CHAPTER XXXV.
A visit to Mrs. Sherman's Room—Daddy and his new Spouse—Ominous Signs.
efore opening another letter, let us pay a flying visit to the Sherman family, and also to Daddy and his spouse.
The former are to be found in their old quarters at Pendleton, the latter installed in the brown house at Chimney Rock.
It is near midnight, rather an unseasonable hour to intrude upon our friends, but no matter; at the house we shall first enter; regular habits do not prevail.
We will now imagine ourselves in the broad hall, on the second floor of the finest hotel in Pendleton.
Open softly the door at your right. There the eldest Mrs. Sherman lies sleeping. Her grey hair is parted smoothly under her white frilled cap, her hands are folded resignedly upon her breast, and the angel of her dreams has imprinted upon her features the chastened smile so often seen upon the face of age.
We would fain prolong her slumbers, for, alas, we cannot stay the swiftly drifting cloud, that is coming to darken her waking hours: the silver lining of which she will not see, until, a spirit winged for glory, she soars above it.
A confusion of sounds from below reaches us. Footsteps are upon the stairs, uncertain, shuffling, as if grouping in darkness. Low, persuasive voices are heard, a sharp retort follows. "No, Clara is fiendish when I have been drinking, I will not meet her."
A woman has just brushed past us. She stands at the head of the stairs, pale and determined.
"Bring him not here," she hisses between her closed teeth, to the men who are assisting her husband to mount. "Take him to your own homes—listen to his ravings. Bear his insults; blows if need be. Perform the most disagreeable services for him. Yes, even imperil your lives in his service, you who are his disinterested friends. You, who have enjoyed your bacchanalian revels with him, take the consequences. Bring him not to me. I despise, I hate the man who cannot control his appetite—I tell you away with him!" she shrieked, as his friends continued to urge him upward.
"Clara." A hand is laid gently on her arm. Her mother-in-law stands trembling beside her; the noise has awakened her, and she has come out in her night dress. "I will take Edward to my room and quiet him; he shall not disturb you, my daughter."
"I am not your daughter. I will no longer be his wife. I will leave the house this moment never to return. He has disgraced me long enough. I will not bear it. I will not be the wife of a drunkard. I have told him so times without number. You may soothe him if you like—pet him—give him peppermint—I will not live with a man who cannot control his appetite."
Tears and entreaties, are of no avail; the determination of the high-spirited wife remains unaltered, and she has gone forth to her father's house, leaving her mother-in-law not quite alone with the invalid, for Louise and the doctor have been summoned.
Meanwhile, how thrives Daddy?
We shall see by the morning sun. It has just risen, and so has Daddy. He peeps out and the sun peeps in, blinding his old eyes and cheering his old heart. He and Recta are happy now. Hear him whistle like a boy as he dresses. Recta helps him put his rheumatic arm into his coat sleeve, and he kisses Recta.
Both leave the room, and as they pass a door standing ajar, push it open; Here is little Fanny Green standing with bare feet before the open window, brushing out her flaxen hair.
"O, Daddy," she exclaims, "a bird flew in here awhile ago, a real live bird flew right in at the window, and throbbed his wings so hard against the glass that he woke me. Why, before I could catch him, he flew out. Do you think it would have been wicked to have caught him, Daddy?"
"Laws, no, Fanny. 'Tween you and me, the Honey would have ketched him in a second. She was uncommon spry when she was a leetle gal."
"O, Daddy, may—"
"You musn't hinder me now; I must go fur tu milk the cows."
"O, well, you won't feed the chickens 'till I come, will you, Daddy? I'll dress, O, ever so quick, and say a very little prayer, and come right out. I want to feed the speckled hen and the little yellow chicks; please Daddy don't forget me, will you?"
Recta looks very much disturbed as they pass on together. "That bird," she mutters very mysteriously, "it's a very bad sign."
"What's a bad sign, Recta?"
"Why, don't you know, Phillip, when a bird comes into the house it's a sure sign of death in the family? I have never known it to fail. There was Squire Billings died in less than a year after a bird flew in at the winder. Sally told me they was a watching for some one to die and it turned out to be the Squire."
"'Tween you and me, Recta, that was singular; now I think on't I've noticed lately that Fanny has looked ruther pimpin. We must not cross her in nuthin. I shan't tech the chicken feed 'til she comes; 'tween you and me, hadn't we better write to the Honey?"
"May be she don't believe in signs, some don't," said Recta, reflectively.
"'Tween you and me, we might tell her about Squire Billings."
"That wouldn't make any difference, Phillip, you can't convince some people. We may as well not write until Fanny is really taken sick. I wonder if she had ever had the measles: Neighbor Wycoff is awful sick with them."
"'Tween you and me, I guess we had better write," persists Daddy, struck with a new terror.
There is a sudden hush, and Fanny trips in bright as a May morning.
