The Loves of Ambrose

by Margaret Vandercook

With a nervous trembling Elizabeth smoothed the old man's pillows, tucking his blankets in more closely about him. "I'm reel glad fer you, Uncle Ambrose; then you won't be needin' me much longer."

But the old man shook his head. "Set down, 'Lizabeth, I want to talk to you; I don't want my supper, leastways not yet."

But when Elizabeth had seated herself by the side of his bed for a time he continued silent while his glance wandered from the spot where his daguerreotype hung alongside the wall to the figure of the elderly worried spinster, and once catching a reflection of himself in the looking glass with a night cap tied under his chin and then a vision of Elizabeth, suddenly his blue eyes under their overhanging brows brimmed over.

"'Lizabeth," he inquired at length, "did I ever show you the picture of my Em'ly?"

"You ain't exactly showed it to me," she replied kindly, "but I been seein' it every day when I come in here to clean; she's got a kind of different face; it's a pity she had to leave you."

Uncle Ambrose only cleared his throat a trifle more huskily. "You're a good woman, too, 'Lizabeth, and so was little Sarah and Peachy Tarwater, and you're makin' my declinin' days peacefuller, givin' me a chance to relish things that is past, and to hope fer things to come. Not that I kin say you're one mortal bit like Em'ly, cause you ain't, but all women 'a' got different ways, fer which the Lord be praised. I been lyin' here thinkin' a darn sight lately; ain't had much else to do." But if Uncle Ambrose expected a look of understanding in his companion's face at this he was disappointed. "I know I got to vacate this earthly tenement pretty soon, and though I've had good times and sorry in the building I ain't objectin' to quit. Seems like a new dwellin' house 'll give us more light and space. It's many times I've wondered ef mebbe the spirits of them that love us ain't always hoverin' close, ef only we had the right kind of windows to look out at 'em with. Why, child, there's certainly been times when I've felt my Em'ly's arms a-holdin' me up and her wings brushin' my face. She's done been helpin' me about you lately; 'cause you see I know she'd always want me to do anything that'd make me comfortable and——"

But Elizabeth was not listening to the old man's soliloquy. She was thinking of herself, trying to tear out the tendrils that had grown so close about Uncle Ambrose's house, which had lately come to seem so like her own. So finally when she could bear the pain no longer she rose and started stumbling from the room.

Uncle Ambrose called out after her. "Don't go, 'Lizabeth, and don't try to stop cryin'. Tears is nachural to some women and you sure are one of 'em. I ought to be used to 'em by now. 'Lizabeth, I don't want you to leave me; I want you to stay by me till my trumpet sounds." Elizabeth shook her head.

"Think you got to go 'cause of what Susan Jr. said?" Uncle Ambrose's long nose twitched between amusement and scorn. "Good Lord! why is it the good women that is so afeard of talk?" he muttered to himself. "But thinkin' it all out kireful, 'Lizabeth, I ain't able to let you go. I can't stan' livin' 'thout female aid, and there ain't no use me tryin'. So now you listen to me. When I'm out o' this bed, and it'll be to-morrow, do you think you could bring yourself to marry me?" Uncle Ambrose laughed. "Don't git scaired, child; ef you ain't heard them words before it ain't the first time I've said 'em. But don't you answer me too quick; think it over and when you come back after fixin' my supper 's time enough, for I ain't yet told you all I been steddyin' over, believin' the rest 'd come in better later on."

Then while Elizabeth was away this lover of many women lay with his dim old eyes still steadfast upon the picture of her who after all was "the only woman." "You feel I'm doin' what's best, don't you, honey?" he said with the completeness of a perfect union. "She's poor and lonesome and homely, but I've worked it out so it'll be all right."