V
THE HEAD OF THE CORNER
Everybody wore their company manners to the breakfast-table—the first time in the whole history of the Home when company manners had graced the initial meal of the day. Being pleasant at supper was easy enough, Aunt Nancy used to say, for every one save the unreasonably cantankerous, and being agreeable at dinner was not especially difficult; but no one short of a saint could be expected to smile of mornings until sufficient time had been given to discover whether one had stepped out on the wrong or the right side of the bed.
This morning, however, no time was needed to demonstrate that everybody in the place had gotten out on the happy side of his couch. Even the deaf-and-dumb gardener had untwisted his surly temper, and as Abraham entered the dining-room, looked in at the east window with a conciliatory grin and nod which said as plainly as words:
"'T is a welcome sight indeed to see one of my own kind around this establishment!"
"Why don't he come in?" questioned Abe, waving back a greeting as well as he could with the treasured cup in one of his hands and the saucer in the other; whereupon Sarah Jane, that ugly duckling, explained that the fellow, being a confirmed woman-hater, cooked all his own meals in the smokehouse, and insisted upon all his orders being left on a slate outside the tool-house door. Abe sniffed disdainfully, contemplating her homely countenance, over which this morning's mood had cast a not unlovely, transforming glow.
"Why, the scalawag!" He frowned so at the face in the window that it immediately disappeared. "Yew don't mean ter tell me he's sot ag'in' yew gals? He must be crazy! Sech a handsome, clever set o' women I never did see!"
Sarah Jane blushed to the roots of her thin, straight hair and sat down, suddenly disarmed of every porcupine quill that she had hidden under her wings; while there was an agreeable little stir among the sisters.
"Set deown, all hands! Set deown!" enjoined Miss Abigail, fluttering about with the heaviness of a fat goose. "Brother Abe,—that 's what we've all agreed to call yew, by unanimous vote,—yew set right here at the foot of the table. Aunt Nancy always had the head an' me the foot; but I only kept the foot, partly becuz thar wa'n't no man fer the place, an' partly becuz I was tew sizable ter squeeze in any-whar else. Seein' as Sister Angy is sech a leetle mite, though, I guess she kin easy make room fer me t' other side o' her."
Abe could only bow his thanks as he put his gift down on the table and took the prominent place assigned to him. The others seated, there was a solemn moment of waiting with bowed heads. Aunt Nancy's trembling voice arose,—the voice which had jealously guarded the right of saying grace at table in the Old Ladies' Home for twenty years,—not, however, in the customary words of thanksgiving, but in a peremptory "Brother Abe!"
Abraham looked up. Could she possibly mean that he was to establish himself as the head of the household by repeating grace? "Brother Abe!" she called upon him again. "Yew've askt a blessin' fer one woman fer many a year; supposin' neow yew ask it fer thirty!"
Amid the amazement of the other sisters, Abe mumbled, and muttered, and murmured—no one knew what words; but all understood the overwhelming gratitude behind his incoherency, and all joined heartily in the Amen. Then, while Mrs. Homan, the cook of the week, went bustling out into the kitchen, Aunt Nancy felt that it devolved upon her to explain her action. It would never do, she thought, for her to gain a reputation for self-effacement and sweetness of disposition at her time of life.
"Son, I want yew ter understand one thing naow at the start. Yew treat us right, an' we'll treat yew right. That's all we ask o' yew. Miss Ellie, pass the radishes."
"I'll do my best," Abe hastened to assure her. "Hy-guy, that coffee smells some kind o' good, don't it? Between the smell o' the stuff an' the looks o' my cup, it'll be so temptin' that I'll wish I had the neck of a gi-raffe, an' could taste it all the way deown. Angy, I be afraid we'll git the gout a-livin' so high. Look at this here cream!"
Smiling, appreciative, his lips insisting upon joking to cover the natural feeling of embarrassment incident to this first meal among the sisters, but with his voice breaking now and again with emotion, while from time to time he had to steal his handkerchief to his old eyes, Abe passed successfully through the—to him—elaborate breakfast. And Angy sat in rapt silence, but with her face shining so that her quiet was the stillness of eloquence. Once Abe startled them all by rising stealthily from the table and seizing the morning's newspaper which lay upon the buffet.
"I knowed it!" caviled Lazy Daisy sotto voce to no one in particular. "He couldn't wait for the news till he was through eatin'!" But Abe had folded the paper into a stout weapon, and, creeping toward the window, despatched by a quick, adroit movement a fly which had alighted upon the screen.
"I hate the very sight o' them air pesky critters," he explained half apologetically. "Thar, thar's another one," and slaughtered that.
"My, but yew kin git 'em, can't yew?" spoke Miss Abigail admiringly. "Them tew be the very ones I tried ter ketch all day yiste'day; I kin see as a fly-ketcher yew be a-goin' ter be wuth a farm ter me. Set deown an' try some o' this here strawberry presarve."
But Abe protested that he could not eat another bite unless he should get up and run around the house to "joggle deown" what he had already swallowed. He leaned back in his chair and surveyed the family: on his right, generous-hearted Blossy, who had been smiling approval and encouragement at him all through the repast; at his left, and just beyond Angy, Miss Abigail indulging in what remained on the dishes now that she discovered the others to have finished; Aunt Nancy keenly watching him from the head of the board; and all the other sisters "betwixt an' between."
He caught Mrs. Homan's eye where she stood in the doorway leading into the kitchen, and remarked pleasantly: "Ma'am, yew oughter set up a pancake shop in 'York. Yew could make a fortune at it. I hain't had sech a meal o' vittles sence I turned fifty year o' age."
A flattered smile overspread Mrs. Homan's visage, and the other sisters, noting it, wondered how long it would be before she showed her claws in Abraham's presence.
"Hy-guy, Angy," Abe went on, "yew can't believe nothin' yew hear, kin yer? Why, folks have told me that yew ladies—What yew hittin' my foot fer, Mother? Folks have told me," a twinkle of amusement in his eye at the absurdity, "that yew fight among yerselves like cats an' dogs, when, law! I never see sech a clever lot o' women gathered tergether in all my life. An' I believe—Mother, I hain't a-sayin' nothin'! I jest want ter let 'em know what I think on 'em. I believe that thar must be three hunderd hearts in this here place 'stid o' thirty. But dew yew know, gals, folks outside even go so fur's ter say that yew throw plates at one another!"
There was a moment's silence; then a little gasp first from one and then from another of the group. Every one looked at Mrs. Homan, and from Mrs. Homan to Sarah Jane. Mrs. Homan tightened her grip on the pancake turner; Sarah Jane uneasily moved her long fingers within reach of a sturdy little red-and-white pepper-pot. Another moment passed, in which the air seemed filled with the promise of an electric storm. Then Blossy spoke hurriedly—Blossy the tactician, clasping her hands together and bringing Abe's attention to herself.
"Really! You surprise me! You don't mean to say that folks talk about us like that!"
"Slander is a dretful long-legged critter," amended Miss Abigail, smiling and sighing in the same breath.
"Sary Jane," inquired Mrs. Homan sweetly, "what 's the matter with that pepper-pot? Does it need fillin'?"
And so began the reign of peace in the Old Ladies' Home.