Did I not say there was only one store at The Harbor? I beg Miss P. Green’s pardon. She did not claim in so many words to “keep store,” and yet if anybody had actually denied her right to the use of that grand word, “store,” there would have been a tempest at The Harbor. She merely said that she “kept a few little articles”; and yet the black king of the Bigboos in the depths of Africa, would not think more of a red handkerchief and a hand looking–glass, than Miss P. Green did of her three shelves of “goods,” and one small show–case of pins, needles, gooseberries, lemon drops, and stationary, in her front room. Gooseberries and lemon drops, I say, for Miss P. Green kept only these, believing that you could sell more if you kept one article, and “got your name up” on the merits of that one article. In this case there were two articles; but never were there such gooseberries before, nor have there been such lemon drops since. The gooseberries would have been excellent to pitch with—just big, and hard, and round enough—at a game of baseball; and as for the lemon drops, into what rapture those sugared acids, or that acidulated sugar rather, would throw any schoolboy or girl, at “recess–time.” Then Miss P. Green kept the post–office! There is no adjective I can now recall, of sufficient magnitude and magnificence to represent the importance which Miss P. Green attached to this position. Her ideas were not unduly exalted until she had seen the Boston post–office, and enjoyed an interview with the Boston post–master. She then felt that her position was unusual. She never looked upon her humble wooden walls as she came down the street, but that they changed to a granite façade, with lofty doors and pillars; and when she entered her abode she walked at once upon a marble pavement. What importance she felt when she handled the stamp, whose magic impress she must first make, before any letter could start on its travels from The Harbor. The Great Charlemagne pounding with his golden seal, did not feel half as grand. And those clumsy leathern pouches that were called mai–lbags, and which only Miss P. Green could open—how she venerated them! True Billings, the driver of the mail–wagon, handled them roughly, and pitched them upon the doorstep without ceremony, bawling out, “Here you have ’em!” By the post–mistress, they were approached with a certain respect and awe, whose weight would crush the official opening the great treasury–vaults of the nation, did he regard these with corresponding feelings of importance. It was stoutly secured to the door frame outside with good shingle nails, that sign indicating Miss P. Green’s official place in The Harbor world: “Post–office.” On the door leading from the entry into the front room was the name “P. Green.” This indicated her place in the great world of trade. If it had been attached to the outer door, it would have saved me an ugly omission, for I should at once have given her honorable mention in the business list of The Harbor. The sign occupied an outer position once, but boys do not always have that respect for authority which is becoming, and had changed the name one night to “Pea Green.” It was indignantly withdrawn the next day. It was just as well removed, I dare say, for if she had continued to daily see those two signs, “Post–office,” and “P. Green,” as she approached the building, the sense of her official and commercial importance would finally have been too much for her. As it was, she passed from the contemplation of one sign to the other, and there was a gradual letting down from that sense of exaltation which she had on seeing the front door.
But all of Miss P. Green’s merits have not been mentioned. She was a very little body, and that may seem a detraction from her excellencies, and yet it was only another praiseworthy feature; for never in such small compass was packed so much knowledge. No “Saratoga” trunk ever went to “Springs,” so loaded, crowded, jammed. She was the village register; could tell the births and deaths and marriages for the year, giving each date. Not so surprising a fact, considering that the village was small; but when you add to this a complete knowledge of every household, how many were in each family, their names, occupations, what they had for breakfast, dinner and supper, what time they went to bed, and what time they left their beds, the register kept by P. Green, grew into a village directory and a village history. But this tree of knowledge did not stop its growth here. It had other branches. She knew all of the mysteries of dressmaking and millinery; had a large acquaintance with housekeeping and nursing; kept posted in politics, and considered it her duty to defend the “administration,” though unfairly denied the right of suffrage.
One of the latest achievements of this encyclopedia, was to obtain complete and reliable information about the life saving station. This she had done by carefully cultivating the acquaintance of Keeper Barney. She was now at work on these two subjects, the Baggs family and all its branches; also the Plympton family; and this had the second place, as Walter’s arrival was the more recent. Such a wonder! So very much in so very little! It was a terrible satire on her size, that misnomer Pea Green, for in one sense it was exceedingly unjust. Not even the mammoth peas that grow in the land of the giants, could furnish so much comfort and delight to a dining circle of twelve, as this feminine wonder by the sea. And to all hungry gossipers, she did what no restaurant will do; she fed without cost all who came.
It was the most natural thing in the world, then, that Aunt Lydia should say one day to Walter, “I know how I can find out. I can ask Miss Green.”
She accordingly went to the post–office and asked Miss Green as follows: “My nephew, Walter Plympton, wants to know about the Hall. Who has the say about it; that is, who lets people use it?”
Miss Green was delighted. She would not only find out what this use of the Hall might mean, but oh, what an opportunity to learn about the Plympton family! Sitting on a tall stool, which was an innocent contrivance to eke out her scanty height, she persuasively bent her gray curls over the show–case. Her once bright eyes had softened down to a faded blue; and time had laid on her forehead and cheeks its stamp whose mark was as certain as that of the begrimed die with which she fiercely struck the daily mail. She had a pleasant voice, an affable manner, a temperament sunny and hopeful; and people liked to talk with the post–mistress. The initiated also knew that in a certain back sitting–room there was a brown teapot always kept on the stove, adding to the charms of that snug retreat to which any tea–toper might be favored with an invitation.
“The Hall! Indeed! Going to be a singing–school?—a—a?” inquired the post–mistress.
“Oh, no! Now it’s strange Walter should have such a notion, you may think, but he’s one of that kind whose head is allers full of suthin’. He came to me yesterday, and sez to me, ‘Aunt Lyddy!’ Sez I, ‘What?’ He didn’t say any more, for suthin’ called him to the door, and I was a–ironin’ and went on where I was. It was warm, you know. Don’t you think it was? I did feel it over the ironin’.”
Aunt Lydia had a tantalizing way sometimes of telling a story. She would enter very fully into details, amplifying little items and leaving the main subject untouched.
“But the point—the point—Lyddy,” gently observed the post–mistress.