Judith Moore; or, Fashioning a Pipe

by Joanna E. Wood

Mrs. Morris came fussily to the door. "Miss Myers, let me make you acquainted with Miss Moore. Come right in; sit down. Won't take off your things? Well, now, that's real mean! I quite expected you'd come for a good visit. Whatever be these dogs a-yelping at? Well, it beats all! Just look at 'em," pointing out at the sitting-room window, which gave a view of the orchard.

In the cleft of an apple-tree, just beyond the reach of the dogs' leaps, sat the cat, an insulting indifference expressed in every line of her crouching shape, turning a calm countenance to her impotent foes. The collie, seduced by the example of Rufus, had cast aside the veneer of amity overlying his natural instinct, and now careered round and round the tree trunk, making futile leaps at the cat; whilst Rufus stood uttering the characteristically mournful bark of his breed, and waving his feathery tail as if courtesy might induce the cat to descend and be worried. However, the cat was an old-stager. Her narrowed eyes gleamed venomously, and she thought evil thoughts, but that was all.

"Old Tab 'll tire them dogs out before they get through with her," said Mrs. Morris, placidly; and sometime later, when the ladies looked forth again, the cat was delicately walking along the top of the board fence, and the two dogs were in full cry after a squirrel. It is probable that those dogs, before they slept that night, wondered many a time and oft what trees were created for, if not specially intended to deprive decent dogs of a little legitimate sport.

Mrs. Morris, when she had no company, occupied her spare time in "teaming" the wool shorn from the sheep, preparatory to sending it to the woollen mill; but she did not bring this work into the sitting-room. She brought in her braided mat. First she sewed strips of cloth together, and when she had three differently coloured balls made, she braided them into a flat strand, then she sewed that round and round, till it grew into a mat. All the rag carpets in Mrs. Morris' house were bestrewn with these mats, placed at irregular intervals, but practice and instinct so guided Mrs. Morris' feet, that she never, by any chance, no matter how engrossed she might be in other matters, stepped upon a space of carpet. There was something very interesting about this. She did it so unconsciously, so accurately, like an erratic automaton. It is true this practice did not conduce to a Delsartean evenness of step: and indeed, Mrs. Morris, when walking through the fields, or along the road, carried in her gait the replica of the floor plan of her first three rooms. Through the front room, the sitting-room, the kitchen, that was the course she mapped upon the road she travelled again and again. The wily Vivien would not have won readily the secret of Mrs. Morris' woven paces.

Miss Myers took off her shade hat and held it on her lap. Judith sat prettily erect, bending forward now and then, as if alert to answer Miss Myers' commonplaces—a flattering attitude that. Mrs. Morris braided her strands firmly, looking benignantly over her spectacles, which, having slipped down to the very point of her nose, by some miracle preserved a tentative hold. Their precarious position gave Miss Myers "nerves." She clasped her thin hands tightly "to stiddy herself up."

They talked of the every-day incidents of their homely lives. The first question that came up was house-cleaning, a very vital matter to the country housewife in spring and autumn. Of course, these two women, being notable house-keepers, had theirs done long ago, but there were others—well, neither of these ladies wished to make remarks, least of all about their neighbours, still—

Then they discussed the proper time for picking the geese (that is, denuding the live geese of the feathers they would otherwise lose), and both had often noticed the wilful waste of the Greens, in letting their geese go unplucked, so that the village street was snowed with wasted feathers which floated about in the air, or sailed, the most fragile of crafts, in the little water-cressed stream. This led naturally to the mysterious disappearance of Hiram Green's twelve geese, a story retold for Judith's benefit.

Once when Hiram Green was breaking in a colt in his barn-yard, the dogs frightened it, and between Hiram's shouts, the dogs' barks and the colt's plunging, the geese, twelve in number, took unto themselves wings and flew away. The fact that they were able to do this reflected directly upon Hiram's management, and pronounced it poor, for, of course, he should have taken the precaution of clipping the feathers of one wing, as every one did, to prevent just such losses. However, the geese flew away. In the excitement of the moment the direction of their flight was unnoted, but willing volunteers spread the news, and defined the ownership of any stray geese which might be found. The Hornes lived in a house very near the crest of the hill upon the south; so near to the top was it, that it gave the impression of wanting to sneak away out of sight of the village. It seemed to withdraw itself from the village gaze, and had a secretive and uncommunicative look. Perhaps the house did not really deserve this description, but popular opinion accorded it. The Hornes were aliens to Ovid: no one knew much about them, and that in itself is a grievance in such a place as Ovid. Well, a zealous searcher for the geese inquired of Mrs. Horne for tidings of them. Mrs. Horne, standing upon her doorstep, regretted Hiram's loss and deplored not having seen them. The messenger departed. But "people talked" as people will when such coincidences occur—when on the next market day Mr. Horne sold twelve fine fat geese, whilst his own pursued the even tenor of their way unmolested.

There was no proof of mal-appropriation, for a dead goose does not usually bear many distinctive marks of individuality—still, people talked. And the next day, when Mrs. Horne bought ticking in Hiram's store, to make a couple of pillows, Hiram felt aggrieved as he tied it up, and vaguely wondered if this was not "seething the kid in its mother's milk." Neither Miss Myers nor Mrs. Morris committed herself to any definite expression of opinion as to the Hornes' responsibility in the matter, for neither of them wished to give the other the opportunity of quoting her verdict, but they shook their heads at each other, and raised their eyebrows and pursed up their lips, and then abruptly branched off to another question, which happened to be whether or not it was advisable to soak carrot seeds in water before planting—the implied decision in the goose question amounting practically to the "Not Proven" verdict of the Scotch courts, than which nothing is more damning.

At last Mrs. Morris' spectacles did fall off, and Miss Myers' nervous start had a good deal of relief in it. A crisis is best over.