Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century

by Nancy Huston Banks

Miss Judy turned to the young man with a soft little air and a touch of gentle pride that charmed him: "I am speaking, sir, of my sister, Miss Sophia Bramwell."

Thus delicately proclaiming Miss Sophia to be a personage whom it was an honor as well as an advantage to know, Miss Judy went indoors to ask, with the usual elaborate, punctilious ceremony, if she would be so kind as to take the trouble to come out to the front gate, where the doctor was waiting to consult her in an important matter; and where it would give herself the greatest pleasure to present old lady Gordon's grandson—who was waiting with the doctor,—provided, of course, that the introduction would be entirely agreeable to Miss Sophia. There were excellent reasons why Miss Judy thus begged Miss Sophia to come out instead of inviting the gentlemen to come in, but neither of the sisters then or ever spoke of these, nor of any other merely sordid things. It took Miss Judy some time, however, to make the request of Miss Sophia as politely as she fondly considered her due; and although it did not take Miss Sophia long to say "Just so, sister Judy," with all the accustomed promptness and decision, several minutes necessarily elapsed before she was really ready to appear. There was the getting up from, and the getting out of, her low arm-chair, always a difficult, tedious process; and there was the further time required for reaching up the chimney to get a bit of soot; and for fetching the heavy footstool clear across the big room to stand upon, in order to see in the mirror. Yet all this must be done ere she could go out. The sun was shining too brilliantly for even Miss Sophia to venture into the broad daylight without taking more than the usual precaution. Even she could not think of going out after having applied the soot haphazard, as she sometimes did in emergencies. But, fortunately, time was no consideration in Oldfield; and Miss Sophia was at last safely descended from the footstool and fully prepared to face the daylight and also the strange young gentleman from Boston.

Lynn could not help staring a little, thus taken unawares; unconsciously he had expected Miss Sophia to be like her sister. But the deference with which Miss Judy laid the case before her struck him as an exquisite thing, too fine and sweet and altogether lovely to be smiled at, either openly or secretly. He did not know then—as he soon came to understand—that Miss Sophia's ready and firm response was an unvaried formula which vaguely served most of her simple conversational requirements. But he did know, as soon as he saw the little old sisters together, how tenderly they loved one another. Miss Judy looked at him with undisguised pride in Miss Sophia, shining in her flax-flower eyes, turning again as pink as the sweetest of the blush roses, with delight in the firm promptness with which Miss Sophia responded. There was only the slightest involuntary movement of her proud little head toward her sister when the gentlemen were upon the point of leaving; but it nevertheless reminded the doctor to take Miss Sophia's hand before taking her own, when he bent down to touch their hands with his rough-bearded lips in old-time gallantry, half in jest and half in earnest, but wholly becoming to him no less than to the two serious little ladies.

The gentlemen were no sooner gone, leaving the sisters—or Miss Judy at least—to think over what had been said, than she began forthwith to devise ways and means of showing her sympathy with her neighbors, Anne and Tom, in their terrible affliction. Her first impulse was always to give—and she had so little to give, dear little Miss Judy! It now happily occurred to her, however, that Tom might like a taste of early green peas. Anne's were barely beginning to bloom, as Miss Judy could see by looking across the big road, and as she told Miss Sophia. No wonder Anne had neglected to plant them till late, poor thing! Who would have remembered the garden in the midst of such awful trouble as hers? And then it was still quite early in the season,—Miss Judy had gathered the first peas from her own vines only that morning, while the tender pale green pods were still wet with dew, as properly gathered vegetables should be. And, although she had gone carefully over the vines, cautiously lifting each waxen green tendril, fragrant with white blossoms, she had found but a handful of pods which were really well filled.

"But they are very sweet and delicate, and they will not seem so few if Merica puts them on a slice of toast and runs over with them while they are piping hot, before they have time to shrivel," Miss Judy said, smiling happily at her sister as she bustled about, getting a pan ready for the shelling of the peas.

Miss Sophia's face fell. She had been looking forward to those peas ever since breakfast. And she remembered that Miss Judy had sent Tom the earliest asparagus. But she assented as readily and as cheerfully as she could, and, drawing her low rocking-chair closer to Miss Judy's, resignedly settled herself to help with the shelling of the peas. The tinkling they made as they fell in the shining pan soon lulled her, for she never could sit still long and keep awake, so that she presently fell to nodding and straightening up and nodding again. Straightening up very resolutely, she began rocking slowly, trying in that way to keep from going to sleep.

"The creak of that old chair makes me sleepy too," said Miss Judy, smilingly, yet looking a little sad. "It sounds to-day just as it did when mother used it to rock us to sleep—just the same peaceful, contented, homely little creak. There!" she said as the last plump pea tinkled on the tin. "And I declare, sister Sophia, just look at all these fine fat hulls! Why, we can have some nice rich soup made out of them, as well as not!"

"Just so, sister Judy," Miss Sophia responded eagerly, at once wide awake and sitting up suddenly, quite straight. "And with plenty of thickening too."

"To be sure! What a head you have, sister Sophia," Miss Judy cried, admiringly. "And then we'll have something to send old Mr. Mills as well as Tom. Just to please Kitty," she added, seeing the shade which came over Miss Sophia's face, and misunderstanding its source. "It is ten to one but he will be in one of his tempers and throw the soup out of the window, as he did that dinner of Kitty's—dishes and all. But we can instruct Merica to hold on to the bowl till Kitty herself takes it from her. It always pleases Kitty so, for anybody to show the old man any little attention. And, after all, he is not so much to be blamed, poor old sufferer. Being bedfast with lumbago must be mighty trying to the temper. And then Sam, too, is threatened with a bad pain in his back every time he tries to do any work. It actually appears to come on if he even thinks about working, or if a body so much as mentions work before him. Maybe that's what makes Sam a bit irritable with the old man sometimes. But Kitty never is. All his crossness, all his unreasonableness, all his fault-finding—which is natural enough, poor old soul—just rolls off her good nature like water off a duck's back. She only laughs and pets him, and goes on trying harder then ever to please him. Did you ever see anybody like Kitty, sister Sophia?"

Miss Judy had arisen, gathering up her apron, which was filled with the pea-shells; but she now paused, holding the pan, to await Miss Sophia's reply with the greatest, keenest interest,—as she often did,—as though Miss Sophia, who had never been separated from her longer than two hours at a time in the whole course of their uneventful lives, might have known some peculiar and interesting persons, whom she herself had not been so fortunate as to meet. This was one of the things which made them such delightful company for one another. When, therefore, Miss Sophia now said, "Just so, sister Judy," with great promptness and decision, Miss Judy was newly impressed with the extent and soundness of her sister's knowledge of human nature.