Mother talked it all over with Deacon Peters, and he counselled her to sell off all the farm but the home-lot, which was sot out for an orchard with young apple-trees, and had a garden-spot to one end of it, close by the house. Mother calculated to raise potatoes and beans and onions enough to last us the year round, and to take in sewin' so's to get what few groceries we was goin' to want. We kept Old Red, the best cow; there was pasture enough for her in the orchard, for the trees wa'n't growed to be bearin' as yet, and we 'lotted a good deal on milk to our house; besides, it saved butcher's meat.
Mother was a real pious woman, and she was a high-couraged woman too. Old Miss Perrit, an old widder-woman that lived down by the bridge, come up to see her the week after father died. I remember all about it, though I wa'n't but ten years old; for when I see Miss Perrit comin' up the road, with her slimpsy old veil hanging off from her bumbazine bonnet, and her doleful look, (what Nancy Perrit used to call "mother's company-face,") I kinder thought she was comin' to our house; and she was allers so musical to me, I went in to the back-door, and took up a towel I was hemmin', and set down in the corner, all ready to let her in. It don't seem as if I could 'a' been real distressed about father's dyin' when I could do so; but children is just like spring weather, rainin' one hour and shinin' the next, and it's the Lord's great mercy they be; if they begun to be feelin' so early, there wouldn't be nothin' left to grow up. So pretty quick Miss Perrit knocked, and I let her in. We hadn't got no spare room in that house; there was the kitchen in front, and mother's bed-room, and the buttery, and the little back-space opened out on't behind. Mother was in the bed-room; so, while I called her, Miss Perrit set down in the splint rockin'-chair that creaked awfully, and went to rockin' back and forth, and sighin', till mother come in. "Good-day, Miss Langdon!" says she, with a kind of a snuffle, "how dew you dew? I thought I'd come and see how you kep' up under this here affliction. I rec'lect very well how I felt when husband died. It's a dreadful thing to be left a widder in a hard world;—don't you find it out by this?"
I guess mother felt quite as bad as ever Miss Perrit did, for everybody knew old Perrit treated his wife like a dumb brute while he was alive, and died drunk; but she didn't say nothin'. I see her give a kind of a swaller, and then she spoke up bright and strong.
"I don't think it is a hard world, Miss Perrit. I find folks kind and helpful, beyond what I'd any right to look for. I try not to think about my husband, any more than I can help, because I couldn't work, if I did, and I've got to work. It's most helpful to think the Lord made special promises to widows, and when I remember Him I a'n't afeard."
Miss Perrit stopped rockin' a minute, and then she begun to creak the chair and blow her nose again, and she said,—
"Well, I'm sure it's a great mercy to see anybody rise above their trouble the way you do; but, law me! Miss Langdon, you a'n't got through the fust pair o' bars on't yet. Folks is allers kinder neighborly at the fust; they feel to help you right off, every way they can,—but it don't stay put, they get tired on't; they blaze right up like a white-birch-stick, an' then they go out all of a heap; there's other folks die, and they don't remember you, and you're just as bad off as though you wa'n't a widder."
Mother kind of smiled,—she couldn't help it; but she spoke up again just as steady.
"I don't expect to depend on people, Miss Perrit, so long as I have my health. I a'n't above takin' friendly help when I need to, but I mean mostly to help myself. I can get work to take in, and when the girls have got their schoolin' they will be big enough to help me. I am not afraid but what I shall live and prosper, if I only keep my health."
"Hem, well!" whined out Miss Perrit. "I allers thought you was a pretty mighty woman, Miss Langdon, and I'm glad to see you're so high-minded; but you a'n't sure of your health, never. I used to be real smart to what I am now, when Perrit was alive; but I took on so, when he was brought home friz to death that it sp'iled my nerves; and then I had to do so many chores out in the shed, I got cold and had the dreadfullest rheumatiz! and when I'd got past the worst spell of that and was quite folksy again, I slipped down on our door-step and kinder wrenched my ankle, and ef't hadn't 'a' been for the neighbors, I don't know but what Nancy and I should 'a' starved."
Mother did laugh this time. Miss Perrit had overshot the mark.