PART II.—FANNY AND JACK.
Chapter I.—Annie’s Story Continued.
AFTER FIVE YEARS.
It is a question whether one can truly love more than once. I do not think a woman can. But men are different and seem capable of many loves. If anyone doubts this let him recall the number of widows and widowers among his acquaintance, and see if there are not fifty per cent. more of the former than of the latter. Three women had called my father husband and I believe he had loved them all devotedly, but whether it was the suddenness of the blow, or because he missed the force and energy which had kept him going, the death of the last Mrs. Hathern crushed him completely, and made him an old man at once.
“I don’t know what ails me, girls, but since your mother died I don’t seem to have any life or ambition left. I am like a clock which has run down and can’t be wound up again,” he would say to us when he came in from a walk into town or country where he still had a few patients of the old school.
He had never spoken to us of Mrs. Hathern as our mother while she lived; but now that she was dead he always mentioned her in that way, and we humored him, and sometimes called her so ourselves, and petted and made much of him, and felt that, like him, we were ships without rudders and didn’t know how to run ourselves. Especially was this the case with Phyllis, who needed whip and spur to keep her in the harness.
“I ’clars to goodness I don’t know nothin’ now the missus isn’t here to boss,” she said, as she sat on the bench outside the cabin door, her feet stretched out in front of her, her hands idly folded on her lap, her ironing neglected and her irons cooling on the hearth.
Only Norah kept her balance and went steadily on her way, her shoes creaking a good deal and her sharp tongue often lashing Phyllis when she got too far out of line. For three or four months Norah staid with us and then, as it was impossible for us to pay her the wages she had been receiving, she left us for Boston. But not until she had everything in what she called “apple pie order,” an expression which, I think, must belong exclusively to the east, as it was a favorite with Mrs. Hathern, and I have never heard it elsewhere. Owing to her delicate health Mrs. Hathern had deferred the spring cleaning, which she intended to take in hand as soon as her illness was over. But death snatched her away and it was left for Norah to carry out her plans, which she did with a vengeance. Everything was turned topsy-turvey, as it had been the year before when Mrs. Hathern was the presiding genius of brush and broom and soap suds. There was, however, this difference, there were no carpenters and masons and plumbers blocking the way, or hired negroes either. Knowing the low state of our finances Norah did everything herself with the little help she could extort from Phyllis. That functionary had taken to violent fits of short breath when there was more than usual to do. “Physicy,” she called it, and she had it badly now and wheezingly protested against so much useless cleaning. A little dirt was healthy, she said, and privately we sympathized with her, and were glad when Norah told us that we needn’t go through with quite so much in the fall. Boston folks didn’t as a rule.
“Wash the windows; wipe the fly-specks from the paint; air everything, and give the rest a lick and a promise and let it go till spring, when mabby I’ll visit you and see to the annual clean myself,” she said. Then, as a happy inspiration seized her, she added: “There are a few things you must see to every day, and as I know you won’t remember ’em all I’ll write ’em down.”
The result of this was a long document so full of what we were to do and not to do that I felt dizzy and bewildered as I read it, and then passed it on to Fan, who, with no fancy for housekeeping, threw it aside. This morning while looking over a trunk of old papers I came across that sheet of foolscap, written nearly thirty years ago, yellow with age, blurred and blotted and wonderful for composition and orthography. There were tear stains upon it, too, as I re-read it and thought of all which had happened since the autumnal day when Norah first brought it to me and asked me to nail it up in the pantry where it could be seen every day. I will give a few extracts: “Fust and fornenst, don’t let Phyllis make a pig-sty of my kitchen. I’ve kept it so clane that I can need bred in it anywhere; don’t let her get pot black all over the table, and greese on the floor; don’t let her leave the kittles on the range till they bile dry, specially the Te kittle. Ittle leek, and hev to be mended, an’t costs money; an’ there an’t no Miss Hathern to pay the bills now; don’t let her put the wash biler away till she’s wiped it and the cover dry, or the close will be all iron rust; don’t let her open all the draffs and pile the cole on till the griddles is red hot, an’ the fire all going up the chimly. Ittle warp ’em an’ spile the range. Make her hang up the broom, or stand it on end. Ittle last longer. An’ ef I’se you, I wouldn’t use gilt ege chany every day as Miss Hathern did. You’se them tothers. An’ don’t let Phyllis jab her big black thum into that mended place on the vegetable dish. Ittle break sure. An’ don’t let her slat her things round everywhere in my nice kitchen. Tell her Miss Hathern will appear to her some nite if she does. That’ll fetch her. She’s afraid of spooks.”
All this, and much more, Norah wrote, and I promised to follow her instructions as well as I could. Then one morning in October the ‘bus which had brought her to us came to take her away. Lifting the baby from his cradle she cried over and kissed him and, assuring us that he was not long for this world, he looked so pimpin, she put him back and said good-bye and went away, while we watched her as far as we could see her with swelling hearts and tearful eyes, wondering how we should get on without her.