PATIENCE APPLEBY’S CONFESSING-UP
“It must be goin’ to rain! My arm aches me so I can hardly hold my knitting needles.”
“Hunh!” said Mrs. Wincoop. She twisted her thread around her fingers two or three times to make a knot; then she held her needle up to the light and threaded it, closing one eye entirely and the other partially, and pursing her mouth until her chin was flattened and full of tiny wrinkles. She lowered her head and looking at Mrs. Willis over her spectacles with a kind of good-natured scorn, said—“Is that a sign o’ rain?”
“It never fails.” Mrs. Willis rocked back and forth comfortably. “Like as not it begins to ache me a whole week before it rains.”
“I never hear tell o’ such a thing in all my days,” said Mrs. Wincoop, with unmistakable signs of firmness, as she bent over the canton flannel night-shirt she was making for Mr. Wincoop.
“Well, mebbe you never. Mebbe you never had the rheumatiz. I’ve had it twenty year. I can’t get red of it, anyways. I’ve tried the Century liniment—the one that has the man riding over snakes an’ things—and the arnicky, and ev’ry kind the drug-store keeps. I’ve wore salt in my shoes tell they turned white all over; and I kep’ a buckeye in my pocket tell it wore a hole and fell out. But I never get red o’ the rheumatiz.”
Mrs. Wincoop took two or three stitches in silence; then she said—“Patience, now, she can talk o’ having rheumatiz. She’s most bent in two with it when she has it—and that’s near all the time.”
The rocking ceased abruptly. Mrs. Willis’s brows met, giving a look of sternness to her face.
“That’s a good piece o’ cotton flannel,” she said. “Hefty! Fer pity’s sake! D’ you put ruffles on the bottom o’ Mr. Wincoop’s night-shirt? Whatever d’you do that fer?”
“Because he likes ’em that way,” responded Mrs. Wincoop, tartly. “There’s no call fer remarks as I see, Mis’ Willis. You put a pocket ’n Mr. Willis’s, and paw never’d have that—never!” firmly.
“Well, I never see ruffles on a man’s night-shirt before,” said Mrs. Willis, laughing rather aggravatingly. “But they do look reel pretty, anyways.”
“The longer you live the more you learn.” Mrs. Wincoop spoke condescendingly. “But talking about Patience—have you see her lately?”
“No, I ain’t.” Mrs. Willis got up suddenly and commenced rummaging about on the table; there were two red spots on her thin face. “I’d most fergot to show you my new winter underclo’s. Ain’t them nice and warm, though? They feel so good to my rheumatiz. I keep thinking about them that can’t get any. My, such hard times! All the banks broke, and no more prospect of good times than of a hen’s being hatched with teeth! It puts me all of a trimble to think o’ the winter here and ev’rybody so hard up. It’s a pretty pass we’ve come to.”
“I should say so. I don’t see what Patience is a-going to live on this winter. She ain’t fit to do anything; her rheumatiz is awful. She ain’t got any fine wool underclo’s.”
Mrs. Willis sat down again, but she did not rock; she sat upright, holding her back stiff and her thin shoulders high and level.
“I guess this tight spell’ll learn folks to lay by money when they got it,” she said, sternly. “I notice we ain’t got any mortgage on our place, and I notice we got five thousand dollars invested. We got some cattle besides. We ain’t frittered ev’rything we made away on foolishness, like some that I know of. We have things good and comf’terble, but we don’t put on any style. Look at that Mis’ Abernathy! I caught her teeheeing behind my back when I was buying red checked table clo’s. Her husband a bookkeeper! And her a-putting on airs over me that could buy her up any day in the week! Now, he’s lost his place, and I reckon she’ll come down a peg or two.”
“She’s been reel good to Patience, anyways,” said Mrs. Wincoop.
Mrs. Willis knitted so fast her needles fairly rasped together.
“She takes her in jell and perserves right frequent. You mind Patience always liked sweet things even when her ’n’ Lizy was girls together, Eunice.”
It was so unusual for one of these two women to speak the other’s name that they now exchanged quick looks of surprise. Indeed, Mrs. Wincoop seemed the more surprised of the two. But the hard, matter-of-fact expression returned at once to each face. If possible, Mrs. Willis looked more grim and sour than before the unwonted address had startled her out of her composure.
“Well,” she said, scarcely unclosing her thin lips, “I reckon she had all the sweet things she was a-hankering after when she was a girl. I reckon she had a plenty and to spare, and I expect they got to tasting pretty bitter a good spell ago. Too much sweet always leaves a bit’rish taste in the mouth. My religion is—do what’s right, and don’t wink at them that does wrong. I’ve stuck to my religion, I reckon you can’t get anybody to stand up and put their finger on anything wrong I’ve done—nor any of my fambly, either.” Mrs. Wincoop put her hand on her chest and coughed mournfully. “Let them that’s sinned,” went on Mrs. Willis, lifting her pale, cold eyes and setting them full on her visitor, “make allowance fer sinners, say I. Mis’ Abernathy, or Mis’ Anybody Else, can pack all the clo’s and all the sweet things they’ve got a mind to over to Patience Appleby; mebbe they’ve sinned, too—I don’t know! But I do know that I ain’t, and so I don’t pack things over to her, even if she is all doubled up with the rheumatiz,” unconsciously imitating Mrs. Wincoop’s tone. “And I don’t make no allowance for her sins, either, Mis’ Wincoop.”
A faint color came slowly, as if after careful consideration, to Mrs. Wincoop’s face.
“There wa’n’t no call fer you a-telling that,” she said, with a great calmness. “The whole town knows you wouldn’t fergive a sin, if your fergiving it ’u’d save the sinner hisself from being lost! The whole town knows what your religion is, Mis’ Willis. You set yourself up and call yourself perfeck, and wrap yourself up in yourself—”
“There come the men—sh!” said Mrs. Willis. Her face relaxed, but with evident reluctance. She began to knit industriously. But the temptation to have the last word was strong.
“It ain’t my religion, either,” she said, her voice losing none of its determination because it was lowered. “I’d of fergive her if she’d a-confessed up. We all tried to get her to. I tried more ’n anybody. I told her”—in a tone of conviction—“that nobody but a brazen thing ’u’d do what she’d done and not confess up to ’t—and it never fazed her. She wouldn’t confess up.”
The men were scraping their feet noisily now on the porch, and Mrs. Willis leaned back with a satisfied expression, expecting no reply. But Mrs. Wincoop surprised her. She was sewing the last pearl button on Mr. Wincoop’s night-shirt, and as she drew the thread through and fastened it with scrupulous care, she said, without looking up—“I don’t take much stock in confessings myself, Mis’ Willis. I don’t see just how confessings is good for the soul when they hurt so many innocent ones as well as the guilty ones. Ev’ry confessing affex somebody else; and so I say if you repent and want to atone you can do ’t without confessing and bringing disgrace on others. It’s nothing but curiosity that makes people holler out—‘Confess-up now! Confess-up now.’ It ain’t anybody’s business but God’s—and I reckon He knows when a body’s sorry he’s sinned and wants to do better, and I reckon He helps him just as much as if he got up on a church tower and kep’ a-hollering out—‘Oh, good grieve, I’ve sinned! I’ve sinned!’—so’s the whole town could run and gap’ at him! Mis’ Willis, if some confessing-ups was done in this town that I know of, some people ’u’d be affected that ’u’d surprise you.” Then she lifted up her voice cheerfully—“That you, father? Well, d’ you bring the lantern? I reckon we’d best go right home; it’s getting latish, and Mis’ Willis thinks, from the way her arm aches her, that it’s going to rain.”
Mrs. Willis sat knitting long after Mr. Willis had gone to bed. Her face was more stern even than usual. She sat uncomfortably erect and did not rock. When the clock told ten, she arose stiffly and rolled the half finished stocking around the ball of yarn, fastening it there with the needles. Then she laid it on the table and stood looking at it intently, without seeing it. “I wonder,” she said, at last, drawing a deep breath, “what she was a-driving at! I’d give a pretty to know.”
“Mother, where’s my Sund’y pulse-warmers at?”
“I don’t know where your Sund’y pulse-warmers are at. Father, you’d aggravate a body into her grave! You don’t half look up anything—and then begin asking me where it’s at. What’s under that bunch o’ collars in your drawer? Looks some like your Sund’y pulse-warmers, don’t it? This ain’t Sund’y, anyways. Wa’n’t your ev’ryday ones good enough to wear just to a church meeting?”
Mr. Willis had never been known to utter an oath; but sometimes he looked as if his heart were full of them.
“I reckon you don’t even know where your han’ke’cher’s at, father.”
“Yes, I do, mother. I guess you might stop talking, an’ come on now—I’m all ready.”
He preceded his wife, leaving the front door open for her to close and lock. He walked stiffly, holding his head straight, lest his collar should cramp his neck or prick his chin. He had a conscious, dressed-up air. He carried in one hand a lantern, in the other an umbrella. It was seven o’clock of a Thursday evening and the bell was ringing for prayer-meeting. There was to be a church meeting afterward, at which the name of Patience Appleby was to be brought up for membership. Mrs. Willis breathed hard and deep as she thought of it.
She walked behind her husband to receive the full light of the lantern, holding her skirts up high above her gaiter-tops which were so large and so worn as to elastic, that they fairly ruffled around her spare, flat ankles. Her shadow danced in piece-meal on the picket fence. After a while she said—
“Father, I wish you wouldn’t keep swinging that lantern so! A body can’t see where to put their feet down. Who’s that ahead o’ us?”
“I can’t make out yet.”
“No wonder—you keep swinging that lantern so! Father, what does possess you to be so aggravating? If I’d of asked you to swing it, you couldn’t of b’en drug to do it!”
Mrs. Willis was guiltless of personal vanity, but she did realize the importance of her position in village society, and something of this importance was imparted to her carriage as she followed Mr. Willis up the church aisle. She felt that every eye was regarding her with respect, and held her shoulders so high that her comfortable shawl fell therefrom in fuller folds than usual. She sat squarely in the pew, looking steadily and unwinkingly at the wonderful red velvet cross that hung over the spindle-legged pulpit, her hands folded firmly in her lap. She had never been able to understand how Sister Wirth who sat in the pew in front of the Willises, could always have her head a-lolling over to one side like a giddy, sixteen-year-old. Mrs. Willis abominated such actions in a respectable, married woman of family.
Mr. Willis crouched down uneasily in the corner of the seat and sat motionless, with a self-conscious blush across his weak eyes. His umbrella, banded so loosely that it bulged like a soiled-clothes bag, stood up against the back of the next pew.
At the close of prayer-meeting no one stirred from his seat. An ominous silence fell upon the two dozen people assembled there. The clock ticked loudly, and old lady Scranton, who suffered of asthma, wheezed with every breath and whispered to her neighbor that she was getting so phthisicy she wished to mercy they’d hurry up or she’d have to go home without voting. At last one of the deacons arose and said with great solemnity that he understood sister Wincoop had a name to propose for membership.
When Mrs. Wincoop stood up she looked pale but determined. Mrs. Willis would not turn to look at her, but she caught every word spoken.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Wincoop, “I want to bring up the name of Patience Appleby. I reckon you all know Patience Appleby. She was born here, and she’s always lived here. There’s them that says she done wrong onct, but I guess she’s about atoned up for that—if any mortal living has. I’ve know her fifteen year, and I don’t know any better behaving woman anywheres. She never talks about anybody”—her eyes went to Mrs. Willis’s rigid back—“and she never complains. She’s alone and poor, and all crippled up with the rheumatiz. She wants to join church and live a Christian life, and I, fer one, am in favor o’ us a-holding out our hand to her and helping her up.”
“Amen!” shrilled out the minister on one of his upper notes. There was a general rustle of commendation—whispers back and forth, noddings of heads, and many encouraging glances directed toward sister Wincoop.
But of a sudden silence fell upon the small assembly. Mrs. Willis had arisen. Her expression was grim and uncompromising. At that moment sister Shidler’s baby choked in its sleep, and cried so loudly and so gaspingly that every one turned to look at it.
In the momentary confusion Mr. Willis caught hold of his wife’s dress and tried to pull her down; but the unfortunate man only succeeded in ripping a handful of gathers from the band. Mrs. Willis looked down at him from her thin height.
“You let my gethers be,” she said, fiercely. “You might of knew you’d tear ’em, a-taking holt of ’em that way!”
Then quiet was restored and the wandering eyes came back to Mrs. Willis. “Brothers and sisters,” she said, “it ain’t becoming in me to remind you all what Mr. Willis and me have done fer this church. It ain’t becoming in me to remind you about the organ, and the new bell, and the carpet fer the aisles—let alone our paying twenty dollars more a year than any other member. I say it ain’t becoming in me, and I never ’d mention it if it wa’n’t that I don’t feel like having Patience Appleby in this church. If she does come in, I go out.”
A tremor passed through the meeting. The minister turned pale and stroked his meagre whiskers nervously. He was a worthy man, and he believed in saving souls. He had prayed and plead with Patience to persuade her to unite with the church, but he had not felt the faintest presentiment that he was quarreling with his own bread and butter in so doing. One soul scarcely balances a consideration of that kind—especially when a minister has six children and a wife with a chronic disinclination to do anything but look pretty and read papers at clubs and things. It was small wonder that he turned pale.
“I want that you all should know just how I feel about it,” continued Mrs. Willis. “I believe in doing what’s right yourself and not excusing them that does wrong. I don’t believe in having people like Patience Appleby in this church; and she don’t come in while I’m in, neither. That’s all I got to say. I want that you all should understand plain that her coming in means my going out.”
Mrs. Willis sat down, well satisfied. She saw that she had produced a profound sensation. Every eye turned to the minister with a look that said, plainly—“What have you to say to that?”
But the miserable man had not a word to say to it. He sat helplessly stroking his whiskers, trying to avoid the eyes of both Mrs. Wincoop and Mrs. Willis. At last Deacon Berry said—“Why, sister Willis, I think if a body repents and wants to do better, the church ’ad ort to help ’em. That’s what churches are for.”
Mrs. Willis cleared her throat.
“I don’t consider that a body’s repented, Deacon Berry, tell he confesses-up. Patience Appleby’s never done that to this day. When she does, I’m willing to take her into this church.”
“Brothers and sisters,” said Mrs. Wincoop, in a voice that held a kind of cautious triumph, “I fergot to state that Patience Appleby reckoned mebbe somebody ’u’d think she’d ort to confess before she come into the church; and she wanted I should ask the meeting to a’point Mis’ Willis a committee o’ one fer her to confess up to. Patience reckoned if she could satisfy Mis’ Willis, ev’rybody else ’u’d be satisfied.”
“Why—yes,” cried the minister, with cheerful eagerness. “That’s all right—bless the Lord!” he added, in that jaunty tone with which so many ministers daily insult our God. “I know Mrs. Willis and Patience will be able to smooth over all difficulties. I think we may now adjourn.”
“Whatever did she do that fer?” said Mrs. Willis, following the lantern homeward. “She’s got something in her mind, I know, or she’d never want me a’p’inted. Father, what made you pull my gethers out? D’you think you could make me set down when I’d once made up my mind to stand up? You’d ought to know me better by this time. This is my secon’-best dress, and I’ve only wore it two winters—and now look at all these gethers tore right out!”
“You hadn’t ought to get up and make a fool o’ yourself, mother. You’d best leave Patience Appleby be.”
“You’d ort to talk about anybody a-making a fool o’ hisself! After you a-pulling my gethers clean out o’ the band—right in meeting! You’d ort to tell me I’d best leave Patience Appleby be! I don’t mean to leave her be. I mean to let her know she can’t ac’ scandalous, and then set herself up as being as good’s church folks and Christians. I’ll give her her come-uppings!”
For probably the first time in his married life Mr. Willis yielded to his feelings. “God-a’mighty, mother,” he said; “sometimes you don’t seem to have common sense! I reckon you’d best leave Patience Appleby be, if you know when you’re well off.” Then, frightened at what he had said, he walked on, hurriedly, swinging the lantern harder than ever.
Mrs. Willis walked behind him, dumb.
The day was cold and gray. Mrs. Willis opened with difficulty the broken-down gate that shut in Patience Appleby’s house. “And no wonder,” she thought, “it swags down so!”
There was a foot of snow on the ground. The path to the old, shabby house was trackless. Not a soul had been there since the snow fell—and that was two days ago! Mrs. Willis shivered under her warm shawl.
Patience opened the door. Her slow, heavy steps on the bare floor of the long hall affected Mrs. Willis strangely.
Patience was very tall and thin. She stooped, and her chest was sunken. She wore a dingy gray dress, mended in many places. There was a small, checked shawl folded in a “three-cornered” way about her shoulders. She coughed before she could greet her visitor.
“How d’you do, Mis’ Willis,” she said, at last. “Come in, won’t you?”
“How are you, Patience?” Mrs. Willis said, and, to her own amazement, her voice did not sound as stern as she had intended it should.
She had been practicing as she came along, and this voice bore no resemblance whatever to the one she had been having in her mind. Nor, as she preceded Patience down the bare, draughty hall to the sitting-room, did she bear herself with that degree of frigid dignity which she had always considered most fitting to her position, both socially and morally.
Somehow, the evidences of poverty on every side chilled her blood. The sitting-room was worse, even, than the hall. A big, empty room with a small fireplace in one corner, wherein a few coals were turning gray; a threadbare carpet, a couple of chairs, a little table with the Bible on it, ragged wall-paper, and a shelf in one corner filled with liniment bottles.
Mrs. Willis sat down in one of the rickety chairs, and Patience, after stirring up the coals, drew the other to the hearth.
“I’m afraid the room feels kind o’ coolish,” she said. “I’ve got the last o’ the coal on.”
“D’you mean,” said Mrs. Willis—and again her voice surprised her—“that you’re all out o’ coal?”
“All out.” She drew the tiny shawl closer to her throat with trembling, bony fingers. “But Mis’ Abernathy said she’d send me a scuttleful over to-day. I hate to take it from her, too; her husband’s lost his position and they ain’t overly well off. But sence my rheumatiz has been so bad I can’t earn a thing.”
Mrs. Willis stared hard at the coals. For the life of her she could think of nothing but her own basement filled to the ceiling with coal.
“I reckon,” said Patience, “you’ve come to hear my confessing-up?”
“Why—yes.” Mrs. Willis started guiltily.
“What’s the charges agen me, Mis’ Willis?”
Mrs. Willis’s eyelids fell heavily.
“Why, I reckon you know, Patience. You done wrong onct when you was a girl, and I don’t think we’d ort to take you into the church tell you own up to it.”
There was a little silence. Then Patience said, drawing her breath in heavily—“Mebbe I did do wrong onct when I was a little girl—only fourteen, say. But that’s thirty year ago, and that’s a long time, Mis’ Willis. I don’t think I’d ort to own up to it.”
“I think you’d ort.”
“Mis’ Willis,”—Patience spoke solemnly. “D’you think I’d ort to own up if it ’u’d affec’ somebody else thet ain’t never b’en talked about?”
“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Willis, firmly. “If they deserve to be talked about, they’d ort to be talked about.”
“Even if it was about the best folks in town?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Willis thought of the minister.
“Even if it was about the best-off folks? Folks that hold their head the highest, and give most to churches and missionary; and thet ev’rybody looks up to?”
“Ye-es,” said Mrs. Willis. That did not describe the minister, certainly. She could not have told you why her heart began to beat so violently. Somehow, she had been surprised out of the attitude she had meant to assume. Instead of walking in boldly and haughtily, and giving Patience her “come-uppings,” she was finding it difficult to conquer a feeling of pity for the enemy because she was so poor and so cold. She must harden her heart.
“Even”—Patience lowered her eyes to the worn carpet—“if it was folks thet had b’en loudest condemin’ other folks’s sins, and that had bragged high and low thet there wa’n’t no disgrace in their fambly, and never had b’en none, and who’d just be about killed by my confessing-up?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Willis, sternly. But she paled to the lips.
“I don’t think so,” said Patience, slowly. “I think a body’d ort to have a chance if they want to live better, without havin’ anybody a-pryin’ into their effairs exceptin’ God. But if you don’t agree with me, I’m ready to confess-up all I’ve done bad. I guess you recollect, Mis’ Willis, thet your ’Lizy and me was just of an age, to a day?”
Mrs. Willis’s lips moved, but the words stuck in her throat.
“And how we ust to play together and stay nights with each other. We loved each other, Mis’ Willis. You ust to give us big slices o’ salt-risin’ bread, spread thick with cream and sprinkled with brown sugar—I can just see you now, a-goin’ out to the spring-house to get the cream. And I can just taste it, too, when I get good and hungry.”
“What’s all this got to do with your a-owning up?” demanded Mrs. Willis, fiercely. “What’s my ’Lizy got to do with your going away that time? Where was you at, Patience Appleby?”
“I’m comin’ to that,” said Patience, calmly; but a deep flush came upon her face. “I’ve attoned-up fer that time, if any mortal bein’ ever did, Mis’ Willis. I’ve had a hard life, but I’ve never complained, because I thought the Lord was a-punishin’ me. But I have suffered.... Thirty year, Mis’ Willis, of prayin’ to be fergive fer one sin! But I ain’t ever see the day I could confess-up to ’t—and I couldn’t now, except to ’Lizy’s mother.”
An awful trembling shook Mrs. Willis’s heart. She looked at Patience with straining eyes. “Go on,” she said, hoarsely.
“’Lizy and me was fourteen on the same day. She was goin’ to Four Corners to visit her a’nt, but I had to stay at home and work. I was cryin’ about it when, all of a sudden, ’Lizy says—“Patience, let’s up and have a good time on our birthday!”
“Well, let’s,” I says, “but how?”
“I’ll start fer Four Corners and then you run away, and I’ll meet you, and we’ll go to Springville to the circus and learn to ride bareback”—
Mrs. Willis leaned forward in her chair. Her face was very white; her thin hands were clenched so hard the knuckles stood out half an inch.
“Patience Appleby,” she said, “you’re a wicked, sinful liar! May the Lord A’mighty fergive you—I won’t.”
“I ain’t askin’ you to take my word; you can ask Mr. Willis hisself. He didn’t go to Springville to buy him a horse, like he told you he did. ’Lizy and me had been at the circus two days when she tuk sick, and I sent fer Mr. Willis unbeknownst to anybody. He come and tuk her home and fixed it all up with her a’nt at Four Corners, and give out thet she’d been a-visitin’ there. But I had to sneak home alone and live an outcast’s life ever sense, and see her set up above me—just because Mr. Willis got down to beg me on his knees never to tell she was with me. And I never did tell a soul, Mis’ Willis, tell last winter I was sick with a fever and told Mis’ Wincoop when I was out o’ my head. But she’s never told anybody, either, and neither of us ever will. Mr. Willis has helped me as much as he could without your a-findin’ it out, but I know how it feels to be hungry and cold, and I know how it feels to see ’Lizy set up over me, and marry rich, and have nice children; and ride by me ’n her kerriage without so much as lookin’ at me—and me a-chokin’ with the dust off o’ her kerriage wheels. But I never complained none, and I ain’t a-complainin’ now, Mis’ Willis; puttin ’Lizy down wouldn’t help me any. But I do think it’s hard if I can’t be let into the church.”
Her thin voice died away and there was silence. Patience sat staring at the coals with the dullness of despair on her face. Mrs. Willis’s spare frame had suddenly taken on an old, pathetic stoop. What her haughty soul had suffered during that recital, for which she had been so totally unprepared, Patience would never realize. The world seemed to be slipping from under the old woman’s trembling feet. She had been so strong in her condemnation of sinners because she had felt so sure she should never have any trading with sin herself. And lo! all these years her own daughter—her one beloved child, dearer than life itself—had been as guilty as this poor outcast from whom she had always drawn her skirts aside, as from a leper. Ay, her daughter had been the guiltier of the two. She was not spared that bitterness, even. Her harsh sense of justice forced her to acknowledge, even in that first hour, that this woman had borne herself nobly, while her daughter had been a despicable coward.
It had been an erect, middle-aged woman who had come to give Patience Appleby her “come-uppings;” it was an old, broken-spirited one who went stumbling home in the early, cold twilight of the winter day. The fierce splendor of the sunset had blazed itself out; the world was a monotone in milky blue—save for one high line of dull crimson clouds strung along the horizon.
A shower of snow-birds sunk in Mrs. Willis’s path, but she did not see them. She went up the path and entered her comfortable home; and she fell down upon her stiff knees beside the first chair she came to—and prayed as she had never prayed before in all her hard and selfish life.
When Mr. Willis came home to supper he found his wife setting the table as usual. He started for the bedroom, but she stopped him.
“We’re a-going to use the front bedroom after this, father,” she said.
“Why, what are we going to do that fer, mother?”
“I’m a-going to give our’n to Patience Appleby.”
“You’re a-going to—what, mother?”
“I’m a-going to give our’n to Patience Appleby, I say. I’m a-going to bring her here to live, and she’s got to have the warmest room in the house, because her rheumatiz is worse ’n mine. I’m a-going after her myself to-morrow in the kerriage.” She turned and faced her husband sternly. “She’s confessed-up ev’rything. I was dead set she should, and she has. I know where she was at that time, and I know who was with her. I reckon I’d best be attoning up as well as Patience Appleby; and I’m going to begin by making her comf’terble and taking her into the church.”
“Why, mother,” said the old man, weakly. His wife repressed him with one look.
“Now, don’t go to talking back, father,” she said, sternly. “I reckon you kep’ it from me fer the best, but it’s turrable hard on me now. You get and wash yourself. I want that you should hold this candle while I fry the apple-fritters.”