Oh, that tray! It really seemed as though the things thereon must come to blows, so fiercely did they contradict each other. The coffee pot of make and material precisely like those good “Bridgets” purchase for the use of honest “Patricks.” The knives and forks—they appeared a bit later—were of that brand which always makes you wish that you were dead, they make of life a thing so hideous. While cheek by jowl with these rough things stood a few pieces of old porcelain, deserving, each one of them, a satin-lined box to rest in. And to keep them in countenance, there were four spoons of silver, paper-thin, initials and dates quite worn away, and all a trifle bent and dented in spite of the owner’s care of them; while the linen, I could have cried over that eye-destroying mass of delicate darning. Truly, there were places in my napkin where the darning had itself been darned again. But the coffee, like the fire, which had been increased by the addition of one small cube of coal, was inadequate in quantity, but the quality? oh, well, it was perfection, that’s all; absolute perfection.
I tasted it and smiled, and sighed. She understood, and snapped her old eyes at me approvingly, and she tasted and sighed, and then she slowly said: “Whenever I drink good coffee I always rejoice that God created it. It would have been an infernal shame had it been invented by some fool man!”
I laughed aloud—I always did, I’m sorry to confess—whenever she swore, she did it in such an impersonal way, never, never in anger, never, even when she was busily engaged in flaying alive some victim of her memory and her tongue. She generally swore to herself, and nearly always when in a reflective mood. When I laughed, she gave me a glance and asked quickly: “What is it, eh? Did I swear? Well, don’t you do it, that’s all. But Lord! you won’t have to live fifteen or twenty years alone with a ‘cussing’ parrot, as I did. For some time after Sally died I used to say ‘damnation.’ Oh, I don’t say it now; don’t open your eyes any wider, you’ll meet with an accident. But, you see, for nearly twenty years that bird told me twice a day that her coffee was ‘too damnation hot,’ and after she was gone I had to say it now and then to break the silence.”
As she talked she fidgeted uneasily with her spoon and cup; at last she broke out with: “My dear, I asked you just to have coffee with me, but now—well, to tell you the truth—I am quite faint. I breakfast at half-past six, that I may have the strong morning light for my work, and somehow I feel a bit exhausted to-day, and—and I’d like my dinner now, if you can pardon an old woman’s offence against all conventionalities, and stay and dine with me!”
Could I have known, I would have taken the coffee only and denied my hunger; but I knew nothing, and cheerfully consented to dine with her. I wondered where her kitchen was, and, supposing she would be some time preparing the simplest meal, I looked about for something to help me pass away the time. There was no paper, and but one book in the room, a family bible that might have been bound in a pair of old boots—its leather was so browned with age, so worn, so scruffed it looked. I went over to take it up, when my hostess, with distinct satisfaction in her voice, announced, “Dinner!” All my life long my generally-absent appetite has been pursued like an “ignus fatuus” by those near to me, but this time my appetite met its match; old Myra’s saw mine and went it about four better. The knives and forks had now appeared, simply as a mockery, I believe. Lying on a plate were four biscuits, or, as we called them then, crackers. They belonged to that branch of the cracker family known as “soda”—soda crackers, and while I looked on in stupid wonder, she carefully opened a handsomely-cut, glass box, with a silver lid, which, beyond the shadow of a doubt, had been her powder-box in days gone by, and delicately lifted out four little, thin scraps of smoked beef—four crackers and those scraps of beef—no more, no less—and we fell to and “dined” upon them. But when I saw her trying not to eat too eagerly, I had a lump in my throat bigger than our whole dinner. No wonder her weight was less than a pound for each year of her weary life. I wished I could gather her up in my arms and kiss the fierceness out of her eyes and promise her fire enough for real comfort, and coffee, and food—real food—that would not make the promise of nourishment to the eye to break it to the stomach. My thoughts were broken by “You, girl! is there anything the matter with your dinner?”
“Nothing in the world,” I cried, “but I was not very hungry, and, in fact, I do want to get back to my coffee.”
“Well,” she answered, “I must say you eat fairer than ever Sally did, for, I give you my word, for years on end that parrot cheated me out of at least half a cracker every day of her life, and yet, my dear, when she died she was as thin as I am.”
When I was about leaving her, she said to me: “You, girl, I like you! You are queer. You are uneven, and you make me guess. You know more and you know less than most girls of your age, and, thank God, you don’t giggle! You may come again.” She paused and looked at me with a deprecating expression, and finished almost meekly: “That is, if you care to share your spare time with me.”
I told her, and I told her truly, how glad I should be to come. How glad I was to live in Lake street too, and so near to her, and then, rather shyly, I added: “I think, if you will let me, I will tell you my name, Mrs. Worden”—and I mentioned it.
She was looking out at the dreary lake again, and, without withdrawing her eyes, she made answer: “H’m’m! Clara, eh? Cla—ra, Claire—Clarice—that’s a fool name, Clarice? but Clara—that’s light, illustrious, clear, bright! My dear, I’m glad you are named Clara. It’s a good name. I hope it may fit you as well as mine has fitted me. My French mother meant to call me Marie, which is, you know, a form of Mary—‘Star of the Sea,’ and he who did the sprinkling and the crossing and the rest was deaf, and he named me Myra—‘she who weeps.’ Good God! Good God! Have I not been well named? ‘She who weeps.’ The tears are all gone from the eyes, now, and they are dry enough, but hot, my dearies—so very hot! Internal, cruel tears that ooze slowly, like drops of thin, old blood, still fall from my heart, my dearies, while I wait and wait. Aye, it was before the altar, and with the sign of the sacred cross, and the touch of the holy-water on my brow, that he baptized me ‘Myra’—‘she who weeps!’”