This was why, during the days when Mahlon Spellman lay stretched upon the sofa, an expression of noble dignity on his face and forehead, that his front door bore only a wreath of myrtle and roses with floating ribbons of purple.
For the remainder of the day and during the first night following Mahlon’s passing, Mahala had faced the prospect of meeting life alone. Elizabeth Spellman had been so deeply shocked, so terrified and hurt, that she had succumbed and had gone down to the verge of ultimate collapse. It required the utmost efforts of Jemima, of Doctor Grayson, and friends of the Spellmans who came in flocks, to keep the proud and dainty woman alive. When her inherent strength triumphed over the blow that had been dealt her heart, her brain, and her body, she lay stretched upon her bed, one hand gripping into the coverlet that had been accustomed to covering Mahlon’s heart, the other clutching her own. The friends who attended her were compelled to watch closely in order to discover that she was breathing at all.
By the arrival of the third day the town had talked the matter over. Men had carried home news of the attachment upon the Spellman store. Women in passing had stopped and read it with horrified eyes. It was the talk of the streets and through the homes, that, but for the banker’s decency in the matter, the same attachment would now be decorating the Spellman front door. No one ever had thought of or voiced such a thing before. Mahlon Spellman’s dealings in real estate, the outward and visible sign of prosperity displayed by the Spellman home, the wife and the daughter, the constant attitude of Mahlon himself, had thoroughly convinced the citizens of his town that he was quite as prosperous as he desired every one to think that he was. Now it required the three days, and in some instances, longer, for people to adjust themselves to the idea that what they had thought was a pillar of stone was really one of papiermâché—a thing that could be picked up, crushed, and broken within an hour. Strictly in accordance with the old manifestations of human nature, the snake tongues of envy and jealousy and greed broke loose. The unconscious Mahlon, lying in inarticulate dignity, became a target. First people exclaimed in horror. They shed tears of sympathy. Very speedily they reached the point where they dissected Mahlon as an expert surgeon would use a knife. They laughed at his weaknesses. They felt for their ties; they flecked their sleeves; they looked at their shoes with exaggerated care. Women who only a week before had supposed themselves to be the dearest friends of Elizabeth Spellman, suddenly discovered that she had been too proud, and that “pride always goes before a fall.” Like a pack of hungry wolves they tore and worried every manifest characteristic of the dainty little woman who lay unconscious on the borderland. They blamed her every extravagance in the furnishing of her home. They pointed out the number of mantles, of shawls, and new gowns, of shoes and of bonnets, that she wore during a year. They sneered at the weakness which had made her spend her time and strength upon dressing and rearing Mahala as she had done. The air was thick with cold-blooded old maxims. Upon each lip there was heard the terse, sneering comment: “The higher you climb, the harder you fall.” Through curiosity they rallied around Mahala with some show of sympathy until her father had been borne to the church, down the aisle of which he had loved to walk in his pride, and then to his final resting place in the Ashwater cemetery out on the River Road, where the birds sang among the maples and the river, in a monotone, accompanied them all day; where in spring the cradle swung through the golden wheat and in fall the lowing of cattle was heard on the hills.
The next day the sheriff decorated the Spellman front door with a copy of the writ of attachment that appeared upon the store. Mahala was told by Albert Rich, the lawyer who knew more of her father’s affairs than any one else, and who had offered his help in her extremity, that there was very little if anything that could be saved, the Moreland claims were so heavy, so numerous. He would search the records diligently, and any possible thing that could be salvaged he would try to secure for her. He told her that the law would allow her to take for her use six hundred dollars’ worth of the household furniture, and looking at him with sick eyes, Mahala had said almost to space instead of to Attorney Rich: “My piano cost fifteen hundred.”
“Yes, I know,” said Albert Rich. “You mustn’t think of pianos to-day, my dear. You must think of a cook stove, a couple of beds, some bedding, dishes, and those things which you absolutely must have.”
From this interview Mahala went to the kitchen and laid her head on the breast of Jemima.
“Jemima,” she said, “now that you’ve had time to think things over, where do you stand? Do you feel toward us as you always did, or have you discovered that we are examples of monumental extravagance, whitened sepulchres who intentionally deceived our friends and neighbours?”
Jemima lifted a stove lid and poked the fire expertly. Then she carefully wiped her hands upon the corner of her apron, and took Mahala into her arms.
“You poor little lamb,” she said. “If I could get at the necks of some of these old hens that have let you hear what they’re saying, I’d wring ’em good and proper! The other day Serena Moulton came nosin’ into my kitchen with her whitened-sepulchre sentiments droolin’ from her lips, and I told her pretty quick to cheese it and get where she belonged among the other cats that was given over to clawin’!”
Mahala gripped her arms around Jemima’s broad shoulders and buried her face in her warm breast and cried until she was exhausted. Jemima sat down in the one easy chair conceded to her idle moments in the kitchen and held the girl closely.