People of the Whirlpool, Mabel Osgood Wright [sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt] 📗

in the blossoms, drawing long breaths.

"I've kept away from the garden all day," she said, "because I had some sewing to finish, so those unfortunate Hornblower children might begin the spring term at school to-morrow; and when I once smell the cherry flowers, my very bones ache to be out doors, and I'm not good for a thing but to potter about the garden from now on, until the strawberries show red, and everything settles down for summer. It's always been the same, since I was a little girl, and used to watch the cherry blooms up through the top sash of the schoolhouse windows, when they had screened the lower part to keep us from idling, and it's lasted all through my married life. The Squire and I always went on a May picnic by ourselves, until the year he died, though the neighbours all reckoned us feeble-minded."

The "Sweating of the Corn," I almost said aloud.

"I've reasoned with myself every spring all through the between years, until now I've made up my mind it's something that's meant to be, and I'm going to give in to it. Sit down here under the trees, my dear, and Esther Nichols will bring us some tea and fresh cider cake. Yes, I see that you look surprised to have afternoon tea offered on Pine Ridge, but I got the habit from the English grandmother that reared me, and I've always counted it a better hospitality than the customary home-made cordials and syrups that, between ourselves, make one stomach-sick. Yes, there comes Esther now; she always knows my wants. She and her husband are distant cousins of the Bradfords, and my helpers indoors and out, for I am too old to manage farm hands, especially now that they are mostly Slavs, and it makes Horace feel happier to have kinsfolk here than if I trusted to transient service."

So we sipped the well-made breakfast tea beneath the cherry blossoms as I told her about my boys and Miss Lavinia's expected visit. When father called for me I left reluctantly, feeling as if nobody need be without a family, when one becomes necessary, for in addition to an aunt in Lavinia Dorman I had found a sort of spirit grandmother there in the remote and peaceful highlands,--a woman at once simple and restful, yet withal having no narrowness or crudity to cramp or jar.

It was nearly five o'clock when we turned into the highway west of the Bluffs. We had gone but a few rods when a great clanking of chains and jar of wheels sounded behind. As I stretched out to see what was coming, a horn sounded merrily.

"A coaching party," said father. "I will turn out of the road, for there is a treacherous pitch on the other side, and for me to let them topple into the ditch might be profitable, but hardly professional."

We had barely turned into low bushes when the stage came alongside. The horses dropped back to a walk, as they passed, for it was a decided up grade for thirty yards, so that we had a good chance to view both equipage and occupants. To my surprise I saw that the coach was the Jenks-Smith's. I did not know they had returned from the trip abroad where they had been making their annual visit to repair the finances of their son-in-law.

Monty Bell was driving, with Mrs. Jenks-Smith at his side. The robust Lady of the Bluffs, evidently having some difficulty in keeping her balance, was clutching the side bar desperately. She was dressed in bright-figured hues from top to toe, her filmy hat had lurched over one eye, and all together she looked like a Chinese lantern, or a balloon inflated for its rise but entangled in its moorings.

Jenks-Smith sat behind, with Mrs. Latham and a very pretty young girl as seatmates, while behind them came a giggling bevy of young people and the grooms,--Sylvia being of course absent.

Mrs. Latham was clad in pale violet embroidered with iris in deeper tones, her wide hat was irreproachably poised, her veil draped gracefully, her white parasol, also embroidered with iris, held at as becoming an angle, and her corsage violets as fresh as if she was but starting out, while in fact the party must have driven up from New York since morning.

They did not even glance at the gray horses which had been drawn aside to give them right of way, much less acknowledge the courtesy, but clanked by in a cloud of misty April dust.

"What a contrast between his mother and hers," I said unconsciously, half aloud.

"Which? Whose? I did not quite catch the connection of that remark," said father, turning toward me with his quizzical expression, for a standing joke of both father and Evan was to thus trip me up when I uttered fragmentary sentences, as was frequently the case, taking it for granted, they said, that they either dreamed the connection or could read my thoughts.

"I meant what a great contrast there is between Mrs. Bradford and Mrs. Latham," I explained, at once realizing that there was really no sense in the comparison outside of my own irrepressibly romantic imagination, even before father said:--

"And why, pray, should they not be different? Under the circumstances it would be very strange if they were not. And where does the _his_ and _her_ come in? Barbara, child, I think you are 'dreaming pussy willows,' as you used to say you did in springtime, when you were a very little girl."

* * * * *

The boys were having their supper in the hall when I arrived home, for, warm as the days are, it grows cool toward night until we are past middle May.

The scraped knees were still knobby with bandages, but the lads were in good spirits, and seemed to have some secret with Martha that involved a deal of whispering and some chuckling. After the traces of bread and butter were all wiped away, they came hobbling up (for the poor knees were sadly stiff and lame), and wedged themselves, one on each side of me, in the window seat of the den, where I was watching for the smoke of Evan's train, my signal for going down the road. Ah, how I always miss the sight of the curling smoke and the little confidential walk in the dark winter days!

There was some mystery afoot, I could see, for Martha hovered about the fireplace, asking if a few sticks wouldn't temper the night air, to which I readily assented, yet still she did not go, and the boys kept the hands close against their blouse fronts.

Suddenly Ian threw his arms about my neck and bent my head close to his, saying, in his abrupt voice of command, "Barbara must not stay indoors tomorrow and be sad and mend the moles' stockings."

"Yes, Barbara must," I answered firmly, feeling, yet much dreading, the necessity of the coming collision.

"No, she can't," said Ian, trying to look stern, but breaking into little twinkling smiles at the mouth corners. "She can't, because the moles' stockings haven't any more got holes!" and he pulled something from his blouse and spread it in my lap, Richard doing likewise.

There were two stockings mended, fearfully and wonderfully, to be sure, and quite unwearable, but still legally mended.

"I don't understand," I said, while the boys, seeing my puzzled expression, clapped their hands and hopped painfully about as well as they were able.

Then Martha Corkle emerged from the background and explained: "The boys they felt most terrible in their minds, Mrs. Evan, soon after you'd went (their sore knees, I think, also keepin' them in sight of their doings), and they begged me, Mrs. Evan, wouldn't I mend the stockings, which I would most cheerfully, only takin' the same as not to be your idea, mum. So I says, says I, somebody havin' to be punished, your ma's goin' to do it to take the punishment herself, that is, in lest you do it your own selves instead. So, says I, I'll mend one stocking of each if you do the other, Mrs. Evan, and no disrespect intended.

"I borried Effie's embroidery rings and set the two holes for them and run them in one way, leavin' them the fillin' to do, which they have, sittin' the whole afternoon at it most perseverin'."

"Richard did his one stitch, but I did mine four stitch; it ate up the hole quicker, and it's more different," quoth Ian, waving his stocking, into the knee of which he had managed to introduce a sort of kindergarten weaving pattern.

"But mine looks more like Martha's, doesn't it, mother?" pleaded patient Richard, who, though the threads were drawn and gathered, had kept to the regular one up and one down throughout.

Then the signal of the smoke arose against the opal of the twilight sky, and we went out hand in hand, all three happy, to meet our breadwinner.

Late that night, when all the household slept, I added a little package to my treasures in the attic desk,--two long stockings with queer darned knees,--and upon the paper band that bound them is written a date and "The Sweating of the Corn."


IX

A WAYSIDE COMEDY

_May 5th_. Madame Etiquette has entered this peaceful village. Not, however, as the court lady of the old French regime, but travelling in the wake of the Whirlpoolers under dubious aliases, being sometimes called Good Form and at other The Correct Thing. At present she is having a hand-to-hand encounter with New England Prejudice, a once stalwart old lady of firm will, but now considerably weakened by age and the incessant arguing of her great-grandchildren.

The result of the conflict is quite uncertain, for actually even the Sunday question hangs in the balance; while the spectacle is most amusing to the outsider and embarrassing to the referees.

Father, seeing through medical eyes, regards the matter merely in the light of a mild epidemic. Evan is rather sarcastic; he much preferred garden quiet and smoking his evening pipe to the tune of soothing conversation concerning the rural days' doings, to the reflex anxiety of settling social problems. In these, lo and behold, I find myself unwillingly involved, for one New England habit has not been abandoned--that of consulting the wife of minister and doctor, even if holes are afterward picked in the result, and in this case a daughter stands in the wife's place.

The beginning was two years back, when the Bluff colony began to be an, object of speculation, followed in turn by censure, envy, and finally aspiration that has developed this spring into an outbreak of emulation.

Ever since I can remember, social life has moved along quite smoothly hereabout, the doings being regulated by the age and purses of the participants. The householders who went to the city for a few winter months were a little more precise in their entertaining than the born and bred country folk. As they commonly dined at night, they asked people to dinner rather than to supper, which is the country meal of state. But lawn parties, picnics, and clambakes at the shore were pretty much on the same scale, those who could afford it having music and employing a caterer, while those who could not made no secret of the cause, and felt neither jealous nor humiliated. A wagon load