BEING GOOD TO LETTY

"The poor little thing," says I. "Well, mustn't we be good to her?"

"Mustn't we?" says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, wiping her eyes.

"Must we not?" says Mis' Silas Sykes—that would correct your grammar if the house was on fire.

My niece's daughter Letty had lost her father and her mother within a year, and she was coming to spend the summer with me.

"She's going to pick out the style monument she wants here in town," I says, "and maybe buy it."

"Poor thing! That'll give her something to put her mind on," says Mis' Sykes.

George Fred come in just then to fill my wood-box—his father was bound he should be named George and his mother hung out for Fred, so he got both onto him permanent. He was going to business college, and choring it for near the whole town. He used to swallow his supper and rush like mad from wood-box to cow all over the village. Nights when I heard a noise, I never thought it was a burglar¹ any more. I turned over again and thought:[Pg 99] "That's George Fred cutting somebody's grass." I never see a man more bent² on getting himself educated.

"George Fred," I says, "my grandniece Letty is coming to live with me. She's lost her folks. I thought we'd kind of try to be good to her."

"Trust me," says George Fred. "My cousin Jed, he lost his folks too. I can tell her about him."

The next day Letty came. I hadn't seen her for years. My land! when she got off the train, I never saw plainer. She was a nice little thing, but plain eyes, plain nose, plain mouth, and her hair—that was less than plain. But she was so smiling and so gentle that the plain part never bothered me a minute.

"Letty," says I, "welcome home." Mis' Merriman and Mis' Sykes had gone to the depot³ with me.

"Welcome home, child," says Mis' Merriman, and wiped her eyes! Mis' Merriman is human, but tactless.

"Welcome home, you poor thing," says Mis' Sykes, and she sniffed⁴. Everything Mis' Sykes does she ought to have picked out to do the way she didn't.

But Letty, she took it serene⁵ enough. While we were getting her trunk, Mis' Sykes whispered to me:

"Are you sure she's the right niece? She ain't got on a stitch⁶ of mourning."

Sure enough, she hadn't. She wore a little blue dress.

[Pg 100]

"Like enough she couldn't afford it," says Mis' Merriman. And we thought that must be it.

They were both to stay for supper, and they'd each brought a little present for my niece. When she opened them, one was a black-edged handkerchief and the other was a package of mixed flower-seeds to plant next spring in her cemetery⁷ lot. Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman were both ready to cry all the while she untied⁸ them. But Letty smiled, serene, and thanked them, serene too, and put a pink aster⁹ from the table in her dress, and said, couldn't we go out and look at my flowers? And we went, Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman folding up their handkerchiefs and exchanging surprised eyebrows¹⁰.

At the back door we came, plain in the face, on George Fred, whittling¹¹ up my shavings.

"Two baskets of shavings, Miss Marsh¹², or one?"

"I guess," says I, "you'll earn your education better if you bring me in two."

George Fred never smiled. "I ain't earning my education any more, Miss Marsh," he says. "I've give it up. I can't make it go—not and chore it."

"Then you can't be a bookkeeper, George Fred?" I says.

"I've took a job delivering for the post-office store."

"Tell me about it, won't you?" says Letty.

George Fred told her a little about it, whittling my shavings.

[Pg 101]

"There ain't enough cows and grass and wood-boxes in the village to make it go, seems though," he ends up.

Then he rushed into the house with my stuff, and headed for the Sykes's cow that we could hear lowing.

We talked about George Fred while we looked at the flowers, Letty all interested in both of them, and then we came back and sat on the front porch¹³.

"Dear child," says Mis' Sykes, "wouldn't it be a comfort to you, now that you're among friends, to talk about your folks? What was it they died of? Was they sick long?"

Letty looked over to her, sweet and serene.

"Beautiful things happened while they were sick," she said. "A little child across the street used to come every morning with a flower or a fresh egg. Then there was an old man who picked every rose in his garden and sent them in. And a club there hired a singer who was at the theater to come and serenade them, just a few days before. Oh, so many beautiful things happened!"

Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman sat still. This isn't the way we talk about sickness in the village. We always tell symptoms and treatments and pain and last words and funeral preparations, right up to the time the hearse backs up to the door.

"She acts the queerest¹⁴, to me, for a mourner," says Mis' Sykes, when she went for her shawl.

[Pg 102]

Next morning we went down, Letty and me, to pick out the monument. Letty, she priced them, and then she figured some on a card. Then she walked over and priced some more things, and then she came out. I s'posed she was going to think about it.

"Didn't she cry when she picked out the monument?" says Mis' Sykes to me over the telephone that noon.

"I didn't see her," says I, truthful¹⁵.

That night, after he got the last cow milked, I see George Fred, in his best clothes, coming in our front gate. He was coming, I see, to do what I said—help be good to Letty and cheer her up.

"Miss Letty," says he, "I know just how you feel. My cousin Jed, he lost his folks a year ago. They took down with the typhoid, and they suffered frightful—"

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Fred," says Letty.

I explained. "Fred," says I, "is his other front name. His final name is Backus."

She colored up pretty, and went right on—it was curious: she hadn't been with me twenty-four hours hardly, and yet she didn't look a bit plain to me now.

"Mr. Backus," Letty says, "I've been thinking. Miss Marsh and I have got a little money we're not using. Don't you want to borrow it, and keep on at business college, and pay us back when you can?"

"Gosh!" says George Fred.

[Pg 103]

If I hadn't been aiming to be a lady, I dunno what I might have said similar.

They talked about it, and then George Fred went off, walking some on the ground and some in the air. "Letty!" says I, then, "where in this world—"

"Why," says Letty, "I'm going to get just headstones instead of a monument—and leave that boy be a bookkeeper instead of a delivery boy. Father and mother—" it was the only time I heard her catch her breath sharp—"would both rather. I know it."

Before breakfast next morning, I ran over to Mis' Sykes's and Mis' Merriman's, and told them.

"Like enough she done something better than buy mourning, too," says Mis' Merriman.

It was the first and only time in my life I ever see Mis' Silas Sykes's eyes fill up with tears.

"Why, my land," she says, "she's using her sorrow."

And all of a sudden, the morning and the world meant something more. And Letty, that we were going to be so good to, had brought us something like a present.
FOOTNOTE:

[4] Copyright, 1914, Woman's Home Companion.

1 burglar   

n.窃贼，破门盗窃者

参考例句：

• The policeman took the burglar by surprise as he opened the window.当夜盗开窗时，警察冷不防地捉住了他。
• The man glanced the burglar climbing out of the window.那人瞥见小偷从窗户爬出来。

2 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

3 depot   

n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站

参考例句：

• The depot is only a few blocks from here.公共汽车站离这儿只有几个街区。
• They leased the building as a depot.他们租用这栋大楼作仓库。

4 sniffed   

v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• When Jenney had stopped crying she sniffed and dried her eyes. 珍妮停止了哭泣，吸了吸鼻子，擦干了眼泪。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dog sniffed suspiciously at the stranger. 狗疑惑地嗅着那个陌生人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 serene   

adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的

参考例句：

• He has entered the serene autumn of his life.他已进入了美好的中年时期。
• He didn't speak much,he just smiled with that serene smile of his.他话不多，只是脸上露出他招牌式的淡定的微笑。

6 stitch   

n.一针，疼痛，碎布条；v.缝合

参考例句：

• He had a stitch in the side.他胁部疼痛。
• Fold the fabric and stitch the two layers together.将布料对折，然后将两层缝在一起。

7 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

8 untied   

松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决

参考例句：

• Once untied, we common people are able to conquer nature, too. 只要团结起来，我们老百姓也能移山倒海。
• He untied the ropes. 他解开了绳子。

9 aster   

n.紫菀属植物

参考例句：

• This white aster is magnificent.这棵白色的紫苑是壮丽的。
• Every aster in my hand goes home loaded with a thought.我手中捧着朵朵翠菊，随我归乡带着一片情思。

10 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

11 whittling   

v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Inflation has been whittling away their savings. 通货膨胀使他们的积蓄不断减少。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is whittling down the branch with a knife to make a handle for his hoe. 他在用刀削树枝做一把锄头柄。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 marsh   

n.沼泽，湿地

参考例句：

• There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
• I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。

13 porch   

n.门廊，入口处，走廊，游廊

参考例句：

• There are thousands of pages of advertising on our porch.有成千上万页广告堆在我们的门廊上。
• The porch is supported by six immense pillars.门廊由六根大柱子支撑着。

14 queerest   

adj.可疑的( queer的最高级 )；（身子）不舒服的；古怪的；娘儿们似的

参考例句：

• Philosophy's queerest arguments tickle agreeably our sense of subtlety and ingenuity. 哲学上最奇怪的议点也会愉快地引起我们微妙机敏的感觉。 来自辞典例句
• These little American flirts were the queerest creature in the world. 这些喜欢卖弄风情的美国姑娘，真是世界上最不可捉摸的怪物。 来自辞典例句

15 truthful   

adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的

参考例句：

• You can count on him for a truthful report of the accident.你放心，他会对事故作出如实的报告的。
• I don't think you are being entirely truthful.我认为你并没全讲真话。