From Captain Hezekiah Butterfield, generally known as Cap'n 'Kiah, an octogenarian who was regarded as an oracle, down to Tready Morgan, a half-witted orphan, the inmates of the poor-house had an enjoyment of living astonishing to behold. It had been hinted at town-meeting that the keeper of the poor-farm was a "leetle mite too generous and easy-going," especially as he insisted upon furnishing the paupers with "store" tea and coffee, whereas his predecessor, Hiram Judkins, had made them drink bayberry tea, a refreshment which old Mrs. Gerald, a pauper whose wits were wandering, and who was familiarly known as "Marm Bony," because she cherished a conviction that she was the empress Josephine, declared was "no more consolin' than meadow hay."
Seth Bemis and his wife made the farm pay: so the town voted to wink at the store-tea. And they suited the paupers,—which was even more difficult than to suit the town officers.
Miranda's arrival had created quite an excitement among the inmates of the poor-house. They had all heard that she had fallen heir to almost ten thousand dollars, and there was curiosity to see how she would comport herself under this great accession of fortune.
Miranda stoutly resisted the charms of the best room, and sat down with the paupers in the great kitchen after supper. For the spare chamber she showed some weakness, for the little back chamber which she usually occupied during her visits to the poor-farm was next to Oly Cowden's room, and Oly had a way of rapping on her wall in the dead of the night for somebody to bring her a roasted onion to avert a peculiarly bad dream to which she was subject; and the next room on the other side was occupied by Jo Briscoe, who had a habit of playing on his violin at most unseemly hours, and, as poor Jo had come through a terrible shipwreck, in which he had lost, by freezing, both his feet and several of his fingers, which latter loss made it wonderful that he could play at all, nobody had the heart to interfere with the consolation which "Fisher's Hornpipe" and "The Girl I left behind me" afforded him at three o'clock in the morning,—nobody, that is, except "Marm Bony," whose room was on the other side of the corridor, and who took Jo's performances as a serenade, and gently insinuated to him that, as Napoleon was still living, she might be compromised by such tributes to her charms. Although she was anxious not to accept any privileges on account of her wealth, Miranda thought she would occupy the spare chamber.
The paupers were all disposed to keep holiday in Miranda's honor. Old Cap'n 'Kiah had donned a collar so high that it sawed agonizingly upon his ears, little Dr. Pingree, a peddler of roots and herbs, who was occasionally obliged to seek winter quarters at the poor-house, wore a black satin vest brocaded with huge blue roses, which had appeared at his wedding forty years before, and "Marm Bony" had adorned herself with a skimpy green satin skirt and three peacock-feathers standing upright in her little knob of back hair. And Jo Briscoe was tuning his violin, evidently in preparation for an unusual effort.
A vague idea that Miranda had arrived at great honor had penetrated poor "Marm Bony's" bewildered brain, and a fancy suddenly seized her that Miranda was the unscrupulous Marie Louise who had supplanted her as Napoleon's wife, and she hobbled out of the room in great agitation and wrath, her peacock-feathers waving wildly in the air. She returned in a few minutes, however, and whispered to Miranda that, "as Napoleon wa'n't jest what he'd ought to be anyway, mebbe they'd better make up." To which proposition Miranda assented gravely, holding the wrinkled, trembling old hand tenderly in hers.
Cap'n 'Kiah felt it incumbent upon him to lead the conversation, being modestly conscious of his social gifts.
He had been a ship-owner, and very well-to-do, until in his old age he was robbed of all his property by a younger brother whom he had brought up and cared for as a son. But the old man had brought to this low level of society to which he had sunk a cheerful philosophy and a grim humor for which many a successful man might well have given all his possessions.
"Rich and poor, there's a sight of human nater about us all, though there ain't no use denyin' that some has more than others," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah sententiously. "And whether riches or poverty brings it out the strongest it's hard tellin'."
"I've always thought I might never have found out that I had medicle tarlunt if I'd been rich," said Dr. Pingree meditatively. The little man had "taken up doctorin' out of his own head," as he expressed it, after finding that shoemaking and tin-peddling did not satisfy his ambition, and was the inventor and sole proprietor of an infallible medicine, known as the "Universal Pain-Exterminator." The jokers dubbed it "Health-Exterminator," but almost all Welby took it,—they must take something in the spring,—and the little doctor, who had a soul far above thoughts of sordid gain, never expected to be paid for it, which made it very popular. It couldn't kill one, being made of simplest roots and herbs; and if one should be cured, how very pleasant it would be to think that it was without cost!