When the work was finished, she folded it and laid it aside, then put away her thimble and thread. "When the guests come to the hotel," she thought—"ah, when they come, and buy all the things I've made the past year, and the preserves and the candied orange peel, the rag rugs and the quilts, then——"
Dying Embers
So Barbara fell a-dreaming, and the light of the dying embers lay lovingly upon her face, already transfigured by tenderness into beauty beyond words. The lamp went out and little by little the room faded into twilight, then into night. It was quite dark when she leaned over and picked up her crutches.
"Dear, dear father," she breathed. "He must never know!"
II
Miss Mattie
Miss Mattie was getting supper, sustained by the comforting thought that her task was utterly beneath her and had been forced upon her by the mysterious workings of an untoward Fate. She was not really "Miss," since she had been married and widowed, and a grown son was waiting impatiently in the sitting-room for his evening meal, but her neighbours, nearly all of whom had known her before her marriage, still called her "Miss Mattie."
"Old Maids"
The arbitrary social distinctions, made regardless of personality, are often cruelly ironical. Many a man, incapable by nature of life-long devotion to one woman, becomes a husband in half an hour, duly sanctioned by Church and State. A woman who remains unmarried, because, with fine courage, she will have her true mate or none, is called "an old maid." She may have the heart of a wife and the soul of a mother, but she cannot escape her sinister label. The real "old maids" are of both sexes, and many are married, but alas! seldom to each other.
A Grievance
In his introspective moments, Roger Austin sometimes wondered why marriage, maternity, and bereavement should have left no trace upon his mother. The uttermost depths of life had been hers for the sounding, but Miss Mattie had refused to drop her plummet overboard and had spent the years in prolonged study of her own particular boat.
She came in, with the irritating air of a martyr, and clucked sharply with her false teeth when she saw that her son was reading.
"I don't know what I've done," she remarked, "that I should have to live all the time with people who keep their noses in books. Your pa was forever readin' and you're marked with it. I could set here and set here and set here, and he took no more notice of me than if I was a piece of furniture. When he died, the brethren and sistern used to come to condole with me and say how I must miss him. There wasn't nothin' to miss, 'cause the books and his chair was left. I've a good mind to burn 'em all up."
"I won't read if you don't want me to, Mother," answered Roger, laying his book aside regretfully.
"I dunno but what I'd rather you would than to want to and not," she retorted, somewhat obscurely. "What I'm a-sayin' is that it's in the blood and you can't help it. If I'd known it was your pa's intention to give himself up so exclusive to readin', I'd never have married him, that's all I've got to say. There's no sense in it. Lemme see what you're at now."
She took the open book, that lay face downward upon the table, and read aloud, awkwardly:
"Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected."
Peculiar Way of Putting Things
"Now," she demanded, in a shrill voice, "what does that mean?"
"I don't think I could explain it to you, Mother."
"That's just the point. Your pa couldn't never explain nothin', neither. You're readin' and readin' and readin' and you never know what you're readin' about. Diamonds growin' and births bein' hurried up, and friends bein' religious and voted for at township elections. Who's runnin' for friend this year on the Republican ticket?" she inquired, caustically.
Roger managed to force a laugh. "You have your own peculiar way of putting things, Mother. Is supper ready? I'm as hungry as a bear."
"I suppose you are. When it ain't readin', it's eatin'. Work all day to get a meal that don't last more'n fifteen minutes, and then see readin' goin' on till long past bedtime, and oil goin' up every six months. Which'll you have—fresh apple sauce, or canned raspberries?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Then I'll get the apple sauce, because the canned raspberries can lay over as long as they're kept cool."
Miss Mattie's Personal Appearance
Miss Mattie shuffled back into the kitchen. During the Winter she wore black knitted slippers attached to woollen inner soles which had no heels. She was well past the half-century mark, but her face had few lines in it and her grey eyes were sharp and penetrating. Her smooth, pale brown hair, which did not show the grey in it, was parted precisely in the middle. Every morning she brushed it violently with a stiff brush dipped into cold water, and twisted the ends into a tight knot at the back of her head. In militant moments, this knot seemed to rise and the protruding ends of the wire hairpins to bristle into formidable weapons of offence.
She habitually wore her steel-bowed spectacles half-way down her nose. They might have fallen off had not a kindly Providence placed a large wart where it would do the most good. On Sundays, when she put on shoes, corsets, her best black silk, and her gold-bowed spectacles, she took great pains to wear them properly. When she reached home, however, she always took off her fine raiment and laid her spectacles aside with a great sigh of relief. Miss Mattie's disposition improved rapidly as soon as the old steel-bowed pair were in their rightful place, resting safely upon the wart.
Second-hand Things
When they sat down to supper, she reverted to the original topic. "As I was sayin'," she began, "there ain't no sense in the books you and your pa has always set such store by. Where he ever got 'em, I dunno, but they was always a comin'. Lots of 'em was well-nigh wore out when he got 'em, and he wouldn't let me buy nothin' that had been used before, even if I knew the folks.
"I got a silver coffin plate once at an auction over to the Ridge for almost nothin' and your pa was as mad as a wet hen. There was a name on it, but it could have been scraped off, and the rest of it was perfectly good. When you need a coffin plate you need it awful bad. While your pa was rampin' around, he said he wouldn't have been surprised to see me comin' home with a second-hand coffin in the back of the buggy. Who ever heard of a second-hand coffin? I've always thought his mind was unsettled by so much readin'.
"I ain't a-sayin' but what some readin' is all right. Some folks has just moved over to the Ridge and the postmaster's wife was a-showin' me some papers they get, every week. One is The Metropolitan Weekly, and the other The Housewife's Companion. I must say, the stories in those papers is certainly beautiful.
"Once, when they come after their mail, they was as mad as anything because the papers hadn't come, but the postmaster's wife was readin' one of the stories and settin' up nights to do it, so she wa'n't to blame for not lettin' 'em go until she got through with 'em. They slip out of the covers just as easy, and nobody ever knows the difference.
The Doctor's Darling
"She was tellin' me about one of the stories. It's named Lovely Lulu, or the Doctor's Darling. Lovely Lulu is a little orphant who has to do most of the housework for a family of eight,