“Well,” sez I cheerfully, “mebby I shall say it a dozen times more.”
I felt well, dretful well in my mind. It had come out just as I had hoped and prayed for, and why shouldn’t I feel good.
Well, they greeted us with warm affection. And you don’t know how pretty their home looked. It had been fixed up in their absence and Waitstill had put the finishin’ touches to it when she come. It wuz a gloomy spot under the Pooler regeem. But Waitstill wuz a true homemaker and could make a barn seem home like, as folks can that have that gift. You often see folks who think, or say they think, that one set of faculties henders another set from workin’. But it hain’t no such thing. Miss Pooler wuz nothin’ but a housekeeper, and as poor a one at that as you would be apt to find in a day’s travel, whilst Waitstill wuz a philanthropist, a missionary, an angel on earth if ever there 457 wuz one, and a homemaker and a home lover added to it, just as the Bible sez: “Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you,” or words to that effect.
The settin’-room and parlor that used to seem like a dark-green curtained mausoleum, sacred to the mournin’ pieces on the wall, and the hair wreaths of defunct Poolers wuz now the sunshinny hant of Beauty and Cheerfulness. Bay windows bordered with soft-colored glass, and curtained with fleecy white, let the sunshine stream into the pretty, freshly-decorated room, where it seemed to love to stay and shine. A conservatory full of blossoming plants made the settin’ and dinin’-rooms full of cheer and perfume.
One good stout German girl bore willin’ly the heaviest burdens of housekeeping, but Waitstill and Love and Good Judgment wuz to the hellum, and the result wuz beautiful. A happier household I don’t want to see, a better supper I don’t want to eat. Waitstill had some briled chicken, tender and toothsome, some creamed potatoes, fixed just right, light white rolls, yellow sweet butter made from their own Jersey cow’s milk, clear amber honey from their own beehives, sliced peaches from their own peach trees (it wuz a late kind, each one rolled up in newspapers, and put in a box in the suller and kep’ and purple and white grapes kep’ in the same way). Some pound cake made from my own reseet, a noble one that fell onto me from Mother Allen, and improved on by me, and some angel cake, made by Waitstill herself, and as snowy and delicious as if it wuz made by a real angel with wings, some fragrant coffee with rich cream to make it delicious, and chocolate for them that preferred it. A big glass bowl of roses and carnations wuz in the centre, and the table wuz spread with a snowy linen cloth, and sot with beautiful china, white with a gold and pink sprig on it, part of a big quantity sent by his rich folks, who wuz delighted to have him marry such a sweet girl and settle down, and the heavy shinin’ silver marked “W. W. W.,” lookin’ 458 some like a runnin’ vine, and the glossy linen tablecloths and napkins looking like satin covered with posies, come from the same source, also marked with her initials. Enough, Waitstill told me, to last ’em all their lives if they should live to be as old as Methusaler and his wife.
Well, I wuz glad enough to see their prosperity and happiness and when Ernest White sot to his own table by the side of Waitstill White and in a few short, eloquent, heart-felt words asked the Lord’s blessing on this new home consecrated to his service, and on his dear friends happily returned home agin, my heart echoed every word and there wuzn’t a dry eye in my head, not one.
After supper wuz over we sot out to go to the meetin’ he had spoke on. It wuz the openin’ night of the new library, which wuz in a pretty little buildin’ jined onto the meetin’-house and only a few minutes’ walk from Ernest and Waitstill White’s.
There wuz a good, large room for the library filled with good books helpful and inspirin’, bought partly by Ernest White and partly by voluntary contributions by his people, a reading-room filled with magazines and newspapers and which with the library wuz to be opened every evening and two afternoons in the weeks. And there wuz a cozy little settin’-room and bed-room with a kitchen back out for the librarian. And who do you spoze wuz to be librarian and live here clost to her idol? Oh, shaw! I might just as well told you right out as to have said that; it wuz Arvilly. It wuz congenial work to her and left her plenty of time to go round canvassin’ if she wanted to.
We wuz a little late for the meetin’, for a man come to see the Elder just as we wuz startin’, about marryin’ him the next day, and as anybody knows that has to be tended to ’tennyrate.
As we drawed nigh the library and meetin’-house we see they wuz lighted up in as friendly and pleasant a way as if they wuz two beacons set up to light our footsteps. And 459 as we went in we see a group of happy faced young people gathered round the organ practicin’ a piece they wuz learnin’ for Thanksgivin’.