Strangers and Wayfarers

by Sarah Orne Jewett

The weather-beaten farmhouse was deserted that day, as its former owner suspected. She boldly gathered some of her valued spice-apples, with an assuring sense of proprietorship as she crossed the last narrow field. The Browns, man and wife and little boy and baby, had hied them early to the fair with nearly the whole population of the countryside. The house and yard and out-buildings never had worn such an aspect of appealing pleasantness as when Mercy Bascom came near. She felt as if she were going to cry for a minute, and then hurried to get inside the gate. She saw the outgoing track of horses' feet with delight, but went discreetly to the door and knocked, to make herself perfectly sure that there was no one left at home. Out of breath and tired as she was, she turned to look off at the view. Yes, there was Tobias's place, prosperous and white-painted; she could just get a glimpse of the upper roofs and gables. It was always a sorrow and complaint that a low hill kept her from looking up at this farm from any of the windows, but now that she was at the farm itself she found herself regarding Tobias's home with a good deal of affection. She looked sharply with an apprehension of fire, but there was no whiff of alarming smoke against the dear sky.

"Now I must git me a drink o' that water first of anything," and she hastened to the creaking well-sweep and lowered the bucket. There was the same rusty, handleless tin dipper that she had left years before, standing on the shelf inside the well-curb. She was proud to find that the bucket was no heavier than ever, and was heartily thankful for the clear water. There never was such a well as that, and it seemed as if she had not been away a day. "What an old gal I be," said Mercy, with plaintive merriment. "Well, they ain't made no great changes since I was here last spring," and then she went over and held her face close against one of the kitchen windows, and took a hungry look at the familiar room. The bedroom door was open and a new sense of attachment to the place filled her heart. "It seems as if I was locked out o' my own home," she whispered as she looked in.

There were the same old spruce and pine boards that she had scrubbed so many times and trodden thin as she hurried to and fro about her work. It was very strange to see an unfamiliar chair or two, but the furnishings of a farm kitchen were much the same, and there was no great change. Even the cradle was like that cradle in which her own children had been rocked. She gazed and gazed, poor old Mother Bascom, and forgot the present as her early life came back in vivid memories. At last she turned away from the window with a sigh.

The flowers that she had planted herself long ago had bloomed all summer in the garden; there were still some ragged sailors and the snowberries and phlox and her favorite white mallows, of which she picked herself a posy. "I'm glad the old place is so well took care of," she thought, gratefully. "An' they've new-silled the old barn I do declare, and battened the cracks to keep the dumb creatures warm. 'T was a sham-built barn anyways, but 't was the best I could do when the child'n needed something every handturn o' the day. It put me to some expense every year, tinkering of it up where the poor lumber warped and split. There, I enjoyed try'n to cope with things and gettin' the better of my disadvantages! The ground's too rich for me over there to Tobias's; I don't want things too easy, for my part. I feel most as young as ever I did, and I ain't agoin' to play helpless, not for nobody.

"I declare for 't, I mean to come up here by an' by a spell an' stop with the young folks, an' give 'em a good lift with their work. I ain't needed all the time to Tobias' s now, and they can hire help, while these can't. I've been favoring myself till I'm as soft as an old hoss that's right out of pasture an' can't pull two wheels without wheezin'."

There was a sense of companionship in the very weather. The bees were abroad as if it were summer, and a flock of little birds came fluttering down close to Mrs. Bascom as she sat on the doorstep. She remembered the biscuits in her pocket and ate them with a hunger she had seldom known of late, but she threw the crumbs generously to her feathered neighbors. The soft air, the brilliant or fading colors of the wide landscape, the comfortable feeling of relationship to her surroundings all served to put good old Mercy into a most peaceful state. There was only one thought that would not let her be quite happy. She could not get her sister-in-law Ruth Parlet out of her mind. And strangely enough the old grudge did not present itself with the usual power of aggravation; it was of their early friendship and Ruth's good fellowship that memories would come.

"I declare for 't, I wouldn't own up to the folks, but I should like to have a good visit with Ruth if so be that we could set aside the past," she said, resolutely at last. "I never thought I should come to it, but if she offered to make peace I wouldn't do nothin' to hinder it. Not to say but what I should have to free my mind on one or two points before we could start fair. I've waited forty year to make one remark to Ruthy Parlet. But there! we're gettin' to be old folks." Mercy rebuked herself gravely. "I don't want to go off with hard feelins' to nobody." Whether this was the culmination of a long, slow process of reconciliation, or whether Mrs. Bascom's placid satisfaction helped to hasten it by many stages, nobody could say. As she sat there she thought of many things; her life spread itself out like a picture; perhaps never before had she been able to detach herself from her immediate occupation in this way. She never had been aware of her own character and exploits to such a degree, and the minutes sped by as she thought with deep interest along the course of her own history. There was nothing she was ashamed of to an uncomfortable degree but the long animosity between herself and the children's aunt. How harsh she had been sometimes; she had even tried to prejudice everybody who listened to these tales of an offender. "I wa'n't more 'n half right, now I come to look myself full in the face," said Mercy Bascom, "and I never owned it till this day."

The sun was already past noon, and the good woman dutifully rose and with instant consciousness of resource glanced in at the kitchen window to tell the time by a familiar mark on the floor. "I needn't start just yet," she muttered. "Oh my! how I do wish I could git in and poke round into every corner! 'T would make this day just perfect."

"There now!" she continued, "p'raps they leave the key just where our folks used to." And in another minute the key lay in Mercy's worn old hand. She gave a shrewd look along the road, opened the door, which creaked what may have been a hearty welcome, and stood inside the dear old kitchen. She had not been in the house alone since she left it, but now she was nobody's guest. It was like some shell-fish finding its own old shell again and settling comfortably into the convolutions. Even we must not follow Mother Bascom about from the dark cellar to the hot little attic. She was not curious about the Browns' worldly goods; indeed, she was nearly unconscious of anything but the comfort of going up and down the short flight of stairs and looking out of her own windows with nobody to watch.

"There's the place where Tobias scratched the cupboard door with a nail. Didn't I thrash him for it good?" she said once with a proud remembrance of the time when she was a lawgiver and proprietor and he dependent.