XVIII
AN EMBARRASSING ACCIDENT
The fluttering of Miss Judy's heart still kept her from fixing a day for the tea-party, anxious as she was to do so. Certain small domestic irregularities also interfered with her plan. For some time past she had been much disturbed and perplexed by Merica's disappearing at unusual hours and in a most unaccountable manner, so that her simple and methodical household affairs had lately become gravely disordered.
On the morning after she had seen Doris and Lynn returning through the fragrant dusk from their visit to the graveyard, she felt so happy and strong that she resolved to give the tea-party on the following day, no matter how her heart might misbehave. It was really silly, as she said to Miss Sophia, to give up important things merely because your heart tried, every now and then, to jump out of your mouth and sometimes would hardly beat at all. It was so silly that she did not intend to do it any longer. But on going to the kitchen, in order to put her plans in motion at once, she was dismayed to find Merica missing, as she had been very often of late. Miss Judy saw, too, that the fire had not been kindled behind the gooseberry bushes; that not a single spiral of blue smoke arose above the thick green screen. She consequently began worrying in her mild way, wondering where Merica could be, and what the girl could mean by such unheard-of neglect of duty, especially on Monday morning. Hurrying around the house, the little lady went to the gate and looked anxiously up and down the big road. No one was in sight except Tom Watson, sitting in his accustomed place; but the sight of him always brought Miss Judy to an humble and almost frightened sense of her own mercies. She shook her head, and then bent it reverently, making with her little hand an unconscious gesture, which called up thoughts of the sign of the cross.
Ashamed to be worrying over such a small matter with Tom Watson's affliction in view, she forgot all about Merica, and, following her instinct to do something for those who were suffering, she went into the house to hold a consultation with Miss Sophia as to whether they had anything which they might send to Tom Watson, since they could do nothing else for him.
"There's that pretty tender little head of late lettuce," said Miss Judy, tentatively. "I am afraid, though, that Tom won't care much about it, but I can't think of anything else. And it's only to show our sympathy, anyway," she pleaded, seeing the reluctance in Miss Sophia's face and misunderstanding its meaning. "It would really make quite a picture if we were to put it on mother's best china plate, the one with the wreath of roses. And it would please poor Anne, whether poor Tom notice or not."
So busy was Miss Judy by this time, bustling about, preparing the little offering, that she hardly observed Merica's sudden reappearance, and did not think to hold her to an accounting for her absence. Merely telling her to make haste in starting the fire behind the gooseberry bushes, so that she might run across the big road with the plate of lettuce as soon as possible, Miss Judy thought only of giving pleasure to her neighbors. When the rose-wreathed green gift was ready the girl said, rather sullenly, that she did not see how she could be taking things to everybody all over the neighborhood and watching the boiling of the clothes at the same time, Miss Judy replied gently, though with a vivid blush, that she herself would watch the wash-kettle. This was an unpleasant task which the little lady had rarely attempted, but now she bravely entered upon it without flinching.
The white mysteries of the wash-kettle were by this time thickly veiled by a snowy cloud of steam. Its contents, boiling furiously, lifted big bubbles dangerously close to the dry, hot edge of the great black kettle. Miss Judy gingerly took up the wet stick which Merica had laid down, and timidly tried to push the bubbles away; but the harder her weak little hand pushed, the higher and bigger the bubbles arose. Frightened, and not knowing what else to do, Miss Judy knelt beside the steaming caldron, looking amid the smoke and steam like some pretty little witch working some good incantation, and tremblingly drew one of the blazing brands from beneath the kettle. As she moved the brand, a fountain of sparks from it shot upward, to come showering down, and one of these fell upon the biggest and whitest of the bubbles. Miss Judy saw this as it settled, and, although the kettle's contents were an indistinguishable, foaming mass, she knew instinctively that it was not one of Miss Sophia's or one of her own garments, which had been burned. She sank down on Merica's stool, near the gray border of spice pinks, with her limbs shaking so that she could not stand, and her heart beating as it had never beaten before or since the night of the fright. When she could move to get up, she crept over to the kettle and firmly pushed the black spot out of sight. But she said nothing to Merica about it, when the maid returned, more sour and sullen than she had gone away. In silence and dejection Miss Judy went back to the house, and tried to think what was best to do. Ordinarily she turned to Miss Sophia for advice in trouble or perplexity, resting with perfect trust upon the counsel which she thought she received. But this serious accident, which must distress her sister, she now locked in her own bosom. Had Lynn Gordon's shirts been ordinary shirts she felt that the matter would have been very much simpler. By severer economy, she thought that she might possibly have been able to buy him a new garment; although it was hard even for Miss Judy to see how the economy which they practised could be severer than it always was. But the little pension for their father's military services would not be due for another six months, and, moreover, Miss Judy would not have known where or how to get the costly, mysterious garment had she had the money, or how to find the fine tucks and the finer embroidery, which she had admired so greatly, though secretly, of course. She knew how fine the needle-work was, because she herself had been an expert needle-woman in the days when her blue eyes were stronger. For a moment a wild hope of copying the burned shirt, of working the same little rim of delicate tracery around the button holes, darted thrillingly across her troubled mind; but in another instant it was dismissed—wholly gone—with a sigh. She remembered, blushingly, that she had once heard Sidney say that the Queen of Sheba could not make a shirt that the King of Sheba would wear. Miss Judy did not remember ever having read in the Scriptures anything about the King of Sheba, but she had confidence in Sidney's opinions of a good many matters which she felt herself to be no judge of. No, there was plainly nothing to be done, except to darn the hole as neatly as possible, and to tell Lynn the simple truth. Luckily, Miss Judy had reason to believe that the injury had not been to the splendid, embroidered, tucked, and ruffled bosom. She blushed again more vividly—and then she turned very white as a sudden thought stabbed her like a dagger. Ah, the poor little heart! It was fluttering indeed now, and beating its soft wings like a caged wild bird.
The effect of the accident upon Doris's prospects—that was the dread which suddenly struck terror to Miss Judy's heart! What would the young gentleman and his worldly, critical grandmother think, when they thus knew that she and Miss Sophia were aware of what was going on behind the gooseberry bushes? Up to this crisis the means by which Merica earned the larger portion of her wages had seemed so distinctly apart from Miss Judy's own affairs, that she had felt no personal concern about it, beyond an occasional and passing embarrassment. Now, however, the matter became, all at once, widely different. How could she offer Doris the disrespect of making an explanation? Come what would that must be avoided, for Doris's dear sake, let the cost be what it may. A few gentle tears trickled down Miss Judy's cheeks as she sat patiently darning Miss Sophia's stockings, while the latter rocked and nodded, observing nothing unusual.
Many fanciful, impractical schemes flitted through Miss Judy's mind, rather sadly at first, but gradually turning toward her natural hopefulness. The end of her thoughts now, as always, was self-sacrifice, and the sparing of others, her sister and Doris above all. If the worst came to the worst, she could get the doctor to buy a new garment; he would know what to get and where to get it,—he would even loan her the money if she were forced to borrow. Meantime, with innate optimism, she was hoping for the best, relying upon being able to mend the burned hole, which might not be so large or so black, after all. Miss Judy's cheerful spirit could no more be held down by ill luck than an unweighted cork can be kept under water. When she laid her little head beside Miss Sophia's that night, her brain was still busily turning ways and means. If the severest economy became necessary, her sister still need not know. Once before (when their father's funeral expenses were to be met), she had been entirely successful in keeping the straits to which they were reduced from Miss Sophia's knowledge. Fortunately that hard time had come in the winter, and a turkey sent them by Colonel Fielding as a Christmas present stayed hard frozen, except as it was cooked, a piece at a time, for Miss Sophia, till the whole immense turkey had been eaten in sections by that unsuspecting lady. Miss Judy chuckled in triumph, lying there in the darkness, remembering how artful she had been in keeping Miss Sophia from observing that she herself had not tasted the turkey, and of her deep diplomacy in merely allowing Miss Sophia to think it a fresh one, every now and then, without telling an actual fib. It was warm weather now, to be sure, which made a difference—and poor Colonel Fielding could send no more presents, but the way would open nevertheless, somehow; dear Miss Judy was always sure that the way would open. No matter how severely they might have to economize in order to spare Doris a great mortification, Miss Sophia need not be deprived of her few comforts. And it was for this, to spare her sister, that Miss Judy resolved to remain silent, much as she valued Miss Sophia's advice. In the darkness of the big old room a little thin hand reached out and softly patted Miss Sophia's broad back with a protecting tenderness, full of the true mother-love.