 
 boy." 
 
 Paula surveyed the torn place, head thought- 
 fully atilt. The pleasant gleam of planning 
 crept into her eyes. 
 
 "I believe Aunt Em'line will just about cover 
 it!" cried Paula, joyously. "It'll seem more 
 like home, Prather, to have Aunt Em'line 
 covering a spot!"
 
 LATE BLOOMING
 
 LATE BLOOMING 
 
 THE funeral was over. Shady Valley had 
 put on its Sunday-an'-funeral best with 
 decorous solemnity and followed Lizzie May- 
 fair's plain, grimly unadorned casket to its 
 last resting place "If Lizzie could rest any- 
 wheres," as Mrs. Bisbee sighed, doubtfully, on 
 the way home. Beneath the mournful jet of 
 her best bonnet her broad, flabby pink face 
 settled into gossipy, everyday curves. Her 
 companion, Paula McDowell, nodded seri- 
 ously. 
 
 "Yes, poor Lizzie was a great hand to fret 
 an' fuss over her work," she said. Her gentle 
 eyes were pitying. "She never seemed to take 
 any real comfort in livin'; I only hope she'll 
 like dyin' better. Somehow, she always seemed 
 to me as if somethin' was driving her some- 
 thin' inside. That's the way her face ust t' 
 look drove." 
 
 "Well, land knows there warn't no reason 
 for it," sniffed Mrs. Bisbee, tartly, "well off as 
 ill
 
 112 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 Lizzie Mayfair was all her life. I s'pose old 
 Judge Mayfair must of left her all of ten thou- 
 sand dollars though nobody ever found out 
 jest how much. Lizzie was dretful close- 
 mouthed about her affairs. Anyhow, I guess 
 the girls is well fixed. An' they deserve it too. 
 Not to be hard on the dead, Lizzie Mayfair 
 was a stern woman. She didn't make life any 
 too easy for 'em." 
 
 "She was a good woman," said Paula, justly, 
 "but I don't believe anybody ever saw her 
 smile. I've always held smilin' was kind o' 
 oilin' the wheels of life to keep 'em from 
 raspin'. But she was a good woman, Lizzie 
 was." 
 
 "O, yes, she was good," agreed Mrs. Bisbee, 
 dryly. "She never broke any o' the Ten Com- 
 mandments that I know of, nor nothin'." 
 
 In the hushed Mayfair parlor the "girls" 
 Lizzie and Kitty faced each other solemnly. 
 Both faded faces looked oddly startled and 
 strained above the harsh black of their shabby 
 gowns. Yet, though sisterly alike, the two 
 faces were different. Kitty's thin blond hair 
 was arranged with a looseness denied to the 
 older sister's prim gray braids. There was a 
 wistful echo of youth about her like that of a
 
 LATE BLOOMING 113 
 
 frail spring flower that has budded late in the 
 fall. She was even pretty in a dim, frightened 
 way, though just now her cheeks were drained 
 of color and her childish chin quivering. Her 
 sister regarded her grimly, black gloved fingers 
 clutching the rusty key that had just locked 
 their aunt away behind the iron palings guard- 
 ing the Mayfair lot. 
 
 "What you crying about, Kitty?" she asked, 
 dryly. There was no softening of her voice 
 to the somber level of the occasion. Her light- 
 blue eyes were bright and tearless. "I don't 
 see's we've got any call to cry, you'n' me." 
 
 "O, Lizzie," quavered Kitty. She rummaged 
 in her bag and drew out a coarse folded hand- 
 kerchief, which she pressed to her eyes. "It 
 don't seem right not to Aunt Lizzie's dead 
 O, dear ! O, dear ! I s'pose I'm dretful wicked 
 not to want to cry more'n I do !" 
 
 "We don't cry in this world for folks we've 
 never loved," said Lizzie, coolly. She took off 
 her hat and coat with fierce little jerks. "Aunt 
 Lizzie didn't want us to love her. We'd 'a' 
 done it fast enough lonesome little tikes we 
 was when we came here! Land a livin', we 
 tried to love her, but it warn't no use ! I give 
 up years ago. She did her Bible duty by us, and
 
 114 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 we did ourn by her. I guess the account evens 
 up well 'nough. We don't owe her no tears." 
 
 "O dear ! O dear !" fluttered Kitty, mopping 
 her eyes. "O, Lizzie, warn't it a sort o' lone- 
 some funeral? I don't mean folks didn't come 
 out, but seem's though they had all left their 
 hearts to home. An' o' course, bein' fall so, 
 there weren't hardly any flowers to speak of, 
 an' flowers make a funeral so much cheerf uller 
 O, Lizzie, what are you doin'?" 
 
 Aghast, she watched the older w^oman as she 
 opened the blinds and flung the windows wide. 
 A watery flood of pale autumn sunshine 
 wrought the pattern of the lilac bush outside 
 on the bright colors of the body Brussels. The 
 crisp October air breezed into the stale room 
 with an odd effect of laughing. Kitty shivered 
 under her sister's defiant gaze. 
 
 "She she wouldn't have liked it," she mur- 
 mured, helplessly. "She was awful choice of 
 that carpet it'll get all faded with the sun 
 on it so. O, Lizzie, hadn't you better shut 
 them blinds?" 
 
 "No, I hadn't," said Lizzie Mayfair, hardly. 
 She drew a long gloating breath. "Kitty, this 
 is the first breath o' freedom we've drawed 
 for twenty-eight years. We've been livin' in
 
 LATE BLOOMING 115 
 
 the dark, shet away from the good clean air 
 an' sunshine and human bein's, screwed down 
 an' afraid to call our soul our own. We ain't 
 never had no youngish times, nor pretty 
 clothes, nor beaux!" 
 
 The word came out harshly as though torn 
 from her New England reticence. A tide of 
 red mounted to Kitty's thin ash-colored hair. 
 In her heart a pitiful, long-slumbering memory 
 stirred from its patient, dutiful sleep. Once, 
 long ago, in Kitty's flowering, there had been 
 the promise of a beau. Aunt Lizzie had driven 
 him away before there had been much to re- 
 member a walk home from prayer meeting 
 under a long- waned summer moon, a few blun- 
 dering, boy words, and then that dreadful call 
 and Aunt Lizzie's stinging scorn. 
 
 He was the tenor in the Methodist choir now 
 a thin, silent, timid man who did a helpless 
 bachelor housekeeping above his carpenter 
 shop. Kitty had not looked at him for fifteen 
 years, yet there was not a clumsy man-patch 
 on his shiny coat sleeves she had not seen. 
 
 Lizzie's sharp gaze interpreted the blush 
 aright. 
 
 "She's still rememberin' Charlie Hutchins," 
 she thought, with a tightening of her lips.
 
 116 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "But I've got better plans for her then him. 
 It warn't for nothin' that the new minister 
 come over an' talked with us so long after the 
 service. With her hair crimped an' some new 
 clothes " 
 
 "O, Lizzie ! Lizzie !" trembled Kitty, aghast 
 before this upheaval of her world, "what you 
 goin' to do? You scare me most to pieces, 
 talkin'so!" 
 
 "I'm goin' to begin livin', an' so are you," 
 said Lizzie. She put out an awkward, tender 
 hand in shy caress on her sister's thin arm. 
 "We're goin' to take some o' the money that 
 Aunt Lizzie hoarded so careful all her life, 
 an' buy us some new clothes clothes that 
 won't wear well, clothes that'll fade, an' spot, 
 an' look pretty for a little while. An' we're 
 goin' to go to church sociables an' fairs an' 
 join the Ladies' Aid. An' mebbe mebbe we'll 
 have the new minister to tea !" 
 
 "O, Lizzie!" gasped her sister again, but 
 there was frightened admiration in her eyes. 
 Rampantly Lizzie strode across the room and 
 paused in the doorway. 
 
 "After supper we'll bring down the tin lock- 
 box an' open it," she said, firmly. "We'll find 
 out just how much we've got an' where we
 
 LATE BLOOMING 117 
 
 stand. An' now I'm goin' to dish up supper, 
 an', Kitty, I'm goin' to open a jar o' damson 
 preserves !" 
 
 Two hours later the sisters faced each other 
 again over a litter of yellowing papers and 
 musty deeds ; both faces were pale. In Kitty's 
 faded blue eyes was the wistful grief of a child 
 from whom has been snatched some promised 
 boon. Across the sad little silence ticked the 
 tall clock, like a grim, impersonal voice. 
 
 "That was why she scrimped," it seemed 
 to say over and over. "There wasn't any for- 
 tune but she didn't want folks to know." 
 
 "I suppose Gran'father Mayfair was un- 
 lucky the Mayfairs never were any hands at 
 business," said Lizzie, drearily, at last. "This 
 house an' a thousand dollars that's all we 
 got." 
 
 The words trailed. She sat limply over the 
 wreckage of her plans, every thin, sloping line 
 of her sagging in defeat. Then her backbone 
 stiffened with sudden resolve. She looked at 
 her faded, frail sister and her eyes shone un- 
 dauntedly. 
 
 "It was too late for me, anyways," she de- 
 clared, vigorously. "How'd I look at my time 
 o' life, most thirty-eight, riggin' myself up in
 
 118 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 youngish togs? I'd be a sight for crows to 
 laugh at ! But you're not too old yet thirty- 
 two is young these days. Why, the new minis- 
 ter is all o' forty, an' I heard Mrs. Bisbee 
 speakin' of him as a 'young man' jest to-day." 
 She brought it out triumphantly. Kitty 
 watched her in pale bewilderment. 
 
 "O, Lizzie!" she cried, feebly, "O, "Lizzie, I 
 don't know what to make o' you when you 
 talk that way ! What are you goin' to do?" 
 
 "I'm goin' to see that you don't get cheated 
 out o' a little taste o' life anyhow," said Lizzie, 
 fiercely. "I'm goin' to see that you get some 
 new gownds an' hats an' a pair o' high-heeled 
 shoes. You're goin' to places like other folks, 
 an' act youngish while you got time." 
 
 "O, no ! O, I couldn't ! O, what would you 
 do?" Kitty wrung her hands helplessly, know- 
 ing even as she did so that Lizzie would have 
 her way. Kitty's was a pale, swaying flower 
 soul, blown about by the wind of other people's 
 wills. "We'd ought to mourn Aunt Lizzie; it 
 ain't decent not to what would folks say?" 
 
 "I'll do the mournin'," said her sister, de- 
 cidedly. "They's enough black clothes hang- 
 ing up in the attic so's I can mourn a good 
 long spell, an' mourn thorough. But you ain't
 
 LATE BLOOMING 119 
 
 got no time, Kitty. You got to start right in 
 bein' young. To-morrow's Sunday. You're 
 goin' to put your hair up in curl papers this 
 livin' night." 
 
 "O, I can't ! I can't !" wailed Kitty. "Aunt 
 Lizzie didn't believe in crimps. It ain't no 
 earthly use tryin' to make me over, Lizzie; I'm 
 old too, an' you can't make old goods up in 
 new styles." 
 
 But under her nervous tears her cheeks had 
 taken on the faint pink of a blush rose. Lizzie 
 watched her proudly. No earthly power could 
 have wrung from her the fact that she thought 
 her sister pretty New England folks do not 
 admit such things. There was a kiss on her 
 lips but she denied it sternly. 
 
 "You do well 'nough," she said, shortly, 
 with an attempt at carelessness; "an', Kitty, 
 I don't know but what I'd join the minister's 
 Bible class if I was you. He seems like a dret- 
 ful interestin'-spoken sort of a man." 
 
 Shady Valley accepted the divided mourn- 
 ing charitably. "As long as Lizzie does it so 
 thorough" they hesitated "an' then, of 
 course, Kitty is younger, an' young folks is 
 thoughtless. We'd most forgot Kitty was so 
 young, I guess. She looks real pretty in that
 
 120 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 pink voile, don't she? An' they do say the new 
 minister " 
 
 Wilfred Strong, the new minister, was, his 
 congregation said, "a real human sort of a man 
 in spite of his calling." Big of body and mind, 
 he loomed above the tiny oak pulpit in the 
 Baptist church, the center of many girlish 
 imaginings. Shady Valley matrons opined he 
 must have been disappointed in love early in 
 life; Shady Valley maids wondered roman- 
 tically who could have refused such handsome 
 dark eyes and hair; Lizzie Mayfair alone 
 thought to wonder anxiously whether he wore 
 thick enough flannels this sharp weather, and 
 whether he kept camomile tea handy in case 
 of colds. In her rusty, out-of-date black silks 
 she sat in the Mayfair pew beside the rejuve- 
 nated Kitty, and watched the fine expressive 
 face of the minister turn more and more often 
 in their direction. Kitty, her light hair fluffed 
 about her face, a new shy radiance of color 
 in her cheeks, was almost a girl in her un- 
 wonted daintiness of attire. It made Lizzie 
 feel oddly old and faded to look at her. 
 
 "He's takin' notice," she told herself, when 
 one Sunday Wilfred had walked home with 
 them and stood for a few moments chatting,
 
 LATE BLOOMING 121 
 
 framed in the porch pillars for all the congre- 
 gation to see, "an' I don't know why he 
 shouldn't Kitty is a picture in that blue silk. 
 It sets her off real w r ell. That used to be my 
 color jest that same shade o' blue robin's 
 egg, they used to call it. I w r onder " 
 
 Sudden red drowned her cheeks. She ran 
 away from the thought in a panic of haste. 
 But in the dark of night it returned to stand 
 beside her bed and whisper unkind things. 
 
 "I guess you've forgot how old you are, 
 haven't you?" jeered the Thought; "I guess 
 maybe you'd better get up an' light the lamp 
 an' look in the glass." 
 
 Poor Lizzie Mayfair, lying wakeful on her 
 hard goose-feather pillows, put up sad fingers 
 to her face and hair. 
 
 "O, I don't need to see," she said ; "I can feel 
 the gray an' the wrinkles, I can feel every one 
 of the thirty-seven, most thirty-eight, years, 
 plain as plain. Men folks like young things, 
 an' I'm old. But tain't too late for Kitty. I'd 
 ought to be thankful for that. I'd ought to be 
 glad the minister looks at her an' I am glad 
 too!" she flung down her little gauntlet of 
 defiance at the foot of the unkindly Thought, 
 but it lingered still.
 
 122 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "Maybe you're glad you've fallen in love 
 with your sister's beau," it jeered, impishly; 
 "maybe you're glad of that huh !" 
 
 Lizzie Mayfair, thirty-seven, unlovely, un- 
 loved, and lovable, sat up in bed and faced 
 herself unashamed. 
 
 "Maybe I am glad o' that too!" she said, 
 softly. There was something in her face, in 
 her voice that mothers have. At that moment 
 she too was young and pretty, but she did not 
 know r that. "It won't hurt anybody, my carin' 
 for him, an' it's something to have. Nobody'll 
 ever know but me, an' I'll jest take it out o' 
 my heart now and then an' look at it, an' put 
 it back again. I ought to thank the Lord that 
 he's given me something to grow old on." 
 
 She slid out of bed and knelt down in her 
 scanty unbleached cotton gown, but the prayer 
 that faltered at last from her lips was not for 
 herself, but for Kitty, that she might find her 
 happiness before it was too late. 
 
 As the days passed by it seemed to Lizzie's 
 anxious gaze that her prayer was being an- 
 swered. Wilfred Strong came to call, then 
 again, then many times, and Kitty's faded 
 prettiness blossomed and glowed like a starved 
 plant blooming at last under the warm knowl-
 
 LATE BLOOMING 123 
 
 edge of love. But in the minister's presence 
 she sat silent with shy eyes and restless hands. 
 
 "Land! I'm all out o' patience with her," 
 fretted her sister one evening after he had left. 
 "I'd go out an' leave 'em alone, natural an' 
 proper, but she wouldn't open her mouth if 
 I did. I don't know what to make of her ! I've 
 a good notion to give her a piece o' my mind !" 
 
 She crossed the hall on impulse and pushed 
 open the door of Kitty's room. In the moon- 
 lit square of the window knelt her sister, look- 
 ing away into the soft sky with a clear light 
 on her lifted face that was not born of the 
 moon. As the door creaked she sprang up 
 guiltily and faced Lizzie with a piteous blush. 
 
 "Land! Kitty, you'll catch your death in 
 this night air !" bustled the older woman, mak- 
 ing a great show of shutting the window, in 
 tender shame of the revelation of Kitty's face. 
 Yet Duty spurred her to speak her mind out. 
 Grimly she faced her sister. 
 
 "Kitty Mayfair, I 'spose you know that the 
 minister comes here to see you, don't you?" she 
 said. "Why don't you speak up an' do some 
 of the entertainin' I'd like to know?" 
 
 "O, Lizzie!" quivered Kitty, crimson, "O, 
 Lizzie ! Don't speak so !"
 
 124 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "Don't you suppose I know when a man's 
 in love, even if I be an old maid?" Lizzie's 
 tone was dry and hard, much as she wished 
 it to be tender. "Why do you suppose he calls 
 time an* again? Why do you suppose he walks 
 home with us after meetin' in front of all the 
 folks, an' preaches straight to our pew? He'd 
 speak out in a minute if you gave him the least 
 bit o' encouragement, but there you set an' 
 let me do the talkin'! I haven't a mite o' 
 patience with sech doin's, not a mite. 
 Modesty's all right, but there ain't no call to 
 be too modest !" 
 
 "O, Lizzie, I wish you wouldn't talk so!" 
 begged Kitty, tremulously. "Do you really 
 think O dear me ! I you don't understand !" 
 
 "I understand well 'nough," said Lizzie, 
 dryly, tightening her lips across a secret stab 
 of pain. "Now, to-morrow week we're goin' 
 to have the minister to tea, an' afterward 
 you're goin' to set in the parlor with him while 
 I do the reddin' up. Don't you argue with 
 me, Kitty May fair. I guess I know what I'm 
 doin'!" 
 
 A week later she was not so certain. In her 
 rusty black best she stood in Kitty's empty 
 room and read and reread endlessly the note
 
 LATE BLOOMING 125 
 
 she had found on the bureau, under the 
 camphor bottle. 
 
 "Dear Lizzie," it began in a little tremble 
 of ink, "I don't know what you're going to say 
 to me, but I just couldn't marry the minister. 
 It's Charlie Hutchins it always was Charlie, 
 sister I don't know why, but it was. I s'pose 
 you'll think I'm awful ungrateful, an' I guess 
 I am, but I knew if I stayed I'd do as you 
 wanted I should O, Lizzie ! I'm scairt to write 
 it but Charlie and me are going to run away 
 and get married. I've always hankered to run 
 away to get married I s'pose that's silly too. 
 I never did anything you didn't want me to 
 afore O, Lizzie, won't you please forgive me? 
 Kitty." 
 
 "P. S. I've left the blue dress hanging in 
 my closet it won't have to be much changed 
 for you, and it's just the color you'd ought to 
 wear. Lizzie, I don't think thirty-seven is so 
 awful old. 
 
 "P. S. S. Somehow I don't believe the 
 minister felt like you thought he did it didn't 
 seem so to me." 
 
 "P. S. S. S. O, Lizzie ! Lizzie ! Is it wicked 
 for me to be so happy, do you suppose?" 
 
 The slip of paper fluttered from Lizzie's
 
 126 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 nerveless fingers to the rug, as the front door 
 bell pealed its summons through the silent 
 house. She drew a long quivering breath. 
 
 "The minister!" she gasped. "O, what'll I 
 say to him? What will I say?" 
 
 Wilfred Strong was genuinely startled at 
 the tragic little figure that trembled in the 
 doorway before him. His good, gentle face 
 took on lines of concern. 
 
 "Why why, Miss Lizzie!" he cried, "you 
 look I trust you are not ill ?" 
 
 "No, I'm well, 'nough," said Lizzie with dry 
 tongue. "Come in, Mr. Strong. I've got to 
 break it to you best I can, though I'd rather 
 take a sound whippin'. Something's hap- 
 pened something dretful !" 
 
 In the front parlor she faced him, her own 
 pain forgotten in the hurt of giving him pain. 
 
 "Kitty's gone!" she said, breathlessly. 
 "She's run away to marry Charlie Hutchins. 
 I never guessed ! I never even dreamed o' sech 
 a thing." 
 
 "I guessed it long ago," smiled the minister. 
 "The wind had been blowing all the straws in 
 that direction. They both belonged to my 
 Bible class, you know." He looked at Lizzie's 
 white, startled face and his own suddenly
 
 LATE BLOOMING 127 
 
 sobered. "Poor Miss Lizzie!" he said, softly. 
 He came toward her across the fading Brus- 
 sels. "I suppose it is a great shock to you. 
 You cared so deeply for your sister I 
 watched your devotion to her and marveled. 
 In my pleasure at Miss Kitty's happiness I 
 was forgetting your loss." 
 
 "But but you're ylad she's married? you 
 you don't care?" gasped Lizzie. Her be- 
 wildered eyes seeking his face, read there, not 
 grief or disappointment but a something that 
 made her heart trip strangely in the beating. 
 In a panic she hurried on : "I you came so 
 often she was so pretty I thought " 
 
 "You thought that perhaps I cared for her?" 
 asked the minister, gently; he came close to 
 Lizzie and put both hands over her cold trem- 
 bling ones in a strong clasp. "Why, you dear 
 blind woman, you! Look at me! Don't you 
 know?" 
 
 Her hands went up in a pitiful gesture 
 touching her graying hair. 
 
 "Not not me?" whispered Lizzie Mayfair, 
 incredulous before the wonder of it. "I'm so 
 old. You couldn't mean me?" 
 
 "Ah, but I do mean you, you blessed, self- 
 sacrificing, wonderful woman !" cried Wilfred
 
 128 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 Strong. "You old? Nonsense! You're the 
 youngest woman I know !" 
 
 And with his kiss on her lips the starved 
 heart of Lizzie Mayfair stirred to life and put 
 forth springtide leaves and bloom.
 
 SAIRYANN'S DYING
 
 SAIRYANN'S DYING 
 
 SARAH-ANN BIDDLE she that was a 
 Blynn was dying. Shady Valley put it 
 baldly thus, without its usual kindly softening 
 of the phrase into "passing away" or "going 
 into a decline." There was nothing softened 
 or indefinite about Sarah-Ann Biddle, unless 
 it were her husband Albion, who was, as Mrs. 
 Tucker, the postmistress, said, "too meechin' 
 and pindlin'-minded to cast a real healthy 
 shadder." 
 
 No one had ever dreamed of shortening 
 Sarah-Ann to Sally, or of leaving off the Ann. 
 Her scanty drab hair had never been eked 
 out with a switch, nor her serviceable black 
 bombazines adorned with the weakly feminine 
 ornaments of fancy buttons or lace frills. She 
 was simply Sarah-Ann Biddle middle-aged, 
 uncomely, plain prose from head to foot. And 
 now Sarah-Ann Biddle was dying. 
 
 "An' if Sairyann makes up her mind to die, 
 she's goin' to die, Dr. Jonas or no Dr. Jonas," 
 sighed Mrs. Bisbee, her broad, pleasant face 
 131
 
 132 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 taking on its mournful Sunday lines as it 
 nodded through the square post office window. 
 "She's the beatenest for makin' up her mind 
 an' keepin' it made up like 'twas a spare 
 room bed or somethin'." 
 
 "She's set, Sairyann is," agreed the post- 
 mistress. "I suppose you remember when she 
 'n' Albion went to church Sunday afternoon, 
 don't you? or, yes, I guess 'twas before your 
 time. Well, Albion had just bought a new 
 horse an' this was the fust time they'd ever 
 drove him. About half way to church, right 
 spang in the middle o' Squire Maltby's hill, he 
 began to balk. Albion he tried every way he 
 knew to make him start up ; he'd left the whip 
 home, 'count o' its bein' the Lord's Day, but 
 he slapped the reins, an' coaxed an' argued, 
 an' the horse jest stood stock still in the 
 middle o' the road. Pa an' Ma Potts passed 
 'em standin' there, an' drew up alongside. 
 
 " 'Don't look's though you'd git to church 
 to-day not behind that critter,' Pa Potts says, 
 jokin', like. But Sairyann never turned a 
 hair. 
 
 " 'I've set out for church, an' I'm goin' to 
 church,' she says, real firm. 'Albion, you give 
 me the reins.'
 
 SAIKYANN'S DYING 133 
 
 "About an hour an' a half later, sure enough, 
 that horse trotted into the churchyard, meek 
 as Moses, all the gimp taken out o' him. The 
 congregation was just comin' out, but that 
 didn't hender Sairyann none. She tied the rig 
 up in the shed and marched up the steps into 
 the church, Albion follerin' along behind, 
 lookin' kind o' frightened, but sayin' nothin', 
 as usual. 
 
 " 'I started out to church an' I'm goin' to 
 church,' Sairyann told folks. An,' sure 
 enough, she an' Albion set there in that empty 
 church one mortal hour by the clock, then 
 come out, unhitched, an' drove home. Yes, 
 Sairyann is set, there's no gettin' around it." 
 
 "Here's Albion now." Mrs. Bisbee pointed 
 a black silk forefinger. "I wonder what he'll 
 do without Sairyann. I've always said men 
 folks was all helpless, but Albion Biddle is the 
 helplessest one I've ever set eyes on." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Tucker. "Afore he was 
 married he was allers the Widder Biddle's Al, 
 an' sence he's been married he's been Sairy- 
 ann's husband. I don't know what he'd do if 
 he had to stand on his own feet an' be jest 
 Albion Biddle, I declare I don't." 
 
 The post office door opened apologetically
 
 134 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 and Sairyann's husband slid his spare form 
 through as narrow a space as possible. He 
 was a dim, vague man with an unfinished look 
 about his chin and forehead, and a habit of 
 sidling up to objects "walking on the bias" 
 Abby Bliss, the dressmaker, called it. Now 
 he approached the post boxes circuitously by 
 way of the cracker barrel. He carried two 
 letters in his hand, which he deposited with 
 anxious care in the mail slit. 
 
 "How's Sairyann to-day, Al?" The postmis- 
 tress peered over benevolent spectacles. "She'd 
 ought to be doin' better this sightly weather." 
 
 "She ain't though," said Sairyann's hus- 
 band, heavily. Under the straggling whiskers 
 his irresolute chin shook. "She jest lies there 
 gittin' weaker an' weaker right along. She 
 don't eat nothin' hardly, an' us with that big 
 spring killin' done an' all. Dr. Jonas says he 
 don't give much hope 'less she'll rouse herself 
 an' try t' git well." 
 
 "I suppose you're writin' to her folks over 
 Greenfield way?" asked Mrs. Bisbee, sympa- 
 thetically. Sairyann's husband looked almost 
 frightened. 
 
 "Yes, I be. I didn't tell her what I was doin' 
 neither !" His own daring dismayed him. "I
 
 SAIRYANN'S DYING 135 
 
 figured out that they'd ought to hear how bad 
 off she was her sister Lyddy and her Aunt 
 Blynn, anyhow but I dunno Sairyann 
 didn't say t' tell 'em." 
 
 As he jogged homeward, his errands done, 
 Albion Biddle's doubts of the wisdom of his 
 course grew. He knew by heart Sairyann's 
 opinion of her relatives. Hadn't she told him 
 over and over that sister Lyddy was slack and 
 Cousin Essie queer, and Aunt Blynn too fond 
 of her own way? Maybe their appearance 
 would throw Sairyann into a spell! His 
 doubts and dismay accompanied him into the 
 barn, dogged his slow unharnessing, and 
 trooped with him across the yard into the 
 kitchen. The faint hope that his wife might 
 be asleep was dispelled by her shrill nervous 
 voice from the bedroom : 
 
 "Albion! Albion Biddle! You come right 
 in here!" 
 
 Sarah-Ann lay in a gaunt rigid line of 
 counterpane in the center of the four-poster 
 bed. Stiff goose-feather pillows bolstered her 
 gray head at a sharp angle. There were no 
 concessions to ease or grace in the bare little 
 room. Sarah- Ann Biddle would not allow her- 
 self even to die comfortably. She turned her
 
 136 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 head now sharply on the pillows toward her 
 husband. 
 
 "Land a massy, if you ain't slower 'n cold 
 molasses, Albion Biddle," she complained. 
 "Seem's if I sh'd go wild lyin' here listenin' to 
 the clock tickin', waitin' for you to git home, 
 and knowin' everything's goin' to rack and 
 ruin in the house. What you got there in that 
 package?" 
 
 Albion looked apologetically at her. 
 
 "Jest some oranges an' a few little fixin's 
 from the store, Sairyann," he said. "Dr. Jonas 
 wants you should eat a little an' git up some 
 strength. I didn't git much of any thin'." 
 
 "Albion Biddle, what use has a dyin' woman 
 got f'r oranges, I'd like to know?" Sarah-Ann 
 snapped. "Ain't we got expenses enough 
 comin' on without wastin' our money on sech 
 doin's? Funerals are expensive. I allers 
 planned to hev solid silver trimmings to my 
 casket, an' I'm a-goin' to hev 'em !" 
 
 "O, Sairyann, don't talk like that it ain't 
 right. You ain't goin' to die!" Albion went 
 crookedly to the bedside. His light-blue eyes 
 watered as he patted her hand. "Dr. Jonas, 
 he says there's no reason why you shouldn't 
 git well he says "
 
 SAIRYANN'S DYING 137 
 
 "Dr. Jonas, nor nobody else can't tender the 
 will o' the Lord, Albion," Sarah-Ann said, 
 solemnly. "My time has come. I ain't got no 
 more strength than a new-born babe. I ain't 
 complainin', though I'd like to have lived 
 through hayin' you allers forget to keep a 
 w r et pad in your hat, Albion, an' like as not 
 you'll git a sunstroke. Mother, she went just 
 this way, and Granma Haslaw before her 
 took to their beds and in a couple o' weeks they 
 was gone. No, Albion, it's wrong to put an 
 orange ag'in' the will o' God." 
 
 Albion tiptoed heavily into the kitchen and 
 set out a cheerless lunch of cold beans and 
 bread on the kitchen table. He ate slowly with 
 long pauses, representing thought, between 
 mouthfuls, looking away out of the window 
 across the uncut hay fields. The thought of 
 performing the ordinary duties of life without 
 Sarah-Ann to keep him going was appalling, 
 and yet the will o' God. 
 
 "I'll ask the minister to see her," resolved 
 Albion. "Seems like he'd know better about 
 sech things than me." 
 
 But the minister himself was helpless before 
 Sarah- Ann's conviction. 
 
 "Though I'm glad you happened in, Rever-
 
 138 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 ent Griscom," she told him calmly. "I've been 
 thinkin' over some o' the things I'd like to hev 
 you put in the funeral sermon. I can't abide 
 the cut an' dried ones you generally preach. 
 You don't make any difference between de- 
 parteds at all." 
 
 So, instead of arguing with Sarah-Ann over 
 the necessity of obeying the doctor's orders 
 and making an effort to get well, the minister 
 spent his call making notes for Sarah-Ann's 
 funeral sermon. But when he rose to go he 
 clutched his courage in his long nervous hands. 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Biddle, I hope you will er-er" 
 he had almost said "reconsider" "will be 
 er spared to us for many years of usefulness. 
 I trust I sincerely trust you are mistaken as 
 to the seriousness of your case." 
 
 "Reverent Griscom, I'm not one to shilly- 
 shally over a job, and never was," said Sarah- 
 Ann Biddle with a sort of feeble ferocity. 
 "When I make up my mind to a thing I don't 
 fret over it an' put it off. If I'm goin' to die, 
 I'd enough sight rather do it my own way, 
 nice and prompt, and not spread it out over 
 ten years like Ann Barrows over on the cross- 
 roads. Good-by, an' don't forget the p'ints 
 I want brought out at the funeral."
 
 SAIRYANN'S DYING 139 
 
 Late the next afternoon a surrey with three 
 occupants drove into the Biddle yard. A few 
 white Leghorns scratching listlessly among the 
 burdock were the only signs of life around the 
 place. Far down in a potato field beyond the 
 barn a spot of blue jeans shirting located 
 Albion and his hoe. It was very hot. The air 
 was steeped with the odor of verbena and sweet 
 peas from the drooping flower garden behind 
 the house. 
 
 "I declare if I ain't as tuckered as if I'd been 
 pullin' the surrey instid o' drivin' it !" declared 
 Mrs. Lizzie Blynn, rubbing her florid face with 
 a pink-bordered handkerchief as she jumped 
 out of the carriage. She was an erect, middle- 
 aged woman whose aggressive spine seemed to 
 spring back to perpendicular whenever she 
 stooped, as she did now to fasten the horse to 
 the porch palings. The other two descended 
 more slowly. Lyddy, Sarah-Ann's sister, was a 
 heavy, flabby woman in an untidy old black 
 silk with a rip in one elbow which she was con- 
 tinually attempting to hide. Cousin Essie was 
 thin and bonily coquettish in a pink-figured 
 lawn, trimmed defiantly with pink ribbon 
 bows. She held the skirt tenderly away from 
 contact with the wheel as she clambered down.
 
 140 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "My goodness, ef you ain't got your skirt 
 all over dust, Lyddy!" she tittered in a high- 
 pitched voice. "Here, stand still an' let me 
 brush it off." 
 
 "It don't matter," expostulated Lydia 
 feebly, but she stood still nevertheless. "I only 
 wore it out of respect. I s'pose I'll hev to git 
 me a new one made up for the funeral ; Sairy- 
 ann's the only sister I've got in the world." 
 
 "Milk pans not scoured!" sniffed Mrs. 
 Blynn, drawing her finger across the surface 
 of one experimentally. "If men folks aren't 
 the slackest ! Well, girls, we'll walk right in." 
 
 In the bare bedroom Sarah-Ann sat up in 
 bed with a sudden nervous jerk. Her face 
 with its frame of thin gray hair looked oddly 
 pinched and small above the flat collar of her 
 unbleached cotton gown. She glanced swiftly 
 about the room. 
 
 "Company, an' everythin' dusty 'nuff to 
 write your name on," she thought, bitterly. 
 "Now who it ain't yes, 'tis too. It's the 
 Greenfield folks. I'd know Essie's giggle any- 
 wheres." 
 
 "Sairyann ! Sairyann !" 
 
 "Well, I'm here." The sick woman's tone 
 was ungracious; she lay grimly back on the
 
 SAIRYANN'S DYING 141 
 
 pillows, pulling the quilt up under her chin. 
 "I suppose you may as well come in, now 
 you're here." 
 
 The visitors filed into the bedroom, filling it. 
 
 "O, Sairyann," wept Lydia, "why didn't you 
 let us know before? An' me the only livin' 
 sister you got in the world !" 
 
 "Well, niece, how air you?" Mrs. Blynn 
 went briskly to the window and opened it with 
 a jerk. "Land a-livin'! I sh'd think you'd 
 smother in here." 
 
 "The flies'll git in," protested Sarah-Ann, 
 feebly. "I can't abide to hey 'em 'round 
 spottin' up the paper." 
 
 "My, you're lookin' awful bad, Sairyann," 
 commiserated Cousin Essie. She gave a com- 
 placent glance at her resplendent self in the 
 bureau mirror. "They's somethin' sailer about 
 your skin, jest like your poor mother in her 
 last sickness. Don't you see it, Lyddy?" 
 
 "I'm goin' jest like her," said Sarah- Ann. "I 
 ain't much longer for this world." 
 
 There was grudging pride, as of one set 
 apart, in her tones. 
 
 "Well, well, we must all be prepared, an' 
 keep our lamps trimmed an' burnin'," said 
 Mrs. Blynn, sighing. "You've been a good
 
 142 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 Methodist for nigh thirty years, Sairyaim, an' 
 I don't see why you ain't as ready to go as 
 most. I suppose I shall hev the Blyun tea 
 spoons an' the Gran'mother Ellen coffeepot, 
 when you're through with 'em, niece?" 
 
 "Why, Aunt Hattie!" interposed Lydia, in 
 an injured tone. "I should think 'twas only 
 right an' fittin' I sh'd git them, seein' I'm 
 Sairyann's own an' only sister an' you jest 
 married into the Blynns !" 
 
 "I allers did think my side o' the family 
 ought to hev had them spoons," said Cousin 
 Essie, slowly, "bein' how mother was the only 
 darter, an' silverware is woman-fixin's. How- 
 somever, I don't reely need 'em. I guess I 
 got as nice knives an' forks an' spoons as most, 
 if I do say so who shouldn't." 
 
 Sarah-Ann opened her mouth to speak, then 
 shut it again. A fleck of red snapped into her 
 hollow cheeks. 
 
 "Well, well, we can settle that later," said 
 Mrs. Blynn, pacifically. She unpinned her 
 straw hat and hung it on the footpost of the 
 bed. "The thing f'r us to do now is to pitch 
 right in an' red things up. I'm goin' to roll 
 out a batch o' my sugar doughnuts an' a couple 
 o' apple pies. I seen three-four bean cans on
 
 SAIRYANN'S DYING 143 
 
 the kitchen table men folks allers lives in 
 cans when they're put to it to shift for them- 
 selves." 
 
 "Albion can't tech a mouthful o' pie," pro- 
 tested Sarah-Ann, inwardly, "an' doughnuts 
 ain't no kind o' hayin' vittles." But aloud she 
 said nothing. She watched the three women 
 bustle out in a frenzy of usefulness, with some- 
 thing akin to resentment smoldering in her 
 faded blue eyes. 
 
 "Takin* the family spoons right out o' my 
 mouth afore I'm done with *em!" she mut- 
 tered. "They won't none of 'em set the store 
 by them spoons that I did." 
 
 She lay rigidly on her hard pillows, listen- 
 ing tensely to the sounds of redding up outside. 
 Through the open window buzzed a fly, then 
 another three. Sarah-Ann's agonized gaze 
 followed them around the room. 
 
 "Them curtains that I just done up!" she 
 fretted. "Land, seem's though dyin' wouldn't 
 be so bad if folks wouldn't try to take care o' 
 you! If it's Lyddy sweepin' the front room 
 she'll be mortal sure to bang the broom 
 straight into the table legs she's all elbows 
 when she gets holt of a broom, Lyddy is an' 
 O dear me suz, 'tis Lyddy too!"
 
 144 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 She lifted her head off the pillows to hear 
 better. 
 
 "I s'pose nobody'll mind if I take the parlor 
 set?" It was Lydia's voice lifted shrilly above 
 the racking progress of her broom. "It ain't 
 much to look at, but it'll furnish my front 
 room till I can see my way clear to get me a 
 golden oak set. I'll hev the haircloth took off 
 an' Abner Barrows '11 do it over in red plush 
 for me reasonable." 
 
 Sarah-Ann started up indignantly red 
 plush! The solid mahogany sofa and chairs 
 that had been Ma's wedding furnishings and 
 which she had kept so choicely all these years. 
 She had not even allowed Albion to sit on them 
 except when the minister called. Why, Lyddy 
 would have it ruined in a week! 
 
 "That'll look real nice, Lyddy," approved 
 Mrs. Blynn. The thump of a rolling pin 
 punctuated the words. "I s'pose Albion'll sell 
 most o' the things off at auction an' move to 
 his brother's place down in the village. But 
 we'd ought to hev what we want first, own 
 folks like we be. I been thinkin' I'd run up- 
 stairs after I get these pies in the oven an' look 
 over the blankets an' comfortables an' quilts. 
 My closet is gittin' right down low."
 
 SAIRYANN'S DYING 145 
 
 Sarah- Ann was sitting bolt upright in bed 
 now. The red speck had widened in her 
 cheeks. She almost forgot she was dying. 
 
 "She'll let the moths git in !" she thought, 
 wildly. "She'll spile all my quilts the Risin' 
 Sun one that took the prize at the fair, an' 
 the Crazy Quilt I made out o' Blynn weddin' 
 dresses! She shan't hev 'em! Land! What 
 be I sayin'! I hadn't ought to keer so much 
 for airthly things on the brink o' the grave " 
 
 "Yes, Albion'll live with his brother," agreed 
 Cousin Essie's shrill voice, " 'less he takes it 
 into his head t' git married again !" 
 
 "Land, Essie, how you do talk !" said Lyddy, 
 scandalized. "An' poor Sairyann not in her 
 grave yit ! Still I don't know Walt Biddle's 
 wife is real sickly " 
 
 "Albion ain't so old/' commented Mrs. 
 Blynn, judiciously, "not as men go. And he's 
 one o' the helpless kind that show why the 
 Lord hed to create women. But poor Sairy- 
 ann's done for him faithful. I'll say that for 
 her, an' I shan't hev any kind of patience with 
 him 'less he mourns a proper time." 
 
 A sudden sound from the bedroom startled 
 them. It was that of a window slammed down. 
 In the doorway, unexpectedly appeared a
 
 146 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 small defiant figure in a scant white cotton 
 nightgown, a blue checked-gingham apron tied 
 hastily around its waist. 
 
 "O, Sairyann !" gasped Lydia, feebly, "O, 
 Sairyann !" 
 
 "I'm feelin' some better," said Sarah-Ann. 
 "You give me that broom, Lydia Blynn !" She 
 looked around the old familiar room with 
 gloating eyes, then grimly at her startled, 
 speechless relatives. "I've put off dyin' a 
 spell," she said, dryly. "I guess I'll go on 
 takin' care o' the Blynn spoons, an' Ma's 
 parlor set, an' the weddin' quilt an' Albion a 
 while longer, after all."
 
 THE LORD'S KIND
 
 THE LORD'S KIND 
 
 THE REV. NATHAN GRISCOM came up 
 the parsonage walk, gaunt and tall of 
 figure in his black ministerial coat, with a 
 little bend to his shoulders, as though some 
 invisible burden of discouragement lay upon 
 them. The clear lamplight, reaching warm 
 hands into the darkness, touched the care lines 
 in his face with gentle fingers. In the peaceful 
 little dining room his wife Jewel put on cheeri- 
 ness as a garment at the sound of his heavy 
 step. 
 
 "Poor Nate!" For an instant the brave 
 smile flickered, then flashed on again splen- 
 didly. "Another bad meeting I guess I know 
 that step. I'm glad I thought to warm up the 
 oyster stew; it's real heartening, oyster stew 
 is" 
 
 She bustled softly to the door to meet him, 
 
 to take off his shabby coat and smooth back 
 
 the thick gray lock that would stick up 
 
 rakishly above his forehead. The rebellious 
 
 149
 
 150 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 lock gave Nathan Griscom's ascetic face the 
 odd, hurt look of a big, blundering boy. It was 
 the only unministerial thing about him, unless 
 it was Jewel. Years ago they had been accus- 
 tomed to laugh a little youngly over the joke 
 of her worldly name. With sudden swift wist- 
 fulness she wondered whether it was because 
 they were growing old that they laughed so 
 seldom together now. Then resolutely she 
 donned the smile again, refusing to see the 
 trouble in his eyes. 
 
 "I've got a surprise on the oil stove a-boil- 
 ing!" she cried gayly. "Isn't that a nice but- 
 tery, pepper-'n'-salty smell? Sit down, you 
 poor tired preacher boy, you, and I'll bring you 
 something guaranteed to warm the cockles of 
 your soul. You just wait and see !" 
 
 She was hurrying kitchenward in a little 
 whirl of cheeriness, but he drew her back. 
 
 "I don't want anything to eat, Jewel, not 
 to-night," he said, heartsickly, "not unless 
 you've got some manna for my spirit a-boiling 
 on the stove. Jewel, Jewel, how many do you 
 suppose were at the meeting to-night? I 
 advise you to guess twelve !" 
 
 He laughed harshly, sinking into a chair and 
 staring absently down at the red-checkered
 
 THE LORD'S KIND 151 
 
 tablecloth. "Twelve! That's a record night 
 even for me! And they were the good old 
 standbys. Nobody under sixty-five, Jewel 
 old Mrs. Tucker and the Potts and Deacon 
 Mayhew and widow Betts, the salt of the earth 
 that hasn't lost its savor. What need they of 
 a minister, I'd like to know? O, no, I don't 
 mean that, of course, but the others the ones 
 that need the church so bitterly they don't 
 come." 
 
 "There's a moon to-night, Nathan; it's the 
 full o' the moon and August. The young folks 
 are all out courting and walking, dear," she 
 comforted him gayly. "Why, I remember a 
 full o' the moon once when you didn't go to 
 prayer meeting yourself, Nathan Griscom! 
 Don't you dare to tell me you've forgotten!" 
 Guilefully she strove to lead him away from 
 the thought of that terrible twelve, but he 
 would not follow. 
 
 "But where were the rest?" he demanded, 
 fiercely "Tom Jenkins, that is drinking him- 
 self into the poorhouse, and the Tuppers and 
 the Tibbitts and all of the others who crowded 
 the church to hear my first sermon, and who 
 haven't crowded it since? They've been drop- 
 ping out one by one. It isn't the fault of the
 
 152 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 moon they weren't there to-night, is it? Whose 
 fault is it, I'd like to know?" 
 
 "It's right in the middle o' canning season," 
 she cried, militantly, "and the men folks are 
 all worn out with the haying. I saw Mrs. Tib- 
 bitts to-day, and she said she would try to get 
 to meeting if she wasn't too dead to move one 
 foot after another she's just put up six dozen 
 jars of currant and raspberry jelly " 
 
 "No, no, my dear." The minister shook his 
 head with a sad smile. "It isn't the moon, nor 
 the haying, nor the raspberry and currant jelly 
 that's to blame for my empty church nor the 
 Word o' God. It's myself. I guess you've 
 married a failure, Jewel." 
 
 "Then I like failures !" she laughed to hide 
 her tears. With a mother gesture, as though 
 he were little Honey Bunch, she caught his 
 head to her breast ; the hot feel of it frightened 
 her. "O, boy o' mine, you've got to stop worry- 
 ing or you'll be sick. I'll count three and you 
 stop quick as you can say Jack Kobinson one 
 two three !" 
 
 The big man got slowly to his feet, looking 
 down into her sweet tilted face. "How can I 
 help worrying, Jewel?" he groaned. "To fail 
 and not to know why it's maddening not to
 
 THE LOKD'S KIND 153 
 
 know what is the matter. My sermons seemed 
 to suit the city, but Shady Valley needs some- 
 thing else I don't know what Shady Valley 
 needs. I have tried to awaken them to a sense 
 of their duty to see the error of their ways. 
 I have preached nothing unorthodox or un- 
 doctrinal, yet only those who are too deaf to 
 hear me come to church! And then you say 
 not to worry, Jewel." 
 
 "Seem's though worrying was just another 
 way of disbelieving, Nathan," said his wife, 
 solemnly. "It's as if you were afraid God 
 wouldn't know what to do. Now, I'm going to 
 put you straight to bed, so you'll get a good 
 night's sleep ; a nice sleep will cheer you up 
 maybe I shouldn't wonder if to-morrow 
 morning you remembered there were fifteen 
 folks at the meeting! And then to-morrow's 
 sermon day." 
 
 In the doorway Nathan Griscom turned 
 abruptly. His good, worn face was very stern. 
 "You are right; you are always right, dear," 
 he said. "I may be an unworthy messenger, 
 but as long as I am a minister of the gospel I 
 must preach the fear of the Lord without 
 weakly laying down my burden. To-morrow I 
 shall continue my sermon on the Ten Com-
 
 154 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 mandments. 'Remember the sabbath day to 
 keep it holy,' that shall be my text, Jewel, and 
 if no one else comes on Sunday to the house of 
 the Lord, I shall preach before God alone." 
 
 Jewel listened as the big steps tiptoed 
 clumsily up the stairs, and then in the safe 
 knowledge of aloneness took off the garment 
 of cheerfulness and laid it away for the next 
 time of need. To the eyes of her whimsical 
 imagination it was threadbare and worn in 
 places. 
 
 "The fear of the Lord, Nathan said," she 
 murmured, troubled. "If it were only the pity 
 of the Lord and the mercy of the Lord and the 
 tenderness of the Lord instead of the fear. 
 Nathan's a sort of Old Testament preacher, 
 but Shady Valley isn't Sodom or Gomorrah. 
 It's just kind of human and friendly and every- 
 day I wonder " 
 
 She went about the little house, fastening 
 the doors, putting away Honey Bunch's play- 
 things, but above the soft clatter of nightly 
 chores clamored the disquieting new thought. 
 It seemed almost disloyal to Nathan to think 
 it and yet 
 
 "There's another commandment a New 
 Testament one," she told herself shyly "the
 
 THE LORD'S KIND 155 
 
 one about loving one another. I wish Nathan 
 would let me pick out his texts for him !" 
 
 A hoarse cough from the room above sent 
 her flying to the medicine closet, texts and 
 commandments forgotten. 
 
 "O dear," she sighed as she reached a-tiptoe 
 for the camphor bottle. "He sounds as though 
 he were coming down with one of his grippy 
 colds. When Nathan gets to worrying it 
 always settles on his chest. There's the dread- 
 fullest draught in the pulpit too. The church 
 needs to be clapboarded. It's a sin and a 
 shame! O dear!" 
 
 It was evident the next morning that 
 Nathan Griscom would preach no sermon this 
 week at least. His valiant attempt to rise and 
 dress sent him back on his pillows in a fit of 
 coughing that brought Jewel to the bedside 
 with an ultimatum. 
 
 "Not a foot do you step on the floor to-day, 
 my dear," she told him, firmly. "Not one !" 
 
 "You talk as though I were a centipede!" 
 gasped Nathan, weakly humorous. He looked 
 up at her, brow knotted with anxiety. "But 
 the sermon. It's Saturday, sermon day. What 
 shall I do?" 
 
 "You can say it to me and I'll write it
 
 156 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 down," she told him, implacably. "Deacon 
 Mayhew can read it for you to-morrow; he's 
 been a minister himself, hasn't he? Now I'm 
 going to beat you up an egg-nogg without the 
 nogg and you're going to drink every last 
 drop of it before you can preach even to me !" 
 
 "Ou tan dwink it out o' my birfday cup, 
 papa-preacher," offered Honey Bunch mag- 
 nificently, "an' pwetend it was lemingade an' 
 ice-cweam !" 
 
 So, propped on his pillows, the minister 
 gasped out his sermon between coughing 
 spells, and Jewel took it down faithfully in 
 her small, precise hand. It was a merciless 
 sermon, full of sin and punishment and wrath 
 and judgment day. It argued and threatened 
 and thundered. Jewel's pencil wavered over 
 some of its harsh phrasings, but she wrote 
 them down conscientiously. 
 
 "Now read me what you have," he directed 
 at its end. He listened with grim appreciation 
 to his words, nodding now and then, with a 
 gesture of his bony hand. 
 
 "You took it very nicely, dearest," he told 
 her. "It ought to be a a warning don't you 
 think? If that won't bring the people of the 
 church back into the fold I do not know what
 
 THE LORD'S KIND 157 
 
 will." He sighed wearily and turned over on 
 his pillow. When she knew him to be asleep 
 Jewel tip-toed from the room, carrying the 
 sermon in her hand ; the words of it seemed to 
 scorch her fingers. She laid it upon the dining 
 room table and stood looking down at it 
 thoughtfully a long while. 
 
 "Muzzer!" whined Honey Bunch presently, 
 clutching her skirts, "come play wiv me ! Fse 
 lonesum !" 
 
 "Sh-sh, dear!" said Jewel, gently. "Daddy 
 is asleep. I'll get you a party, Honey Bunch 
 cookies and milk and a little weeny glass of 
 currant jelly, and you can invite Nehemiah 
 and Esther the beautiful queen and Job." 
 
 Honey Bunch's dolls, being ministerial 
 dolls, bore biblical names. The mother saw 
 the party in full swing and then returned to 
 the manuscript on the table. She drew a long 
 slow breath of resolution. 
 
 "If I'm doing wrong God'll forgive me, be- 
 cause I want to do right so hard!" she mur- 
 mured a little whitely. "But O I don't 
 know as Nathan ever will !" 
 
 Then with trembling courage she took up 
 her pencil, drew a blank sheet of paper toward 
 her and began to write.
 
 158 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "How did you like the sermon?" Shady 
 Valley asked, bewilderedly, the next afternoon. 
 "Sort of unexpected, wasn't it, an' different. 
 But I declare I liked it real well !" 
 
 "There warn't s'much meat to it as usual," 
 Mr. Tucker told his wife as they walked home, 
 "but there was a powerful lot more o' the milk 
 o' human kindness than Brother Griscom 
 gen'lly gives us. It didn't rub you the wrong 
 ways, like he does sometimes." 
 
 Mrs. Tucker looked up at her husband 
 soberly. She was a sharp-featured, sharp- 
 tongued woman, who seldom agreed with any 
 of her husband's opinions from principle, but 
 now her tired, harassed face was fallen into 
 gentled lines. 
 
 "That red necktie sets real well on you, 
 Lemuel," she commented, amiably. "What 
 was you sayin'? O the sermon. Yes, 'twas 
 pleasanter-spoken than usual, I thought. I 
 do' know but what we'd ought to try to get to 
 church more regular, Lemuel." 
 
 "I generally come out o' church feelin' I was 
 a poor, miserable sinner 'n' most too wuthless 
 'n' no-count to live," said burly Tom Jenkins 
 to his wistful little wife Olivia. For the first 
 time in months he had allowed her to persuade
 
 THE LORD'S KIND 159 
 
 him to go to service with her. "But to-day 
 I dunno seem's if I could be some account by 
 tryin' 'sif somebody had kind o' slapped me 
 on the shoulder 'an' said, 'Brace up, Tom, I'm 
 with you.' " 
 
 Olivia Jenkins gazed at her husband with the 
 loyal pride that ten years of married disillu- 
 sion had not been quite able to destroy. It 
 seemed to her that he carried his slouching 
 shoulders a bit straighter, walked a little more 
 erectly, like a man; then he disappeared be- 
 hind a film of patient hopeful tears. 
 
 "God bless the minister's sermon!" she 
 thought. "Ain't it jest Providence we went 
 to-day 'stead o' last week?" 
 
 "It warn't so doctrinal," hesitated Samuel 
 Tibbitts, judiciously, "but I do' know's I sh'd 
 call it unorthodox exactly, though it might 
 'most as well 'a' been a Baptist sermon." 
 
 "S' long as 'twas Christian, what difference 
 does it make?" ventured his wife, boldly. "Us 
 ladies hev let the missionary society drop dret- 
 fully lately. Mis' Tucker jest told me she was 
 goin' to post a notice f 'r it to meet Wednesday 
 at her house an' git things into shape f 'r run- 
 nin' again." 
 
 Samuel Tibbitts fumbled the change in his
 
 160 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 trousers pockets reflectively. He was known 
 as the stingiest man in Shady Valley, but the 
 sermon had filled his soul with a painful un- 
 willing spirit of generosity. "The church had 
 reely ought to be clapboarded," he frowned. 
 "Mebbe " 
 
 Nathan Griscom was sick for three weeks. 
 And for three sermon days Jewel sat beside 
 him and jotted down his austere sermons with 
 troubled, guilty fingers. Shamed red burned 
 her cheeks as she wrote. 
 
 "I feel as though I wasn't honoring and 
 obeying!" she groaned to herself, "but O, it's 
 working. It isn't Nathan's way of going about 
 things, but seems though it's a little more like 
 the Lord's way." 
 
 She went to church with Honey Bunch and 
 watched it work, watched tired faces relax as 
 they listened, watched grim lines grow a bit 
 less grim, harsh looks gentled. But, O O 
 what would Nathan say? 
 
 On the fourth Sunday the minister rebelled. 
 
 "I've been sick long enough," he said, firmly. 
 "I'm going to preach my own sermon to-day, 
 Jewel." 
 
 "Not to-day !" she cried, faintly, and sudden 
 terror filled her heart at the thought of what
 
 THE LORD'S KIND 161 
 
 she had done. Desperately she strove to put 
 off the moment when he must know. 
 
 "You're white as a sheet white as two 
 sheets, boy o' mine I won't let you go !" 
 
 But in the end he had his way. Silently she 
 helped him into his preaching trim, tied his 
 necktie lingeringly as though for the last time ; 
 buttoned his coat and smoothed down the be- 
 wildered lock of hair on his forehead. 
 
 "Where is the sermon?" he asked, fretfully. 
 It was a matter of secret shame to him that 
 he must read his sermons instead of speaking 
 them, but it was a habit he could not change. 
 Jewel brought it and stowed it away in his 
 pocket. 
 
 "It's written plainly. I guess you can read 
 it all right," she said, slowly. "I copied it 
 twice to make sure." 
 
 She reached up, clutching his coat lapels 
 with a queer sobbing laugh. "I don't want 
 you to kiss me before you go this time, 
 preacher man," she cried. "I'd rather wait 
 till you get home. Promise me you'll want to 
 kiss me after you get home !" 
 
 She watched the tall black-clad figure waver 
 away through her tears. Nathan was a stern 
 man, a pitiless man. How would he judge her?
 
 162 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "O Honey Bunch! Honey Bunch!" she 
 sighed against the child's fluff of soft hair. 
 "We wish church time was over don't we, and 
 daddy had come home." 
 
 Nathan Griscom faced his congregation be- 
 wilderedly. For one panic-stricken instant he 
 wondered whether he had not come into the 
 wrong church by terrible mistake. But no, 
 they were all his people, the same people who 
 had gathered to hear his first Shady Valley 
 sermon a year ago. Not since then had the 
 church been so well filled. There were the 
 young people he had longed for so bitterly, 
 serious girlish faces like flowers under 
 flowered hats, boys with cordial, intent gaze; 
 there were tired mothers and fathers entering 
 into the service with new zeal; he saw Tom 
 Jenkins's face in a back pew oddly humble and 
 eager, and something like awe gripped him. 
 They were his people! They were here to 
 listen to him! They were glad to have him 
 back again! A sudden distrust of himself 
 seized the minister as the time for the sermon 
 drew near. It was a hard sermon, he remem- 
 bered, a stern one. He almost wished that he 
 had not made it quite so stern. 
 
 While the choir was singing, he unfolded
 
 THE LORD'S KIND 163 
 
 Jewel's clearly written sheets and glanced at 
 them. And with the first words he understood. 
 
 The congregation did not quite recognize 
 their minister as he faced them that day. 
 There was a queer humbleness about him, a 
 new gentleness in his voice that matched the 
 new gentleness of his sermons. 
 
 "As if," they said afterward, "he was sort o' 
 lighted up in his heart an' it shone through !" 
 
 The new light was still on his face for Jewel 
 to see as she met him at the door. And her 
 heart sang a psalm of thanksgiving when his 
 kiss fell on her trembling lips. 
 
 "Nathan Nathan boy dear," she faltered 
 against his cheek. "I can you see why I did 
 it" 
 
 "Hush, dear," he said. "Do you suppose I 
 don't understand?" 
 
 He drew a long quiet breath, looking down 
 into her happy, quivering face. "It was a dear 
 sermon, Jewel a good sermon," he said, 
 slowly. "I've been preaching my kind all my 
 life. Now I'm going to begin all over again. 
 And this time I'm going to preach the Lord's 
 kind, Jewel !"
 
 A MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON
 
 "TT don't seem as if I'd ever been real 
 J. youngish, but I suppose I must of," 
 mused Parrnelia Tucker. The horn-handled 
 knife hung over the pan of apples balanced on 
 her pointed knees. Neighbors said that Par- 
 melia wasted a sight of time thinking, and this 
 was one of the times. 
 
 "If they'd named me Pamela, 'stead of Par- 
 melia, now," she thought on whimsically, 
 "likely I'd 'a' had yaller curls and pink cheeks 
 likely I'd have wrote a hull book o' poems by 
 now. Land ! If ma'd just realized how much 
 depended on a name !" 
 
 The red rocker bumped unevenly over the 
 porch floor in an odd, creaky tune of revolt. 
 Parmelia Tucker, spinster, fifty and unbeauti- 
 ful, did not look like a poet, yet at times she 
 felt like one "Pamela-times," she called 
 them secretly. Now, idling over her homely 
 task on the back porch, she looked out through 
 the fringe of honeysuckle and saw, not the 
 green old pump or the broken chicken coop,
 
 168 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 but a world in meter, with rhyming sunshine 
 and clover fields and placid woods and sky. 
 Her fingers ached for a pencil. She did not 
 know precisely what she would write if she 
 had one, but she was certain that it would 
 be poetry good poetry if it wasn't for 
 Car'line 
 
 Parmelia jerked her thoughts hastily back 
 to the apple dish and fell to work, determin- 
 ation in every spare line. She had baked many 
 an unwritten poem in an apple pie. Perhaps 
 that was why her cooking was the envy of 
 Shady Valley housewives. 
 
 "Ain't it queer," they often marveled among 
 themselves, "how talented both the Tucker 
 girls is: Car'line in poetry an' Parmelia in 
 pies?" 
 
 For a brisk space the rocker suspended its 
 bumping. Parmelia peeled her apples with 
 careful conscientiousness. In the strict New 
 England code of housewifery, waste is rated 
 as the unforgivable sin. Parmelia had in- 
 herited the code, the pies and Caroline, be- 
 fore she had learned to be young. That had 
 been almost forty years ago. 
 
 "Good mornin', Melia! You're doin' jest 
 exactly what I'd ought to be an* ain't!"
 
 laughed a fat, comfortable voice unexpectedly. 
 In the rear of the words panted Mrs. Cap'n 
 Moxey, wearing the look of importance befit- 
 ting the chairman of the Ways and Means 
 Committee of the Ladies' Aid on official duty. 
 
 "Lands, Mis' Moxey, if you don't look all het 
 up!" sympathized Parmelia. "Set down an' 
 I'll get a glass o' my shrub an' a palm leaf 
 fan. It's real comfortable out here. I tell 
 Car'line the church cellar an' our back porch 
 are the two coolest places in town." 
 
 "No, Melia, this ain't a settin'-down visit." 
 The newcomer fanned her broad flushed face 
 with her apron. "I got bread in the oven an' 
 the Cap'n to watch it, which is jus' the same 
 as bread in an' nobody to watch it ! I jus' ran 
 over to ask Car'line whether she'd feel to write 
 us a poem for the Peter Browns' weddin' anni- 
 versary the silver 'tis. Us ladies think it 
 would give a real tone to the occasion." 
 
 The knife clattered to the porch floor from 
 Parmelia's blundering fingers. But her face 
 was radiant with family pride. 
 
 "Why, yes, she'd admire to help you, I'm 
 sure," said Parmelia. "She's laying down 
 right now, or I'd call her. But I'll tell her, 
 Mis' Moxey "
 
 170 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "Thank you, Melia. I made certain she 
 would. I dunno what Shady Valley'd do with- 
 out Car'line to put us into poetry." Mrs. 
 Moxey shook her head, so that the curling pins 
 nodded respectfully. "It would be a worse 
 chore than housecleanin' for me to drop into 
 poetry now," she sighed, "but it comes as 
 natural to Car'line as curly hair or religion. 
 You'd ought to be proud to have a genius for 
 a sister, Melia." 
 
 "She took it from ma's side," said Parmelia, 
 with gentle satisfaction. "She was a dretful 
 reader, ma was, spite o' seven children. I can 
 see her now makin' tomato pickles with one 
 hand and readin' one o' E. P. Roe's books 
 with the other. She'd have thought a sight o' 
 Car'line's poetry if she'd lived, ma would 
 have." 
 
 Mrs. Moxey nodded solemnly. She was 
 plainly relieved at having delivered her mes- 
 sage second-hand. Secretly she was rather in 
 awe of Caroline Tucker, in spite of the other's 
 limp old black silk and darned lace. It was the 
 involuntary tribute of matter to mind. Mrs. 
 Moxey was never quite certain how to spell 
 "Con-stan-ti-no-ple" in Car'line's presence. 
 She moved down the path, like her husband's
 
 A MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON 171 
 
 schooner under full sail, pausing at the gate 
 for her postscript. 
 
 "O, yes, an', Melia, ask her if she can't work 
 in somewheres about Mr. Brown's bein' a re- 
 spected grocer for twenty years," she called 
 back. "We thought that would touch him, 
 mebbe, an' sugar is gettin' awful high !" 
 
 "All right, Mis' Moxey, I'll tell her," nodded 
 Parmelia. She finished the apples and took 
 them into the kitchen, where two plates of pie- 
 crust awaited them. As she closed the oven 
 door, a halting footstep sounded overhead. 
 
 "Melia! O, Melia!" 
 
 "Yes, Car'line, you 'wake?" 
 
 Parmelia hurried to the stair-foot. The tall 
 drooping woman looking over the banisters 
 waited expectantly. Everything about Car'line 
 Tucker drooped like, a wilted flower her nar- 
 row shoulders, the long loops of yellow hair 
 against her faded cheeks, her mouth, even her 
 voice. 
 
 "When Car'line Tucker gets to heaven the 
 angels'll have to help her fly," the neighbors 
 said, sometimes, humorously. "That is, 'less 
 Parmelia gets there first. She ain't never had 
 to hang up her own nightgown, Car'line ain't, 
 sence she was born."
 
 172 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 Parmelia looked at her fondly. There was 
 a ma-expression in her eyes, and her voice was 
 all a-tremble with pride. 
 
 "Mis' Moxey was over, jes' now, Car'line; 
 they want you should write 'em another poem ! 
 Ain't that nice?" 
 
 The drooping figure took on consciousness 
 like a garment. Car'line had once had her 
 picture in the Centerville Herald, under the 
 magic caption, "The Talented Bard of Shady 
 Valley." Ever since then, in moments of liter- 
 ary significance, she was in the habit of falling 
 into this pose. Life to her had been unfavored 
 save for this occasional humble seasoning of 
 fame, and she rolled it now, like a pleasant 
 morsel, under her tongue. 
 
 "What is it this time, Melia?" 
 
 "The grocer Brown's silver anniversary " 
 
 Car'line sighed gently. "I was sort o' hopin' 
 'twould be a fun'ral next," she said, a hint of 
 reproach in her tone. "I ain't done a fun'ral 
 since Addie Lewis was buried. This is the 
 greatest town for weddin's! I'd thought up 
 a lovely way to begin, 'Our sobs arise to meet 
 the skies,' but it wouldn't do for the Browns." 
 
 "Maybe you could work it in," said Par- 
 melia, briskly, "though sobs arisin' does sound
 
 A MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON 173 
 
 sort o' damp for a weddin'! Well, I'll hurry 
 an' dish up dinner so's you can get right at the 
 poem while you're in the spirit. An' I'll make 
 you a dish o' good strong tea there's nothin' 
 so inspirin' for poetry as a cup o' tea !" 
 
 In the odorous kitchen she found Pamela, 
 her second self, waiting. It was very hard to 
 keep her mind in stew pots when it wanted to 
 run away into the gold and green noonshine 
 visible through the tiny-paned window. Her 
 water-reddened fingers halted for long spaces 
 on the edge of their duty, while with the eyes 
 of her soul she watched a poem beckoning to 
 her, begging to be written down a gentle, 
 tender little poem, about a silver wedding. 
 
 "Car'line can have her fun'rals," mused 
 Parmelia, a faded flush creeping over her 
 sallow cheeks, "but I'd rather weddin's. An' 
 silver ones; why, seems as if they are poetry, 
 livin' together so long, bringin' up the chil- 
 dren, buryin' 'em, an' marryin' 'em off, an' 
 always together. It's a real poetical word, 
 together is. Land ! Land !" 
 
 The boom of the grandfather's clock in the 
 hall, like the voice of Duty, crashed through 
 the -frail web of her dreaming. With a little 
 start Parmelia drew down the window shade,
 
 174 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 shutting out her Pamela thoughts and tempta- 
 tion, and turned to her dinner-getting. No one 
 unless it were her guardian angel knew 
 that Parmelia Tucker was a poet. She had 
 dreamed a thousand poems and written none. 
 To her mind that would have savored of dis- 
 loyalty to Car'line. Forty years ago the death- 
 stricken little ma had laid a tiny helpless girl- 
 child in Parmelia's sturdy twelve-year-old 
 arms and whispered, smiling faintly : 
 
 "She's yours, Melia. I will her to you. I 
 guess I'm too tired to bring up another 
 one." 
 
 Ever since then Parmelia had taken care of 
 her legacy, rejoicing generously over Caroline's 
 small triumphs and attainments, never even to 
 herself admitting that she could do better if 
 she tried. Yet it was the dread of this that 
 kept her poems unwritten. Suppose, O sup- 
 pose she should write a better one than 
 Car'line ! 
 
 In the course of a week the grocer Browns 
 were written, and copied in violet ink in Caro- 
 line's sloping pen strokes. Parmelia, as audi- 
 ence of one, listened to its first reading in the 
 front parlor. Caroline would never have in- 
 sulted her art by giving it a kitchen presenta-
 
 A MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON 175 
 
 tion. Privately she thought that "Wedded 
 Bliss" surpassed all her previous efforts. The 
 loops of yellow hair trembled against her 
 hollow cheeks, and in the pathetic parts joyful 
 tears filmed her childish blue eyes. 
 
 "It's lovely, Car'line, lovely," applauded 
 Parmelia. She looked at her sister in honest 
 admiration. "Whittier couldn't have done 
 better, I don't believe! I shouldn't be a mite 
 surprised if the Herald would want to print it 
 on the first page." 
 
 "It might be better," deprecated Caroline, 
 modestly. "They's two words too many in the 
 third verse, but I guess I can sort o' hurry 
 over 'em, so's nobody'll notice. I thought that 
 part where it says, 'Twenty-five years ago to- 
 day a maiden with golden hair' was a real 
 pretty bit if I do say so who shouldn't." 
 
 "But Mis' Brown's hair's fire red, Car'line." 
 
 The poetess smiled superiorly. "Land sakes, 
 Melia," she reproved, "how'd red hair sound in 
 poetry? It's poetic license to say golden." 
 She fingered the paper with tender touch. 
 "It'll be another page in the book, Melia " 
 
 "It's most full, now, Car'line we'll have to 
 start another soon." 
 
 They bent together over the plush picture
 
 176 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 album on the center table, turning the leaves 
 slowly. Over the photograph holes were 
 pasted Caroline's poems, all primly copied and 
 autographed. Here and there in places of 
 honor were printed verses cut from the Poet's 
 Corner of the Centerville Herald, and in one 
 place read so often that the book would have 
 opened to it itself was the "interview" with 
 the talented bard of Shady Valley. 
 
 "There ain't scarcely been a person die or 
 get married for the last twenty years in Shady 
 Valley that I ain't married or buried," Caro- 
 line gloated, gently. "You remember this one 
 for old Mis' Jacob's fun'ral, Melia? She was 
 a dretful onpopular woman, 'count of always 
 tellin' folks what she thought o' 'em, an' it 
 looked like 'twas goin' to be a pretty cheerful 
 fun'ral. But when the minister finished 
 readin' the poem there wasn't hardly a dry eye 
 in the church, and afterward Mis Bisbee come 
 up to me an' says, she says, 'Car'line, I don't 
 know when I've enjoyed cryin' at a fun'ral as 
 much as I have to-day,' she says." 
 
 "An' here's your graduatin' poem, 'Setting 
 Sail Upon the Sea of Life.' That was a real 
 good one, sister ; and this : ' 'Tis Sad to See 
 Youth Pine Away.' You wrote that when
 
 A MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON 177 
 
 Sally James was so sick with the measles, an' 
 then she got well after all; and the 'Vernal 
 woods and purling stream' one in the Herald 
 they're all splendid, Car'line. I only wish 
 ma could see 'em." 
 
 A little silence stole over the prim room. 
 Then Caroline coughed hoarsely. Her thin 
 figure sagged more helplessly over the open 
 book. Her sister glanced at her sharply, then 
 with unnecessary bustle she jumped up and 
 jerked aside the window curtains. 
 
 "If there ain't the Bisbees' five-o'clock 
 cows !" she said. "I'd no kind o' notion 'twas 
 so late. Now I'm goin' to fix you up a plate 
 of hot milk toast, Car'line, and open a jar o' 
 currant jell. You're all run down, writin' so 
 hard. That's what ails you." 
 
 On her way out she stopped beside the table 
 to lay an awkward hand on her sister's bony 
 shoulders. It was as near a caress as her New 
 England training dared. 
 
 "I been thinkin' maybe you'd ought to get a 
 new dress an' go over to Centerville an' get 
 your picture taken again, Car'line," she said, 
 cheerfully. "Likely as not the Herald'll want 
 to print one, an' that old picture don't do you 
 justice a mite."
 
 178 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 But Caroline never had the picture taken. 
 Under the merciless heat of the next two weeks 
 she faded gently out of life, so easily that 
 Parmelia did not realize her going. In Shady 
 Valley folk are not accounted ill unless they 
 "take to their beds" and have the doctor, and 
 Caroline went about her days as usual, droop- 
 ing a bit more perhaps, but uncomplaining. 
 It was on the edge of a hot July evening that 
 Parmelia found her lying on the lounge with 
 closed eyes, as though she were asleep. But 
 as she started to tiptoe away Caroline opened 
 her eyes and smiled up at her sister wistfully. 
 
 "I been lyin' here sayin' over all my poems," 
 she whispered, shyly. "An' I been thinkin', 
 somehow I guess they aren't much for poetry 
 after all I know folks here thinks so Shady 
 Valley folks don't understand about poetry 
 but ma'll like 'em ; I'm goin' to say 'em all over 
 to ma when I see her up there, Melia." 
 
 An hour later Caroline slipped away to ma. 
 
 "I'm dretful glad I never wrote mine," said 
 Parmelia. It was a month later and the house 
 seemed strangely large and empty, she herself 
 oddly useless. Caroline had been her excuse 
 for being for so long, that left alone she felt 
 like a shadow that has lost its body. The
 
 A MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON 179 
 
 scuffle of falling leaves on the porch roof 
 echoed her sigh. Somewhere a shutter banged 
 monotonously against the clapboards and the 
 long shadows of the porch woodbine trailed 
 along the wall-paper. Parmelia stirred rest- 
 lessly and the sewing fell into her lap. 
 
 "Poetry was all she had," she thought 
 drearily, aloud. "She warn't like me, Car 'line 
 warn't, able to piece out with pies an' stockin'- 
 darnin'. Everybody's got to have a reason 
 for livin' hers was poems, an' mine was 
 Caroline. Now she's gone there don't seem 
 anything " 
 
 The words trailed into sudden silence. For 
 a long while Parmelia sat motionless in the 
 grip of a new idea. Caroline was gone. There 
 was no reason now why she shouldn't write her 
 poems at last. It was as though a door within 
 her had been opened suddenly to let in a flood 
 of light. Yet she did not spring up suddenly 
 to find her long-delayed destiny. The moment 
 was too solemn for haste. 
 
 "Land ! Land !" she murmured with a slow 
 breath. "To think I'm goin' to write 'em at 
 last! I shall sign 'em Pamela Pamela 
 Tucker. It'll be poetic license, but Parmelia 
 looks more fittin' signed to a pie ! An' before
 
 180 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 I write a single livin' word I'm goin' to clean 
 the house ! I hadn't any heart to red up lately, 
 but seems as if 'twould be more proper to begin 
 clean." 
 
 For three days Parmelia Tucker put her 
 little house of life in order. She swept and 
 washed, dusted and cleaned. As she toiled, a 
 spare, angular creature in her sad black gown, 
 the poem that she would write went singing 
 through her brain. She had no fears lest after 
 all her waiting she should have nothing to say. 
 Had she not been getting ready to write that 
 poem for nearly fifty years? 
 
 "Fun'rals an' weddin's aren't the only 
 poetical things," she reflected over her happy 
 task. "It isn't so much what happens to folks 
 as what don't. Why, they's a heap o' poetry 
 lying around everywhere if you can only see 
 it. I shouldn't be a mite surprised if I sh'd 
 find some in the spare room closet, or down 
 cellar." 
 
 At last her little ceremony of purification 
 was complete and the tiny house shining 
 throughout. Last of all Parmelia put on her 
 best black silk gown and crimped her hair 
 painfully before the wavery mirror in her 
 under-the-eaves bedroom.
 
 A MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON 181 
 
 "Folks would think I was crazy, dressin' up 
 like this on Wednesday mornin'," she thought, 
 defiantly, "but then, folks couldn't understand. 
 Even the minister couldn't." 
 
 She got out the violet ink and the best note- 
 paper, arranging them primly on the parlor 
 table, and sat down. Now that her moment 
 had come she was quite pale. The sound of 
 the doorbell was almost welcome. 
 
 "Good mornin', Melia." 
 
 Mrs. Moxey stood on the porch, wearing her 
 best shawl over her everyday gingham. Her 
 voice held the solemn note reserved for 
 funerals and Sunday school. 
 
 "No, I can't stop, Melia. I come on an 
 errant about Car'line." 
 
 Her double chins shook with honest feeling. 
 "The Ladies' Aid think that 'twould be nice to 
 do somethin' to show how proud Shady Valley 
 is of her. We've got two hundred dollars 
 we were savin' for missions, but they's always 
 plenty o' heathen an' there won't ever be but 
 one Car'line Tucker in Shady Valley, Melia. 
 We thought o' havin' her poems printed in a 
 book. Ben Orrin over t' the Centerville Herald 
 ought to do it for us reasonable, seein' how 
 often he's published Car'line "
 
 182 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 Mrs. Moxey shook her head solemnly. "She 
 was a real genius," she finished simply. "We 
 thought a weepin' willer'd be nice an' tasty for 
 the cover, but o' course we didn't want to do 
 anythin' till we found out how you felt." 
 
 "I think it's a lovely idea, Mis' Moxey," said 
 Parmelia, quietly. "I'll help you all I can 
 it it would o' made Car'line very proud." 
 
 Long after her visitor's broad back had dis- 
 appeared behind the rusting woodbine hedge, 
 Parmelia stood staring away into the autumn 
 distance to where, beyond the church, a 
 glimpse of white headstones showed on the hill- 
 side. 
 
 "No," she said aloud, slowly. "No, I didn't 
 think o' it before, but 'twouldn't be fair to her 
 memory. It belonged to Car'line, the po'trying 
 o' Shady Valley did, an' I haven't any right to 
 what's hers." 
 
 The wind fluttered her thin silk skirt about 
 her knees remindingly. A little whirl of red 
 and golden leaves danced out of the gate, look- 
 ing to her fancy oddly like a slender figure 
 with yellow hair. It seemed to be glancing 
 back wistfully to her, wa.ving. Her lips moved 
 unconsciously. Parmelia was saying good-by 
 to Pamela,
 
 A MUTE INGLOKIOUS MILTON 183 
 
 "I'll just get into my blue gingham, and go 
 straight out to the kitchen an' roll out a batch 
 o' pies," she cried, cheerfully, aloud. "Some- 
 how I feel sort o' hungry for an apple pie !" 
 
 But in the door she paused. The fire of her 
 faith blazed a moment in her eyes. 
 
 "But if I had written a poem, it would have 
 been a good one !" cried Parmelia Tucker, stub- 
 bornly.
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST
 
 I 
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST 
 F the crops are good," said John Junior, 
 
 handles of his plow and the broad wet backs 
 of his horses he sent a straight, unsmiling 
 glance over the rocky slopes and hollows of the 
 farm. The chill May day lent no illusions to 
 the view of boulder strewn fields and ancient 
 orchard, bleak, bare, unpromising under the 
 gray sky ; but with the eye of imagination John 
 Junior saw a very different scene there on 
 the southern slope bronze oats, beyond pota- 
 toes, there in the valley corn, and here in the 
 nearby fields clover, two crops, maybe, if it 
 were not a dry summer. 
 
 It had taken the sweat and muscle of three 
 generations, three lifetimes of bent backs and 
 twisted, callous hands to coax a yield from the 
 barren acres. And the backs and hands had 
 not all belonged to men. New England women 
 plod sturdily side by side with their men folks 
 through life's better or worse. John Junior 
 187
 
 188 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 thought suddenly of his mother, who had died 
 an old, tired woman at forty ; of the neighbor 
 women faded and joyless in their limp calicoes ; 
 and then, with a pang, of Joyce Larrabee's 
 straight, shapely young shoulders and slim, 
 white hands. 
 
 When John Burt, Senior, lay dying in the 
 low, unpainted farmhouse of his fathers, he 
 had called Young John and broken painfully 
 a lifetime of reserve. 
 
 "If ye ever get married, John Junior," he 
 had whispered, "get her a hired gal. I always 
 'lowed t' get your mother one, but somehow 
 it warn't ever jest so's I could sickness an' 
 the mortgage, fust one thing an' then another. 
 But I've been thinkin' lyin' here mebbe 
 'twould have lengthened out her life some. 
 John Junior, don't ye ever get married 'less so 
 be it ye can get her a hired gal." 
 
 "And I shan't," said John Junior, with a 
 deep breath. His fingers gripped the plow 
 handles fiercely. "But if the crops are good 
 this year " 
 
 The sweetness of the thought sent Mm crash- 
 ing onward along the slope, in a flurry of in- 
 dustry, as though his heart's desire lay at the 
 end of a long furrow and he must plow his way
 
 to her. From the crest of the ridge he could 
 look across the smooth Larrabee fields to the 
 big, comfortable white house where Joyce lived. 
 Jothan Larrabee was a select man in Shady 
 Valley and accounted "well off" by his neigh- 
 bors. There was a mahogany piano in his 
 front room and his wife and daughters always 
 dressed well. Joyce had even been away for a 
 year at a fashionable boarding school, and 
 since her return there had been few Saturday 
 evenings the evening when Shady Valley 
 goes a-courting on which the lamp with the 
 red silk shade had not been lighted in the 
 Larrabee front parlor. 
 
 John Junior tramped back and forth across 
 the long fields, cleaving his furrows with 
 patient care. A warm steam crept from the 
 moist, overturned earth, like the breath of the 
 living things beneath the sod. He drew it into 
 his lungs with eager whiffs. 
 
 "The winter is over," he chanted in deep, 
 untutored bass. "The rain is over and gone; 
 the time of the singing of birds is come " 
 
 In the fields, with only the brown earth and 
 the sky and the sleek w r ork horses to hear, John 
 Junior was something of a poet. The gray 
 dawns often heard the majestic words of the
 
 190 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 psalms rolling above the clatter of his mowing 
 machine or the flash of his scythe. He 
 trembled through all his gaunt awkward six- 
 foot length when he met Joyce Larrabee and 
 could find no words to say, but to the rocks 
 and the wet earth and the greening trees he 
 spoke his love for her in the age-old words of 
 Solomon. 
 
 A harsh horn blast crashed through his lyric 
 mood, and he sighed as he turned the horses' 
 heads toward their noonday oats. There was 
 no poetry in Aunt Sophronia. The psalms to 
 her meant church and Sunday school, and she 
 felt privately rather nervous when the Song 
 of Songs w r as mentioned. 
 
 She stood now at the stove stirring a kettle 
 of boiled dinner with aggressive jerks of her 
 sharp elbows a capable and unbeautiful 
 figure from her wispy white hair in its small 
 tight knot to her flat, down-trodden soles. She 
 did not look up when John Junior came in, but 
 listened to his splashings at the sink with lips 
 grimly set. 
 
 At length she spoke snappishly over her 
 shoulder : "I seen Joyce Larrabee ridin' by this 
 mornin' with that young sprig o' a doctor over 
 to the Corners. They was laffln' an' carryin'
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST 191 
 
 on like they'd knowed each other all their 
 lives." 
 
 The splashings ceased. A silence while John 
 Junior groped for the roller towel, then, 
 muffled in its folds, an indistinguishable sound 
 of assent. His aunt peered across the kitchen 
 with exasperation in her faded eyes. 
 
 "Folks do say as how there's an under- 
 standin' between 'em an' they're only waitin' 
 till his practice picks up. Abby Bliss says 
 Mis' Larrabee was in to bring her three dozen 
 linen huck-a-back towels t' hem, an' land 
 knows towels gen'lly mean somethin'" 
 
 John Junior sat silently down at the white 
 scrubbed pine table and attacked his dinner. 
 His unresponsiveness nagged his aunt to the 
 unreasoning cruelty we often use toward those 
 we love. 
 
 "I'd be 'shamed to hold my head up if I'd 
 a been cut out by a young upstart from nobody 
 knows where," she remarked, as she sank 
 heavily into her seat opposite, a spot of red 
 flickering in her flabby cheeks. "I guess the 
 Burts is as good as any folks in Shady Valley 
 if we ain't got a pianny an' a set of gold-edged 
 chiny to eat off of. I declare for't, John 
 Junior, it gits me all riled up to see you hang-
 
 192 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 ing round that Larrabee gal, meechin' an 
 dumb as a pertater. Ef you'd had the gump- 
 tion of a hopper-grass, you'd ha' been married 
 long ago !" 
 
 "I haven't had the money," said John 
 Junior, simply. His tone left no room for 
 argument, but his aunt unearthed a buried 
 grievance in the words. 
 
 "I'd like to know why you ain't hed the 
 money," she fretted ; "if it's me that's standin' 
 in your light, I'm ready an' willin' to go to the 
 town farm whenever you hitch up an' take me 
 there. No, you can't tell me, John Junior. 
 You've hed plenty to keep a wife like your 
 father kep' his, an' his father afore him, but 
 you ain't got enough to git fuss an' feathers 
 for Joyce Larrabee! Jest 'cause she's got 
 curly yaller hair an' chiny blue eyes an' white 
 hands to strum 'The Maiden's Prayer' on the 
 pianny she's too good to cook an' wash dishes 
 like common folks." 
 
 John Junior pushed back his plate and rose 
 heavily. He glanced across at the shapeless 
 figure in its baggy calico and tried to imagine 
 Joyce in the hideous panoply of drudgery. 
 The news his aunt had brought him ached 
 dully in his silent soul. Would he be too late
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST 193 
 
 if he waited till harvest time? He set his 
 young jaws grimly. 
 
 "I got to get back to plowing," he said, tak- 
 ing up his straw hat. In the door he paused 
 to look back. 
 
 "Look's now as though the crops might be 
 pretty good," he said slowly. "Maybe, Aunt 
 'Phronie, I can get us a hired girl 'long about 
 Thanksgiving time." 
 
 That evening he put on a clean shirt, combed 
 back his thick, dark hair in wet spirals, and 
 strode across the fields to the Larrabees'. 
 Clouds of dim-winged night things fluttered 
 up from the damp grass, brushing his face. 
 The evening was warm for the season, and a 
 faint silver moon of spring was caught in the 
 budding branches of the elm by the stone wall. 
 It was a night of romance, but, strangely 
 enough, John Junior was thinking of his aunt's 
 knobby, work-twisted, seamy, brown hands. 
 Even when the white blur on the veranda be- 
 came Joyce, running to meet him, the vision 
 persisted. 
 
 On the top step he sat looking up at her, 
 listening to her gay chatter and drinking in 
 wistfully the warm young beauty of her vivid 
 face. In his heart the things he did not mean
 
 194 BLUE GINGHAM POLKS 
 
 to say were so mingled with the things he did 
 that he hardly dared trust himself to speak at 
 all. She was so little and dainty perched up 
 there above him ! He could have held the tiny 
 white shod foot swinging near him in the hol- 
 low of one big brown hand. Resolutely he tore 
 his thoughts from the dangerous to the com- 
 monplace. 
 
 "I came over to ask if you'd go to the neigh- 
 borhood picnic next Tuesday week with 
 me" he fumbled with his hat-brim "if you 
 aren't promised already." 
 
 "Too late!" smiled Joyce. "Dr. Wilson 
 asked me only last night. If you'd been a 
 better neighbor, you'd have got in first !" Her 
 eyes were suddenly serious above the mischiev- 
 ous smile. "I haven't seen you for ages, but 
 I suppose you've been busy." 
 
 "It's planting time," said John Junior, 
 simply. He got awkwardly to his feet and 
 stood towering over her, great hands knotted 
 together. "It hasn't been because I haven't 
 wanted to come." 
 
 He drew himself up sharply. "Well, I must 
 be going. It's a sightly evenin', isn't it? I 
 always did think this was the purtiest time of 
 year."
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST 195 
 
 Joyce arose with a delicate swaying motion 
 like that of a flower on its stem. She looked up 
 into the brown rugged face above her, and sud- 
 denly one slim, white hand went out and 
 rested on his arm. It made him think of the 
 little white winged things that had fluttered 
 up in the fields. 
 
 "I I'm sorry about the picnic, John 
 honest I am !" she said, shyly. 
 
 "Joy !" 
 
 She felt the shake of his arm under her 
 fingers, heard his long, hard-drawn breath ; but 
 what he might have said only the Moon of 
 Lovers knows. For in an instant's prophetic 
 vision he seemed to see on his sleeve, not her 
 slim white hand but one grown shapeless, big- 
 jointed like Aunt Sophronia's. 
 
 "I'm sorry too," he said, slowly ; "I was kind 
 of lotting on it, but I hope you'll have a real 
 nice time. It ought to be all leafed out in 
 Eppleby's Grove if this weather holds." He 
 moved down the steps, then at the bottom 
 turned with a queer eagerness. It was as 
 though his love must speak out in spite of the 
 lock he had set on his lips. 
 
 "It looks like a good crop year, Joy," he 
 said, and she wondered at the sudden quiver of
 
 196 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 his voice. "I don't know when I've seen things 
 take hold an' grow like they have this spring !" 
 
 He strode home through the sweet-breathed 
 fields with their soft insect whirrings and 
 flutterings, and fumbled under the mat on the 
 back stoop for the key. In the moonlight the 
 old house seemed to have possibilities of beauty 
 that he had not seen before. 
 
 "A bay window, mebbe, toward the road, for 
 posies, and two coats o' paint," he mused, "and 
 the southeast bedroom papered." 
 
 The southeast bedroom was the guest room, 
 hoarded, in the thrifty New England fashion, 
 for the guests that seldom came. But no other 
 room would do for Joyce. 
 
 "If the crops are only good," he muttered 
 as he creaked, tiptoeing clumsily, up the back- 
 stairs to his tiny under-the-eaves room. 
 
 Aunt Sophronia, across the hall, lifted her 
 curl-papered white head from the pillows, lis- 
 tening. 
 
 "He's been traipsin' over the medders," she 
 thought, fiercely, "hangin' 'round that high- 
 faluten Larrabee gal. An' I ain't no idee he's 
 spoke, jest sot an' so*. My patience ! I don't 
 hold for corkin' up feelin's where they'll turn 
 sour an spile your disposition! But there, I
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HAKVEST 197 
 
 s'pose I 'd ought to leave it in the hands o' the 
 Lord an' John." 
 
 As the summer slipped by the radiant 
 promises of May were unfulfilled. A scorching 
 June ruined the hay crop. The oat field on 
 the hillside shriveled into worthless straw. 
 John Junior, struggling mightily with fate, 
 sang no more psalms of rejoicing to the earth 
 and sky. In October he stood on the edge of 
 his stubble fields and faced the poor wreckage 
 of his hopes. 
 
 "Not this year," he told himself, heart-sickly. 
 "I can't ask her this year." 
 
 The rattle of a passing buggy on the road 
 below came to his ears. It was Dr. Wilson's, 
 and Joyce Larrabee sat in it laughing and 
 talking so busily that she did not notice him. 
 John Junior watched the buggy until it 
 rounded the hill, and his face was very white 
 and set. 
 
 "And next year'll be too late," he muttered, 
 heavily. "He's book-larned, and wears good 
 clothes. I haven't got a chance if I wait. 
 Maybe if I asked her now " 
 
 His somber gaze swept the bare fields, and 
 with sudden keen new vision he saw their rocks 
 and unevennesses, the twisted limbs of the old
 
 198 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 orchard, the low farmhouse, forlorn and grace- 
 less under the falling leaves. He flung back 
 his head with a deep breath that lifted the blue 
 checked shirt across his great chest. 
 
 "I got my row to hoe and I'm going to hoe 
 it," he said, slowly, "but it isn't a job for little 
 bits of women things to tackle, and it would 
 be a pretty poor sort o' loving, John Burt, that 
 would ask it remember that !" 
 
 And then and there he put away his hope 
 from him. Aunt Sophronia watched her 
 beautifully cooked dinners go uneaten, and 
 nodded fierce little nods. 
 
 "Jes' 's I surmised," she told herself. "She's 
 give him the go-by f'r that sissified city feller. 
 Well, I guess he don't keer I guess they's jest 
 as good fish that ain't caught. But he don't 
 seem t' relish his eatin's none." 
 
 She turned anxiously to her pots and pans. 
 In New England members of a family do not 
 express their love for one another in words but 
 in inarticulate deeds. Aunt Sophronia baked 
 her sympathy into marvelous pies, stirred her 
 grief and pity into nourishing stews. As 
 Thanksgiving drew near she commenced her 
 preparation for a gala dinner. And then sud- 
 denly, two days before, she was stricken down.
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST 199 
 
 John Junior, coming home from the village, 
 found her lying in the southeast-room bed, the 
 best quilt pulled smoothly up across her lean 
 old chest. 
 
 "Don't you worrit, John," she told Mm, 
 calmly. "I been livin' on borrered time for two 
 years. The Lord's called me an' I'm ready an' 
 willin' to go. The turkey's fixed to pop straight 
 int' the oven don't forget t' baste him every 
 half hour. Eat the punkin pies first; the 
 mince keeps better. I kind o' wish I could hev 
 cooked dinner for you, this Thanksgiving, but 
 'twarn't ordained." 
 
 On Thanksgiving morning John Junior 
 drove up the winding hill toward home. He 
 sat loosely bent forward in his seat, holding 
 the reins between lax fingers, big shoulders 
 drooping forlornly under the wrinkled black 
 Sunday suit. Behind in the bleak little Shady 
 Valley churchyard he had left tired old Aunt 
 Sophronia, ahead waited a silent, empty house 
 and it was Thanksgiving Day. 
 
 "She'll get a chance to rest, now," he 
 thought, drearily. "I oughtn't to begrudge her 
 but it's goin' to be powerful lonely. She was 
 good to me, Aunt Phronie was." 
 
 Visions of long ago, forgotten gingerbread
 
 200 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 men and sugar cookies that had delighted his 
 boyish days returned to his mind, and tears 
 filled his eyes. 
 
 "I'll just pick up a cold bite," he told him- 
 self, hastily. "It isn't worth the trouble to 
 make up a fire in the stove. This afternoon 
 I'll get at the corn shucking." 
 
 The buggy creaked and jostled among the 
 frozen ruts. On either side of the road lay his 
 fields, shorn and bare, with two or three corn 
 shucks flapping in the wind. John Junior 
 looked across them to where a curling feather 
 of smoke marked the Larrabee house. This 
 morning he had heard that Joyce and Dr. Wil- 
 son were engaged. 
 
 Up the home lane creaked the buggy, be- 
 tween the Lombardy poplars on either side, 
 and into the barn, built, according to New 
 England fashion, facing the road, with the 
 house beyond. John pottered about his un- 
 harnessing, putting off as long as he could the 
 moment of going into the house. When there 
 was nothing more to be done he crossed the 
 frozen yard and fumbled under the porch mat 
 for the key. It was gone. 
 
 Amazed, he turned the knob and stepped 
 into the house. A warm wave of spicy odor
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST 201 
 
 greeted him : turkey odors, odors of turnip and 
 squash, and mince and pumpkin pies. The 
 table in the long room was covered with a 
 white cloth, set with the best dishes from the 
 spare-room cupboard. Some one had rubbed 
 the silver into brightness and placed a pink 
 spray of Martha Washington geranium in a 
 glass vase in the center. It was a homey table, 
 and the warmth and fragrance of the whole 
 swept and garnished room was home. 
 
 John Junior stood very still, trying to under- 
 stand. It was all so much like something he 
 had dreamed of before the crops had failed. 
 Some good neighbor woman, taking pity on his 
 loneliness, had slipped across fields to do this 
 for him, and he was grateful, but somehow it 
 hurt a little it was so much like the hope that 
 he had put away. 
 
 A queer little sound from the kitchen drew 
 him across the room. He stood awe-struck in 
 the doorway gazing at his dream come true. 
 
 "I I didn't think you'd be back so soon," 
 fluttered Joyce Larrabee. Almost lost in the 
 capacious folds of Aunt Sophronia's gingham 
 apron, she stood by the opened oven door, bast- 
 ing spoon poised over the browning turkey. 
 A wave of bright color ran over her sweet,
 
 202 BLUE GINGHAM POLKS 
 
 downcast face, and she would not meet his 
 eyes. "I hope you're hungry he's such a 
 monster of a bird ! He's almost done, then I'll 
 run back. I didn't expect you'd get back so 
 soon." 
 
 The words tripped over her unsteady tongue. 
 Still he could not speak. The sweet wonder 
 of her in his kitchen struck him dumb. 
 
 "I ran away!" laughed the girl, in panicky 
 gayety. "We don't have dinner till night at 
 our house. There ! Isn't your mouth watering 
 this living minute? I I'm quite a talented 
 turkey-cooker if I do say so who shouldn't." 
 
 "Joy! Joy!" He was stumbling toward 
 her across the room. The spoon slipped from 
 her unsure fingers to the floor with a soft 
 clatter, but she did not run away. 
 
 "Yes, John." 
 
 He had her in his arms with breathless 
 words "Joy ! Little girl my little girl ! O, 
 Joy! Joy! Joy!" 
 
 He could not speak her name enough. His 
 big hands were about her cheeks lifting her 
 face to his hungry gaze. Suddenly they fell 
 away. 
 
 "I I was forgetting." He shaded his eyes. 
 "I was forgetting about Wilson."
 
 He had her in his arms with breathless words.
 
 JOHN JUNIOR'S HARVEST 205 
 
 "Dr. Wilson is just my friend," said Joyce, 
 slowly. "It was a mistake, that report I'm 
 not going to marry him, John." 
 
 But he held his arms rigidly at his sides, 
 his young jaw set sternly. "Even if you aren't 
 going to marry him I haven't got the right to 
 ask you. If the crops hadn't failed I could 
 have, honest, but not now. It was seeing you 
 in the apron, and all." 
 
 "I like aprons, John." 
 
 In the gentle little silence the bubbling of 
 the savory pots and the soft hissing of the 
 browning turkey were the only sounds. He 
 looked down somberly at the sweet up-tilted 
 face, across the gulf of his duty, struggling for 
 right words. 
 
 "Listen, Joy," he said at last, dully, "listen 
 you're sorry for me but I've got no right to 
 take advantage. Do you know what it would 
 be like marrying me? Getting old and worn 
 out afore your time, drudging to make both 
 ends meet, wearing common clothes, blistering 
 your hands at cooking and sweeping. I I 
 love you too well to spoil your life, Joy." 
 
 She moved a step nearer with a little trem- 
 bling laugh. 
 
 "You've left out one thing, John," she whis-
 
 206 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 pered, "the important thing. The rest don't 
 count if this thing is true suppose, just sup- 
 pose I happened to love you, John." 
 
 A sharp hissing from the unbasted turkey 
 called her to the stove, but not before she had 
 caught the joy that leaped into his eyes. 
 
 "See! He's done to a turn," she cried. 
 "John, John, aren't you going to invite me to 
 eat Thanksgiving dinner with you?" 
 
 With a glad cry he took her into his arms.
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBERING
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBERING 
 
 folks the good Lord sets in families, 
 and some he sets in flower-gardens," 
 mused Rosemary Sweet, over her lapf ul of fine 
 cambric and lace. The needle slipped from 
 relaxed fingers as she swayed to and fro mus- 
 ingly, tender eyes on the Freckled Family 
 straggling by to the swimming-hole in a cloud 
 of dust and twinkling brown legs. "Now, when 
 Myra Louise Holly gets to heaven, she'll give 
 the angel at the gate a long list of the stockin's 
 she mended, an' the trousers an' little dresses 
 she's patched, an' the bumped heads she's 
 kissed. But when I go I'll have nothin' more'n 
 a bunch o' lavender an' sweet-peas to give him. 
 Land! land! ain't it queer how it happens! 
 I believe I'd 'a' been a real talented stockin'- 
 mender an' bump-kisser, mebbe, if I'd 'a' been 
 set that way." 
 
 The creak-creak of the rocker punctuated 
 
 the little silence that trailed in the wake of 
 
 her words. A golden-thighed bee droned by, 
 
 full-fed from the hollyhocks. Before her, in 
 
 209
 
 210 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 long, fragrant, crooked rows, burned her 
 flowers : extravagantly colored, streaky purple- 
 and- white baby-pansies ; flaunting hussies of 
 scarlet poppies; nasturtiums in vivid, sappy 
 crimsons and oranges. Her garden was Rose- 
 mary's imagination. With the seeds she 
 planted her old, hoarded girl-dreams of ro- 
 mance, her shy, secret joys, regrets and hopes, 
 watching them blossom into visibleness before 
 her eyes. But she never confided her fantasy 
 to any one. In New England one does not con- 
 fide. 
 
 "Sometimes," said Rosemary, suddenly, so 
 gently violent that the startled bee postponed 
 his attack on the rambler rose by the porch 
 step and boomed reproachfully away, "some- 
 times I wish I could do more in life than 
 pickin' flowers for weddin's an' buryin's, an' 
 makin' baby clothes for other folks' babies. 
 There, Rosemary Sweet, I sh'd think you'd be 
 ashamed o' yourself, talkin' so, an' you a 
 church member an' the treasurer of the Ladies' 
 Aid! I don't know what's got into you, I 
 don't!" She laughed as she scolded herself, 
 but the eyes above the edges of the laugh were 
 wistful. Then they crinkled into sudden 
 pleasure.
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBERING 211 
 
 "Good-aft'noon, Dora-child," she called, 
 anticipatively. "You're comin' up an' make 
 me a real nice long visit, I hope?" 
 
 The girl at the gate shook her head. "Not 
 jus' now, Miss Rosemary." She rested a 
 brown-paper bundle on the fence wearily. "I'm 
 flttin' Miss Tibbitts an' cuttin' out the minis- 
 ter's wife to-day but I'm comin' around soon. 
 I been plannin' to a long while back. What 
 you doin', Miss Rosemary? You're so nice 
 an' cool an' peacefullike up there." 
 
 Miss Rosemary held the work in her lap for 
 the girl to see. It was very tiny, dainty 
 baby-frail. The girl looked at it silently ; then 
 her eyes met the older woman's in a strange 
 intimacy of woman understanding, and the 
 shy, sweet color stained her clear, girl's skin. 
 
 "It's for Jennie Gordon's baby, when it 
 comes," said Miss Rosemary, softly. 
 
 Impulsively the girl's hands went out, in a 
 little gust of tenderness. 
 
 "Miss Rosemary you're the dearest!" she 
 cried. "It always rests me to come by. I've 
 never seen you when you weren't makin' a 
 little dress like that." 
 
 "There's always babies in Shady Valley, 
 Dora babies an' flowers," smiled Miss Rose-
 
 212 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 mary. She leaned forward, suddenly solemn. 
 "I hope I'll be makin' one like that for you 
 before I die, Dora-child," she half -whispered. 
 
 The girl at the gate fumbled with her bundle 
 confusedly. "Land ! Miss Mary, I guess not 
 me!" she smiled pinkly. "Well, I mustn't be 
 lettin' grass grow under my feet. If you're 
 still settin' out when I come back, mebbe I'll 
 stop up a moment, if it isn't too late." 
 
 "It's never too late by the clock for me to 
 be glad to see you, dearie." 
 
 Miss Eosemary watched the slender figure 
 hurry away through a fine mist of white dust, 
 nodding to herself wisely. 
 
 "Land ! land !" she breathed, softly. "Think 
 o' bein' eighteen an' pretty an' in love ! Ain't 
 it wonderful !" She paused, awed by the age- 
 old miracle of youth. A boyish young fellow, 
 in smart flannels and tennis-shoes, waved his 
 hand in passing; then looked anxiously ahead 
 and disappeared Doraward. Miss Rosemary's 
 smile deepened, while the rocker took up the 
 burden of her reflections in excited creaks over 
 the uneven flooring. 
 
 "He's a real good boy, Harry is, an' she'll 
 make him a splendid wife. I'm glad Dora ain't 
 goin' to miss livin'. It ain't likely flowers
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBERING 213 
 
 could make it up to her like they do to me. 
 But I wonder his mother's willin', with all her 
 notions. She had her heart set on his marryin' 
 that Evelyn-girl from the city that was visitin' 
 'em a piece back. Laws! she was real up-'n'- 
 comin' an' fixed-jes'-so-lookin', with them 
 narrer skirts of hers an' fol-de-rols, but I don't 
 s'pose she could 'a' baked a pie or swep' a room 
 to save her life. She was jes' like a magazine- 
 cover real nice to set 'n' look at, but no use 
 on airth." 
 
 The drowsy afternoon jogged comfortably 
 across the moments. Miss Rosemary's gray 
 head drooped forward, and the white heap lay 
 loosely in her lap under lax, folded hands. 
 
 Sudden footsteps crunched up the gravel 
 walk; a hand touched her shoulder convul- 
 sively. Her startled eyes flew open. 
 
 "Why, Dora-child, how you startled me! I 
 guess I must of dropped off, kind-of " 
 
 "Miss Rosemary" the girl's voice was 
 queerly hurried and strained "will you I 
 mean can't we go into the house a moment? I 
 go't somethin' I want to tell you." 
 
 But she could not wait for the telling. In 
 the dim, prim little parlor, dropping limply 
 on the slippery, horse-hair sofa, she began to
 
 214 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 cry in fierce little jerks, as though the sobs 
 came bleeding from her pride. Miss Rosemary 
 hurried out into the kitchen and returned bear- 
 ing a glass spicily odorous. 
 
 "There, drink a drop o' my elderberry 
 cordial, an' then finish your cry out, nice an' 
 comfortable," she said cheerfully. "That's 
 right ! I don't b'lieve in corkin' up tears. Bet- 
 ter out with 'em an' get it over, says I. Now, 
 dearie, what is it all about? You tell me, an' 
 we'll fix it up somehow." 
 
 "It's it's Harry." 
 
 Rosemary Sweet laughed in soft relief. 
 "Land sakes! is that all?" she cried. "Why, 
 I was 'fraid mebbe somethin' had happened to 
 hear you take on so." 
 
 "It has, somethin' has." Dora sat up and 
 turned her tragic young face to the older 
 woman, her slender, needle-pricked fingers 
 stained and twisted in her lap. "We were 
 down to the old bridge jus' now, lookin' at the 
 falls an' talkin'. An', suddenly, Harry turned 
 to me an' an' O, O, Miss Rosemary ! he said 
 he said he loved me." For an instant the 
 joyous memory made the girl's face too 
 sacredly bright for the other to look at; then 
 it clouded over pitifully. "An' jus' as he
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBERING 215 
 
 finished tellin' me that, Miss Rosemary mind 
 you, jus' after his father came along the path 
 an' ordered him to leave me an' go home 
 an' an' Harry went he went, Miss Rose- 
 mary " 
 
 Absorbed in her luxury of grief, the girl did 
 not see the sudden, sharp pain twist the face 
 opposite her. Rosemary Sweet caught her 
 breath. Her faded eyes, staring at the painted 
 china vase on the center-table, seemed looking 
 down forgotten aisles of Long Ago. A loud 
 rapping on the front door brought her back to 
 the Present with a start. She got to her feet 
 stiffly, as if she had suddenly taken on years 
 since she sat down, and went to the door. 
 
 "Is she here? Tell me quick!" 
 
 The words tripped over one another eagerly. 
 
 "Harry Morrison," said Rosemary, sternly, 
 "what you want to know for? Tell me 
 that!" 
 
 Her eyes sought the boy's, asking, challeng- 
 ing. And his, haggard, honest, answered her. 
 
 "Because I love her, Miss Rosemary, that's 
 why," was all he said straightly. "Now may 
 I come in please." She opened the screen 
 door, pointing. 
 
 "There," she told him, briefly. He went, tall
 
 216 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 and tender, like a young god or a little, sorry 
 child. Even with her back turned, the gray- 
 haired woman could see the looks of the two 
 as he stooped to the girl and caught her hands. 
 
 "Sweetheart forgive me!" Then the low 
 sound of a kiss. The maiden-heart of the old 
 woman in the hallway thrilled with the ghostly 
 touch of bygone kisses on her lips. The air 
 was a-rustle with memories laid away in laven- 
 der these thirty years. They crowded about 
 her now, the echo of long-forgotten words vocal 
 to her ears. Like an accompaniment, the low 
 voices in the parlor crooned and murmured 
 across the sympathetic air. 
 
 "Miss Rosemary!" 
 
 She started guiltily. "Yes yes, I'm here." 
 
 She hurried across to the parlor and stood 
 there behind them, smiling at their clasped 
 hands and radiant eyes. There have been great 
 discoveries made early and late in this world ; 
 none greater than the commonest of all, love. 
 To each two that find it together, it is a thing 
 new, amazing, unique, unknown to the rest of 
 the world. 
 
 "Miss Rosemary," said Harry, solemnly, 
 "she's said she loves me loves me!" He flung 
 back his head, with a long, slow breath at the
 
 wonder of it. "I want to marry her right 
 away, Miss Rosemary now." His voice was 
 argumentative, as though meeting unspoken 
 opposition. "Father and mother have got a 
 fool notion in their heads that I'm to marry 
 one of those Miss Fuss-and-Feathers, with a 
 pot of tainted money and a brewer-father, that 
 they have up here from the city, week-ends. 
 But they're dead wrong I'm going to marry 
 Dora ; and what's more, I'm going to marry her 
 this afternoon." 
 
 "Wait, children!" Miss Rosemary smiled. 
 "Wait till I get my breath an' my thinkin'- 
 cap on." She looked thoughtfully away into 
 the yellow afternoon. The mellowing light 
 touched her soft face like gentle fingertips 
 caressing the wrinkles. 
 
 "Where is your father now, Harry?" she 
 asked, suddenly. 
 
 "Down by the bridge when I left him," an- 
 swered the boy. He hesitated, flushing. "We 
 had quite an argument I guess likely he's 
 there yet. Father always stays put when he's 
 mad." Shamed laughter trickled through the 
 words. 
 
 "I know" She nodded rememberingly, un- 
 noting their surprise. "Listen to me, you chil-
 
 218 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 dren," she said, whimsically. "Do you think 
 you'll be able to entertain yourselves while I 
 step out a minute? Because there's a picture- 
 album to look at if you get lonesome, or the 
 Tleasant Thoughts for All the Year.' I'll be 
 right back. Now don't you stir till I come, 
 an' then we'll see." 
 
 The flower-petals swirled in mad little eddies 
 of color-flecks as her skirts brushed rudely 
 by them; the dust spurted like liquid powder 
 under her quick feet. In her eyes ached re- 
 membrance and the shadow of past-shed tears. 
 
 He was sitting as his son had left him, stiffly, 
 on the rustic bench by the stream. At the 
 rustle of her coming, he turned, startled, and 
 got slowly to his feet. 
 
 "Why good-afternoon Miss Sweet," he 
 said, awkwardly. 
 
 She did not answer at once ; only stood look- 
 ing at him, smiling sadly through the wrinkles 
 and the pitiful scars of age, until she saw the 
 big hand begin to tremble on the seat-back, 
 and a painful red stain his cheeks under the 
 white thatch of his hair. 
 
 "Rosemary!" the old man cried, slowly. 
 The name sounded rusty on his tongue. He
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBERING 219 
 
 took a step forward; then paused at her ges- 
 ture, waiting. 
 
 "Listen to me, John Morrison," she cried. 
 "I'm goin' to say my say, an' you're goin' to 
 listen while I say it. Then it's between you 
 'n' the Lord." She pointed abruptly back 
 along the way she had come. "They's a boy 
 an' a girl at my house this livin' minute, sittin' 
 in my parlor, makin' love. At least, I hope 
 they are. The boy's your son. He'd ought to 
 do it well." He shrank visibly from the dreary 
 humor of her words. 
 
 "The girl is Dora King, as nice a girl as 
 you'll find in seven counties. An' they love each 
 other. Now what you goin' to do about it?" 
 
 The bullfrog in the rushes shrilled an entire 
 aria before he answered doggedly: "Harold 
 must make a good match. A young man has 
 no chance these days without position and 
 wealth. I shall not allow him to throw himself 
 away." 
 
 "Throw himself away!" Her voice cut like 
 an edged thing through the grim little silence 
 following his words. Suddenly she stepped 
 forward, holding out wrinkled, shaking hands. 
 Her softened face, upturned to his, w r as almost 
 a girl's face again, flushing, virginal, shy.
 
 220 BLUE GINGHAM FOLKS 
 
 "John" the words were a shadow of sound 
 "have you forgotten everything?" 
 
 The man made an uncouth noise of pain. 
 His twisted face begged her mutely; but she 
 shook her head, strangely exalted. "No, we 
 got to remember it's the only way." She 
 gestured quaintly to her gray hair. "We're 
 gittin' old, you V me, John. But we weren't 
 always old. That time we went mayflowerin' 
 in Eppleby's Grove an' you kissed me we 
 weren't old then. Nor yet when we uster come 
 home through the fields from prayer meetin' 
 an' watch the haystacks all ragged against the 
 big, red moon. Mebbe you've forgot those 
 times but I ain't. I shall remember 'em till 
 I die an' after." 
 
 "Don't Kosemary!" he begged her. "I've 
 hoped that mebbe you'd forgotten after all 
 these years." 
 
 "Thirty years is long enough f'r a woman 
 to grow old an' white-haired an' wrinkled in, 
 but it ain't long enough f'r her to forget her 
 first kiss, John." She shook her head, smiling. 
 "I ain't askin' f'r pity land, no! But I'm 
 tryin' to make you understand. Your father 
 said the same identical thing that you've just 
 said, an' you listened to him. You know what
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBERING 221 
 
 happened. I ain't blamin' you. I been happy 
 enough with my posies an' makin' dresses f r 
 other women's babies." She broke off, peering 
 into his working face with tear-blinded eyes. 
 "Why, I b'lieve you do remember, John." 
 
 "There ain't been a harvest moon in th' last 
 thirty of 'em that I could bear to look on," he 
 said, solemnly. "I ain't never been may- 
 flowerin' since then." He paused, prodding 
 his courage. "We be old folks, Rosemary 
 mebbe th' good Lord's give me this chanct a 
 purpose to say 'I'm sorry' in." 
 
 The sunset glow caressed them, like peace 
 made visible. There was yielding in the soft- 
 ened look of his face, and, seeing it, she turned, 
 smiling, to the path, groping for it through 
 the mist that dimmed her vision ; then paused 
 an instant on the edge of flight. "It's between 
 you an' the Lord what you're goin' to do, 
 John," she said, gently. "I guess the matter's 
 in pretty safe hands. You'll come back 'long 
 of me to my house an' make those young folks 
 happy. An' they's one thing I want you sh'd 
 remember. I been thankin' God f'r those 
 walks an' that kiss every day f'r nigh on thirty 
 years !"
 
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