I
Lucinda Gibbs stood in the corner of the rail fence behind her cottage. Her face was damp with perspiration, and her heavy iron-gray hair had become disarranged and hung down her back below the skirt of her gingham sun-bonnet. She was raking the decayed leaves and dead weeds from her tender strawberry sprouts and mentally calculating on an abundant crop of the luscious fruit later in the spring.
“The trouble is I won’t git to eat none of ‘em,” she sighed, as she looked up and addressed the woman on the other side of the fence.
“You don’t mean that you are actually a-goin’ shore ‘nough, Mis’ Gibbs?” exclaimed Betsey Lowry, as she leaned heavily on the top rail.
The widow reversed her rake and began to pull out the leaves which were packed between the metal teeth, her face reddening gradually, as if she were slightly irritated.
“I’d like to know ef thar’s anything strange about my goin’,” she said, coldly. “You said you’d feed my cat an’ chickens an’ attend to the cow fer what she’d give.”
“Oh, it ain’t because I have the least objection to keepin’ my word about them things,” said the old maid, quickly. “Goodness knows, me an’ Joel needs the milk an’ butter bad enough, an’ it ain’t one speck o’ trouble jest to throw scraps to the cat, an’ meal-dough to the chickens, but somehow it skeers me to think of a lone woman like you a-goin’ all the way to New York by yorese’f.” Mrs. Gibbs leaned the rake against the fence. The flush died out of her face, giving place to a sweet, wistful expression.
“Betsey,” she said, tremulously, “tell me the truth. Do you think I ought to stay at home?”
The old maid turned to look through the orchard of leafless trees to her own house not far away. She had reddened slightly.
“Ef you push me fer a answer, Mis’ Gibbs, I ’ll have to tell you I don’t think you ought to go away up thar all alone.”
“You feel that-a-way, Betsey, because you hain’t never had no child an’ been separated from it like I have. When Amos married up thar an’ went to housekeepin’ it mighty nigh killed me. An’ then I begun to live on the bare hope that he’d come South on a visit, but he hain’t done it, an’ thar ain’t no prospect of the like. He says he cayn’t git away frum his business without dead loss, an’ they want me to come. I’ve said many a time that I’d never leave my home, but, Betsey, it seems to me that I cayn’t live another week without seein’ how Amos looks. The Lord only knows how lonely I am mighty nigh all the time. Ef Susie had lived, she’d never ‘a’ left me, married or not, but it’s different with a man. Sometimes I wonder why the Lord tuk ’em both frum me.”
Betsey’s kindly face softened. The intervening fence kept her from putting a consoling arm around her neighbor.
“I hain’t been blind—nur Brother Joel hain’t nuther—to yore lonely way o’ livin’,” she said, sympathetically. “Thar’s hardly a night that me an’ him don’t look out ‘fore we go to bed to see ef you are still a-sittin’ up readin’ by yore lamp. I kin always tell when you are a-thinkin’ about Susie more ’n common; it’s always when you git back frum ’er grave that you set up latest. I believe in layin’ on o’ flowers an’ plantin’ shrubs that ’ll keep sech a precious spot green, but when it seems to make a body brood-like, then I think it ought not to be indulged in to any great extent.”
“It’s raily a sort of comfort to go to the graveyard,” faltered Mrs. Gibbs; and she raised her apron to her mouth.
“How long do you intend to stay with Amos an’ his wife?” asked Betsey, to divert the widow’s thoughts. She looked over her shoulder, and saw her brother Joel, a tall, strong-looking man about fifty-five years of age, approaching from the direction of his store, down at the cross-roads.
“Three months, I reckon,” replied the widow. “I know in reason that I won’t want to leave Amos a bit sooner. You see, it may be a long time before I lay eyes on ’im again. They say the baby is doin’ fine, an’ I want to see it an’ nuss it.”
“So you are raily goin’?” cried Joel Lowry, as he leaned on the fence beside his sister.
“Yes, I’m a-goin’ to make the trip, Joel.”
“It’s a long ways,” returned the storekeeper, “an’ I don’t see how you are a-goin’ by yorese’f. Ef it was jest a few weeks later, now, I might pull up an’ go along. I’ve always believed ef I went to New York to lay in stock that I could save enough on my goods to defray my expenses thar an’ back.”
The eyes of the widow flashed eagerly. She took a long, trembling breath.
“I wisht to goodness you would,” she said. “I don’t know one thing about trains, an’ I am powerful afraid I ’ll make a bobble of the whole thing from start to finish. Ef I was to git on the wrong car—but what is the use to cross a bridge ‘fore you git to it? Mebby I ’ll git thar all right.”
“I hate mightily to have you try it,” replied Joel, reflectively, as he stroked his short gray beard. “I jest wish you would think better of it. I’m a leetle grain older ’n you, Mis’ Gibbs, an’ I’ve been about some.”
Mrs. Gibbs drew her rake after her as she turned toward her cottage. “I don’t want to change my mind,” she said, emphatically. “I’m bent on seein’ Amos, an’ I’m a-goin’ to do it. I’d better go in now. I’ve got a lot o’ packin’ to do.”
Joel went back toward his store across a field of decaying corn-stubble without looking round, and Betsey climbed over the fence and went into the cottage with her neighbor.
“I never hated to see a body go so in all my born days,” she sighed.
Mrs. Gibbs opened the front door and preceded Betsey into the room on the right of the little hall.
“You mustn’t mind how things looks in heer,” she apologized. “I left my trunk open right spank in the middle of the room, so whenever I see a thing that ought to go in I kin jest fling it at the trunk an’ put it away when I have time.”
Betsey stood over the little hair trunk and looked down dolefully.
“What on earth is that I smell?” she asked. “Sassafras, as I’m alive!”
“Yes, I dug it yesterday. Amos likes sassafras-root tea; he used to drink a power of it to thin his blood in the spring; he writ that he hain’t had a taste of it sence he left heer. Shorely, it’s come to a purty pass if a body cayn’t get sech as that in a big city like New York.”
“Seems to me,” remarked the old maid, “that you’ve got a sight more truck here than you ’ll have any need fer. What’s this greasy mess wrapped up?”
“That’s mutton suet,” was the enthusiastic reply. “It’s the whitest cake I ever laid eyes on. They ’ll need it fer chapped hands an’ lips. Amos says it’s a sight colder up thar. That’s ginger-cake in that paper box, an’ I’ve made him an’ Sally some wool socks an’ stockin’s.”
“Are you shore you are a-goin’ to be away three months?” asked Betsey, with a sigh.
“Mebby longer than that,” answered the old woman. “I feel like I never will want to leave Amos again, but I couldn’t be away from my home always, you know. La, it ’ll seem powerful strange to wake up an’ not look out o’ that thar window towards the mountain.”
“An’ not to heer the hens a-cacklin’, an’ the cow an’ calf a-bellowin’,” added Betsey. Then she put her handkerchief to her eyes and plunged hastily from the room. Mrs. Gibbs moved quickly to the window and looked out. She saw Betsey climb over the fence and go on through the orchard, her head hanging down.