It was very quiet and lonely in the Bigelow house that day, Aunt Barbara walking softly and speaking slowly, as if the form of someone dead had been borne from her side, while on the bed, which the housemaid Betty had made so plump and round there was a cavity made by Aunt Barbara's head, which hid itself there many times as the good woman went repeatedly to God with the pain gnawing so at her heart. But in the evening, when a cheerful wood fire was kindled on the hearth of her pleasant sitting room, while Mrs. Captain Markham came in with her knitting work, to sit until the Captain called for her on his return from the meeting where he was to oppose with all his might the building of a new schoolhouse, to pay for which he would be heavily taxed, she felt better, and could talk composedly of the travelers, who by that time were nearing Rochester, where they would spend the night.
Although very anxious to reach home, Richard had promised that Ethelyn should only travel through the day, as she was not as strong as before her illness. And to this promise he adhered, so that it was near the middle of the afternoon of the fifth day that the last change was made, and they took the train that would in two hours' time deposit them at Olney. At Camden, the county seat, they waited for a few moments. There was always a crowd of people here going out to different parts of the country, and as one after another came into the car Richard seemed to know them all, while the cordial and rather noisy greeting which they gave "the Judge" struck Ethelyn a little oddly--it was so different from the quiet, undemonstrative manner to which she had been accustomed. With at least a dozen men in shaggy overcoats and slouched hats she shook hands with a tolerably good grace, but when there appeared a tall, lank, bearded young giant of a fellow, with a dare-devil expression in his black eyes and a stain of tobacco about his mouth, she drew back, and to his hearty "How are ye, Miss Markham? Considerable tuckered out, I reckon?" she merely responded with a cool bow and a haughty stare, intended to put down the young man, whom Richard introduced as "Tim Jones," and who, taking a seat directly in front of her, poured forth a volley of conversation, calling Richard sometimes "Dick," sometimes "Markham," but oftener "Squire," as he had learned to do when Richard was justice of the peace in Olney. Melinda, too, or "Melind," was mentioned as having been over to the "Squire's house helping the old lady to fix up a little," and then Ethelyn knew that the "savage" was no other than brother to Abigail Jones, deceased. The discovery was not a pleasant one, and did not tend to smooth her ruffled spirits or lessen the feeling of contempt for Western people in general, and Richard's friends in particular, which had been growing in her heart ever since the Eastern world was left behind and she had been fairly launched upon the great prairies of the Mississippi Valley. Richard was a prince compared with the specimens she had seen, though she did wonder that he should be so familiar with them, calling them by their first names, and even bandying jokes with the terrible Tim Jones spitting his tobacco juice all over the car floor and laughing so loudly at all the "Squire" said. It was almost too dreadful to endure, and Ethelyn's head was beginning to ache frightfully when the long train came to a pause, and the conductor, who also knew Judge Markham, and called him "Dick," screamed through the open door "O-l-ney!"
Ethelyn was at home at last.
CHAPTER VI
MRS. MARKHAM'S WAYS
They were very peculiar, and no one knew this better than Mrs. Jones and her daughter Melinda, sister and mother to the deceased Abigail and the redoubtable Tim. Naturally bright and quick-witted, Melinda caught readily at any new improvement, and the consequence was that the Jones house bore unmistakable signs of having in it a grown-up daughter whose new ideas of things kept the old ideas from rusting. After Melinda came home from boarding-school the Joneses did not set the table in the kitchen close to the hissing cook stove, but in the pleasant dining room, where there gradually came to be crocheted tidies on the backs of the rocking-chairs, and crayon sketches on the wall, and a pot of geraniums in the window, with a canary bird singing in his cage near by. At first, Mrs. Markham, who felt a greater interest in the Joneses than in any other family--Mrs. Jones being the only woman in the circle of her acquaintance to whom she would lend her copper boiler--looked a little askance at these "new-fangled notions," wondering how "Miss Jones expected to keep the flies out of her house if she had all the doors a-flyin' three times a day," and fearing lest Melinda was getting "stuck-up notions in her head, which would make her fit for nothing."
But when she found there were no more flies buzzing in Farmer Jones' kitchen than in her own, and that Melinda worked as much as ever, and was just as willing to lend a helping hand when there was need of haste at the Markham house, her anxiety subsided, and the Joneses were welcome to eat wherever they chose, or even to have to wait upon the table, when there was company, the little black boy Pete, whom Tim had bought at a slave auction in New Orleans, whither he had gone on a flatboat expedition two or three years before. But she never thought of introducing any of Melinda's notions into her own household. She "could not fuss" to keep so many rooms clean. If in winter time she kept a fire in the front room, where in one corner her own bed was curtained off, and if in summer she always sat there when her work was done, it was all that could be required of her, and was just as they used to do at her father's, in Vermont, thirty years ago. Her kitchen was larger than Mrs. Jones', which was rather uncomfortable on a hot day when there was washing to be done; the odor of the soap-suds was a little sickening then, she admitted, but in her kitchen it was different; she had had an eye to comfort when they were building, and had seen that the kitchen was the largest, airiest, lightest room in the house, with four windows, two outside doors, and a fireplace, where, although they had a stove, she dearly loved to cook just as her mother had done in Vermont, and where hung an old-fashioned crane, with iron hooks suspended from it. Here she washed, and ironed, and ate, and performed her ablutions in the bright tin basin which stood in the sink near to the pail, with the gourd swinging in the top, and wiped her face on the rolling towel and combed her hair before the clock, which served the double purpose of looking-glass and timepiece. When company came--and Mrs. Markham was not inhospitable--the east room, where the bed stood, was opened; and if the company, as was sometimes the case, chanced to be Richard's friends, she used the west room across the hall, where the chocolate-colored paper and Daisy's picture hung, and where, upon the high mantel, there was a plaster image of little Samuel, and two plaster vases filled with colored fruit. The carpet was a very pretty Brussels, but it did not quite cover the floor on either side. It was a small pattern, and on this account had been offered a shilling cheaper a yard, and so the economical Mrs. Markham had bought it, intending to eke out the deficiency with drugget of a corresponding shade; but the merchant did not bring the drugget, and the carpet was put down, and time went on, and the strips of painted board were still uncovered, save by the straight row of haircloth chairs, which stood upon one side, and the old-fashioned sofa, which had cost fifty dollars, and ought to last at least as many years. There was a Boston rocker, and a center table, with the family Bible on it, and a volume of Scott's Commentaries, and frosted candlesticks on the mantel and two sperm candles in them, with colored paper, pink and green, all fancifully notched and put around them, and a bureau in the corner, which held the boys' Sunday shirts and Mrs. Markham's black silk dress, with Daisy's clothes in the bottom drawer, and the silver plate taken from her coffin. There was a gilt-framed looking-glass on the wall, and blue paper curtains at the windows, which were further ornamented with muslin drapery. This was the great room--the parlor--where Daisy had died, and which, on that account, was a kind of sacred place to those who held the memory of that sweet, little prairie blossom as the dearest memory of their lives. Had she lived, with her naturally refined tastes, and her nicety of perceptions, there was no guessing what that farmhouse might have been, for a young girl makes a deal of difference in any family. But she died, and so the house, which when she died, was not quite finished, remained much as it was--a large, square building, minus blinds, with a wide hall in the center opening in front upon a broad piazza, and opening back upon a stoop, the side entrance to the kitchen. There was a picket fence in front; but the yard was bare of ornament, if we except the lilac bushes under the parlor windows, the red peony in the corner, and the clumps of violets and daisies, which grew in what was intended for borders to the walk, from the front gate to the door. Sometimes the summer showed here a growth of marigolds, with sweet peas and china asters, for Andy was fond of flowers, and when he had leisure he did a little floral gardening; but this year, owing to Richard's absence, there had been more to do on the farm, consequently the ornamental had been neglected, and the late autumn flowers which, in honor of Ethelyn's arrival, were standing in vases on the center table and the mantel, were contributed by Melinda Jones, who had been very busy in other portions of the house working for the bride.
She could do this now without a single pang of jealousy, for she was a sensible girl, and after a night and a day of heaviness, and a vague sense of disappointment, she had sung as merrily as ever, and no one was more interested in the arrival of Richard's bride than she, from the time when Richard started eastward for her. Between herself and her mother there had been a long, confidential conversation, touching Mrs. Markham's ways and the best means of circumventing them, so that the new wife might not be utterly crushed with homesickness and surprise when she first arrived. No one could manage Mrs. Markham as well as Melinda, and it was owing to her influence wholly that the large, pleasant chamber, which had been Richard's ever since he became a growing man, was renovated and improved until it presented a very inviting appearance. The rag carpet which for years had done duty, and bore many traces of Richard's muddy boots, had been exchanged for a new ingrain--not very pretty in design, or very stylish either, but possessing the merit of being fresh and clean. To get the carpet Melinda had labored assiduously, and had enlisted all three of the brothers, James, and John, and Andy in the cause before the economical mother consented to the purchase. The rag carpet, if cleaned and mended, was as good as ever, she insisted; and even if it were not, she could put on one that had not seen so much actual service. It was Andy who finally decided her to indulge in the extravagance urged by Melinda Jones. There were reasons why Andy was very near to his mother's heart, and when he offered to sell his brown pony, which he loved as he did his eyes, his mother yielded the point, and taking with her both Mrs. Jones and Melinda, went to Camden, and sat two mortal hours upon rolls of carpeting while she decided which to take.
Mrs. Markham was not stingy with regard to her table; that was always loaded with the choicest of everything, while many a poor family blessed her as an angel. But the articles she ate were mostly the products of their large, well-cultivated farm; they did not cost money directly out of her hand, and it was the money she disliked parting with, so she talked and dickered, and beat the Camden merchant down five cents on a yard, and made him cut it a little short, to save a waste, and made him throw in the thread and binding and swear when she was gone, wondering who "the stingy old woman was." And yet the very day after her return from Camden "the stingy old woman" had sent to her minister a loaf of bread and a pail of butter, and to a poor sick woman, who lived in a leaky cabin off in the prairie, a nice, warm blanket for her bed, with a basket of delicacies to tempt her capricious appetite.