Says he: “Have you got rooms to let?”
For a minute I didn’t answer him, I was so knee deep in looking at the little boy he had with him—the cutest, lovin’est little thing I’d ever seen. But though I love the human race and admire to see it took care of, I couldn’t sense my way clear to taking a boy into my house. Boys belongs to the human race, to be sure, just as whirling egg-beaters belongs to omelettes, but much as I set store by omelettes I couldn’t invite a whirling egg-beater into my home permanent.
Says I: “Not to boys.”
He laughed—kind of a pleasant laugh, fringed all round with little laughs.
“Oh,” he says, “we ain’t boys.”
“Well,” says I, “one of you is. And I don’t ever rent to ’em. They ain’t got enough silence to ’em,” I says, as delicate as I could.{227}
Just then the little lad himself looked up innocent and took a hand without meaning to.
“Is your doggy home?” says he.
“Yes,” I says, “curled up on the back mat.” I felt kind of glad I didn’t have to tell him I didn’t have one.
“I’d like,” says he, grave, “to fluffle it till you’re through.”
“So do,” says I, hearty2, and he trotted3 round the house like a little minister.
I kind o’ tiptoed after him, casual. All of a sudden I wanted to see what he done. His father come behind me on the boards, and we saw the little fellow bend over and pat Mac, my water spaniel, as gentle as if he’d been cut glass. The little boy looked awful cute, bending over, his short hair sticking out at the back. I can see him yet.
“How much,” says I, “would you want to pay for your room?”
“Well,” says his father, “not much. But I give a guess your price is what it’s worth—no more, no less.”
I hadn’t paid much attention to him before that, but I see now he was a wonderful, nice-spoken little man, with the kind of eyes that look like the sitting-room5—and not like the parlor6. I can’t bear parlor eyes.{228}
“Come and look at the room,” says I, and rented it to him out of hand. And Mr. Dombledon—his name was—and Donnie—that was the little fellow—went off for their baggage, and I went off for my cakes; and what they was reflecting on I donno, but my own reflect was that it’s a wise minute can tell what the next one is going to pop open and let out. But I like it that way. I’m a natural-born vaudevillian7. I love to see what’s coming next.
Well, the next thing was, after I got my two club cakes both provided for, that it turned out Mr. Dombledon was an agent, selling “notions, knick-knacks and anything o’ that,” he told me; and he use’ to start out at seven o’clock in the morning, with his satchel8 in one hand and his little boy, more or less, in the other.
“Land,” says I to him after a few days, “don’t your little boy get wore to the bone tramping around with you like that?”
“Some,” says he; “but I carry him part of the way.”
“Carry him?” says I, “and tote that heavy knick-knack notion satchel?”
“Well,” says he, “I don’t mind it. What I’m always thinking is this: What if I didn’t have him to tote.”{229}
“True enough,” says I, and couldn’t say another word.
But of course the upstart and offshoot of that was that before the week was out, I’d invited Mr. Dombledon to leave the little fellow with me, some days, while he went off. And he done so, grateful, but making a curious provision.
“It’d be grand for him,” says he; “they’s only just one thing: Would—would you promise not to leave him hear anybody say anything anyways cross?”
“Well,” says I, judicious9, “I donno’s I’m what-you-might-say cross. Not systematic10. But—I might be a little crispy.”
“I ain’t afraid o’ you,” says he, real flattering. “But don’t leave him hear anybody—well, snap anybody up.”
“All right,” says I, “I won’t. I like,” I says, “to get out o’ the way of that myself.”
“Well, and then,” he says, “I guess you’ll think I’m real particular. But—would you promise not to leave him go outside the yard?”
“Sure,” says I, “only when I’m with him.”
“I guess you’ll think I’m real particular,” he says again, in his kind of gentle voice without any sizin’ to it, “but I mean not even then. Days when you’re goin’ out, I’ll take him with me.”
“Sure,” says I, wondering all over me, but{230} not letting on all I wondered, like you can’t in society. And I actually looked forward to having the little thing around the house with me, me that has always been down on mice, moths11, bats and boys.
The next thing was, Would he stay with me? And looking to this end I contrived12, some skillful, to be baking cookies the first morning his pa went off. Mis’ Puppy had happened in early to get some blueing, and she was sitting at one end of my cook table when Donnie came trotting13 out with his father, that always preferred the back door. (“It feels more like I lived here,” says he, wishful, “if you let me come in the back door.” And I was the last one to deny him that. Once when I went visiting, I got so homesick to go in the back door that it was half my reason for leaving ’em.)
“Now then,” I says to the little fellow that morning, “you just set here with us and see me make cookies. I’ll cut you out a soldier cooky,” says I.
“Wiv buttins?” he asks, and climbed up on his knees on a chair by the table and let his father go off without him, nice as the nicest. “I likes ’em wiv buttins,” he says—and Mis’ Puppy sort of kindled14 up in her throat, like a laugh that wants to love somebody.{231}
I donno as I know how to say it, but he was the kind of a little chap that, when you’re young, you always think your little chap is going to be. Then when they do come, sometimes they’re dear and all that, but they ain’t quite exactly the way you thought of them being—though you forget that they ain’t, and you forget everything but loving ’em. But it was like this little boy was the way you’d meant. It wasn’t so much the way he looked—though he was beautiful, beautiful like some of the things you think and not like a calendar—but it was the way he was, kind of close up to you, and his breath coming past, and something you couldn’t name gentling round him. His father hadn’t been gone ten minutes when the little thing let me kiss him.
“ ‘At was my last one,” he explained, sort of sorry, to Mis’ Puppy. “But you can have a bite off my soldier. That’s a better kiss.”
Mis’ Puppy watched him for a while—he was sitting close down by the oven door to hear his soldier say Hurrah16 the minute he was baked, if you please—and she kind of moved like her thoughts scraped by each other, and she says—and spells one word of it out:
“Where do you s’pose his m-o-t-h-e-r is?”
“My land, d-e-d,” I answers, “or she’d be{232} setting over there kissing the back of his neck in the hollow.”
“I’ve got,” says Mis’ Puppy, “kind of an idea she ain’t. Your boarder,” she says, “don’t look to me real what you might call a widower17. He ain’t the air of one that’s had things ciphered out for him,” says she. “It’s more like he was still a-browsing round the back o’ the book for the answer.”
And that was true, when you come to think of it; he did seem sort of quick-moved and hopeful, more like when you sit down to the table than when you shove back.
I told Mis’ Puppy, private, what his father had said to me about his not hearing anything spoke4 cross; and she nodded, like it was something she’d got all thought out, with tags on.
“I was a-wondering the other day,” she says, dreamy, “what I’d of been like if nobody had ever yipped out at me. I s’pose none of us knows.”
“Likewise,” says I, “what we’d be like if we’d never yipped out to no one else.”
“That’s so,” she says, “ain’t it? The two fits together like a covered bake-dish.”
“Ain’t you ’fraid he’ll shoot the oven door down if you don’t let him out pitty quick?” says Donnie, trying to see how near he could get his ear to the crack to hear that “Hurrah.”{233}
Four days the little boy done that, stayed with me as contented18 as a kitten while his father went agenting; and then the fifth day he had to take him with him, because there come on what I’d been getting the cakes for—the quarterly meeting of the Go-lightly club.
The Go-lightly club is sixteen Red Barns ladies—and me—that’s all passed the sixty-year-old mark, and has had to begin to go lightly. We picked the name as being so literal, grievous-true as to our powers and, same time, airy and happy sounding, just like we hope we’ll be clear up to the last of the last of us. We had a funny motto and, those days, it use’ to be a secret. We’d lit on it when we was first deciding to have the club.
“What do we want a club for anyhow?” old Mis’ Lockmeyer had said, that don’t really enjoy anything that she ain’t kicked out at first.
“Why,” says little Mis’ Pettibone, kind of gentle and final, “just to kind of make life nice.”
“Well,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer, “we got to go awful light on it, our age.”
And we put both them principles into our constitution:
“Name: The name of this club shall be the Go-lightly club, account of the character of its members.{234}
“Object: The object of this club shall be to make life nice.
“No officers. No dues. No real regular meetings.
“Picnic supper when any.”
And Mis’ Wilme had insisted on adding:
“Every-day clothes or not so much so.”
Our next meeting was going to be at Mis’ Elkhorn’s that lives out of town about two miles along the old Tote road, and we was looking forward to it considerable. We’d put it off several times; one week the ice-cream sociable19 was going to be, and one week the circus was to the next town, and so on—we never like to interfere20 with any other social going-ons.
None of us having a horse, we hired the rig—that’s the three-seat canopy21-top from the livery—and was all drove out together by Jem Meddledipper. And it was real nice and festive22, with our lunch baskets all piled up in the back and, as Mis’ Wilme put it: “Nothing to do till time to set the pan-cakes.” And when we got outside the City limits—we’re just a village, but we’ve got ’em marked “City Limits,” because that always seems the name of ’em—Mis’ Pettibone, that’s a regular one for entering into things—you know some just is and some just ain’t and the two never change places on no occasion{235} whatever—she kind of pitched in and sung in her nice little voice that she calls her sopralto, because it ain’t placed much of any place. She happened on a church piece—I donno if you know it?—the one that’s got a chorus that goes first
“Loving-kindness”
all wavy23, like a little stream trickling24 along; and then another part chimes in,
“Loving-kindness”
all wavy, like another little stream trickling along, and then everybody clamps down on
“Loving-kindness—oh, how great!”
like the whole nice sweep of the river? Well, that was the one she sung. And being it’s a terrible catchy25 tune26, and most of us was brought up on it and has been haunted by it for days together from bed to bed, we all more or less joined in with what little vocal27 pans we had, and we sung it off and on all the way out.
We was singing it, I recollect28, when we come in sight of the Toll29 Gate House. The Toll Gate House has been there for years, ever since the Tote road got made into a real road, and then it got paid for, and the toll part stopped; and now the City rents the house—there’s a place{236} we always say “City” again—to most anybody, usually somebody poor, with a few chickens and takes in washings and ain’t much of any other claim to being thought of, as claims seem to go.
“Who lives in the Toll Gate House now, I wonder?” says Mis’ Pettibone, breaking off her song.
“Land, nobody,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer; “it’s all fell in on itself—my land,” she says, “the door’s open. Let’s stop and report ’em, so be it’s been tramps.”
So we made Jem Meddledipper stop, and somebody was just going to get out when a woman come to the door.
She was a little woman, with kind of a pindling expression, looking as if she’d started in good and strong, but life had kind of shaved her down till there wasn’t as much left of her, strictly30 speaking, as’d make a regular person. A person, but not one that looks well and happy the way “person” means to you, when you say the word. She had on a what-had-been navy-blue what-had-been alpaca, but both them attributes had got wore down past the nap. A little girl was standing31 close beside her—a nice little thing, with her hair sticking up on top like a candle-flame, and tied with a string.
“My land,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer right out,{237} “are you livin’ here?” Mis’ Lockmeyer is like that—she always wears her face inside-out with all the expression showing.
But the woman wasn’t hurt. She smiled a little, and when she smiled I thought she looked real sweet.
“Yes,” she said, “I am. It—it don’t look real like it, does it?”
“Well,” puts in Mis’ Pettibone, “gettin’ settled so——”
“Oh,” says the woman, “I been here a month.”
And Mis’ Lockmeyer, wishing to make amends32 and pull her foot out, planted the other right along side of it instead.
“Do you sell anything? Or sew anything? Or wash and iron anything?” she asks.
And the woman says: “I sew and wash and iron anything I can do home, with my little girl. But I ain’t a thing in the world to sell.”
“Of course you ain’t,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer soothing33, and hoping to make it better still.
“Well,” says Mis’ Puppy hearty, “I tell you what. We’ll be out to see you in a little bit, if you want us to.”
My land, the woman’s face—I donno whether you’ve ever seen anybody’s face lit up from the inside with the light fair showing through all the pores like little windows? Hers done it. She{238} didn’t say nothing—she just done that. And we drove on.
“Land,” says Mis’ Pettibone, thoughtful, “how like each other folks are, no matter how not-like they seem to the folks you think they ain’t one bit like.”
“Ain’t they—ain’t they?” says I, hearty. And I guess we all felt the same.
Nobody was absent to the club that afternoon, but Mis’ Elkhorn’s sitting-room was big enough so’s we could get in. None of us could bear a parlor club meeting. Our ideas always set in our heads to a parlor-meeting, called to order by rapping on something. But here at Mis’ Elkhorn’s we were out in the sitting-room, with the red table-spread on and the plants growing and the spice-cake smelling through the kitchen door. And you’d think things would of gone as smooth as glass.
Instead of which, I donno what on earth ailed34 us. But when we got to sitting down, sewing, it was like some kind of little fine dislocation had took place in the air.
Mis’ Puppy had brought a centre-piece to work on, big as a rug, all drawn35 work and hemstitching and embroidery36. And somehow Mis’ Pettibone, that only embroiders37 useful, couldn’t stand it.{239}
“My, Mis’ Puppy,” she says, “I shouldn’t think you could get a bit of house-work done, making that so lavish38.”
Mis’ Puppy shut her lips so tight it jerked her head.
“I don’t scrub out continual, same as some,” she says.
“If you mean me,” says Mis’ Pettibone, tart1, “I guess I can do house-work as easy as the most.”
“I heard there’s those that can—where it don’t show,” says Mis’ Puppy, some goaded39 beyond what she meant.
“Mean to say?” snaps Mis’ Pettibone.
“Oh, nothin’,” says Mis’ Puppy, “only to them that their backs the coat fits.”
“I never was called shiftless since I was born a wife and a house-keeper,” says Mis’ Pettibone, bordering on tearful.
“Oh, was you born a house-keeper, Mis’ Pettibone?” says Mis’ Puppy, sweet.
Then Mis’ Pettibone went in and set on the foot of the bed where we’d laid our things, and cried; and one or two of us went in and sort o’ poored her.
And, land, when we’d got her to come out, the first thing we heard was Mis’ Lockmeyer pitching into Mis’ Wilme.{240}
“Anybody that can say I don’t make ice-cream as cheap as the best ain’t any of an ice-cream judge,” she was saying hot, “be they you or be they better.”
“I wasn’t saying a word about cheap,” says Mis’ Wilme, “I was talking about good.”
“Well,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer, “I thought I made it good.”
“Not with the little dab40 of cream you was just mentioning, you can’t,” says Mis’ Wilme, firm. “It ain’t reasonable nor chemical.”
“Don’t you think your long words is goin’ to impress me,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer, more and more het up.
“Well, ladies,” says Mis’ Elkhorn, humorous, “nobody can make it any colder’n anybody else, anyhow.”
Somebody pitched in then, hasty and peaceful, and went to talking about Cemetery41; and it looked like we was launched on a real quiet subject.
“I guess we’ve all got more friends up there then we’ve got in town,” says I. “When we go up there to walk on Sundays, I declare if I had to bow to all the graves I recognize I’d be kep’ busy.”
“I know,” says Mis’ Wilme, “when my niece was here from the City she said she had eighty{241} on her calling list. ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I’ve got that many if I count the graves I know.’ ”
“Most of my acquaintances,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer, sighing, “is in their coffins42. I says to my husband when I looked over the Daily the other night: That most of the Local Items and Supper Table Jottings for me now would have to be dated Cemetery Lot.”
“I know, ladies,” says Mis’ Puppy, dreamy, “but ain’t it real aristocratic to live in a place so long that you know all the graves. We ain’t got much else to be aristocratic about. But that’s real like them county families you read about,” she says.
And up flared43 Mis’ Pettibone. “I donno’s there’s any need to make it so pointed44 to us that ain’t lived here so very long,” she said, “and that ain’t any friends at all in your Cemetery.”
“Oh, well,” says Mis’ Puppy, indulgent, “of course there’s them distinctions in any town.”
I was just feeling thankful from my bones out that they hadn’t met to my house, with Donnie staying home, when Mis’ Elkhorn come in from the kitchen to tell us supper was ready. And when she opened the door the smell of hot waffles come a dilly-nipping in, and it made me feel so kind of cozy45 and busy and alive and glad that I burst right out:{242}
“Shucks, ladies!” I says. “So be we peck around for ’em I bet we could find things to fuss over right till the hearse backs up to the door.”
They all laughed a little then, but that was part from feeling embarrassed at going out to supper, like you always are. And when we did get out there, everybody scrabbled around to get away from whoever had just been her enemy. We didn’t say much while we et—like you don’t in company; and I set there thinking:
“The Go-lightly club. The Go-lightly club. To make life nice.” And I thought how we’d sung that song of ours all the way out. And I made up my mind that, after supper, when they was feeling limber from food, I’d try to say something about it.
But I didn’t. I just got started on it—introduced by telling ’em some nice little things about Donnie’s sayings and doings to my house, when Mis’ Lockmeyer broke in, sympathetic.
“Ain’t he a great care?” says she.
“Yes,” says I, “he is. And so is everything on top of this earth that’s worth having. Life thrown in.”
And then I see they was all rustling46 to go home—giving reasons of clothes to sprinkle or bread to set or grandchild to put to bed or plants to cover up. So I kep’ still, and mogged along{243} home with ’em. But I did say to Mis’ Pettibone on the back seat:
“We better quit off club. If we can’t meet folks without laying awake nights over the things that’s been said to us, we better never meet. ‘To make life nice,’ ” says I. “Ain’t club a travnasty, or whatever that word is?”
“I know it,” she says awful sober, and I see she was grieving some too. And we was all pretty still, going home. So still that we could all hear Jem Meddledipper, that had caught the run o’ that tune from us in the afternoon and was driving us home by it, and the wheels went round to it—
“Lovin’-kindness ... lovin’-kindness ... lovin’-kindness,
oh, how great,”
—and it was sung considerable better than any of us had sung it.
But anyway, the result of leaving early was that we got to the Toll Gate House before dark, and I’ll never forget the thing we saw. Standing in the door of the little house was the woman we’d spoke with in the afternoon, and she was wearing the same ex-blue alpaca. But now she’d been and got out from somewheres and put on a white straw hat, with little pink roses all around it. And like lightning I sensed that{244} she’d watched for us to come back and had gone and got the hat out and put it on, so’s to let us know she had that one decent thing to wear.
“Jem,” I says, “stop.”
I donno rightly why, but I clambered down out of the rig, and I says to the woman: “Let me come in a minute—can I? I want to talk to you about—about some sewing,” says I, that’s sewed every rag I’ve had on my back most ever since I was clothed in any. But all of a sudden, her getting out that hat made me feel I just had to get up close to her, like you will.
But when I stepped inside, I forgot all about the sewing.
“My land, my dear,” I says, or it might have been, “My dear, my land,” I was that taken-back and upset, “you’d ought to have this ceiling mended.”
For the plaster had fell off full half of it and the roof leaked; and there wasn’t very much of any furniture, to clap the climax47.
“The City won’t do anything,” says she. “They’re going to tear it down. And the rent ain’t much—so I want to stay.”
“Well,” says I, “I’m going to bring you out some napkins to hem15 next week—can I?”—me having bought new before then so’s to have some work for Missionary48 Society, so why not{245} now? And her face lit up that same way from inside.
When I’d got back in the rig, and we’d drove a little way by, I spoke to the rest about her going and putting on the hat. Some of ’em had sensed it, and some of ’em hadn’t—like some will and some won’t sense every created thing. And when we all did get a-hold of it—well, I can’t hardly tell you what it done. But there was something there in the rig with us that hadn’t been there before, and that come with a rush now, and that done a thing to us all alike. I can’t rightly say what it was, or what it done; but I guess Mis’ Puppy come as near it as anybody:
“Oh, ladies,” she says, kind of hushed, “don’t that seem like—well, don’t it make you feel—well, I donno, but ain’t it just....”
She kind of petered off, and it was Mis’ Pettibone, her enemy, that answered.
“Don’t it, Mis’ Puppy?” she says, “Don’t it?” And we all felt the same way. Or similar. And we never said a word, but we told each other good night, I noticed, about three times apiece, all around. And out of the fulness of the lump in my throat, I says:
“Ladies! I invite the Go-lightly club to meet with me to-morrow afternoon. {246}Don’t bring anything but sandwiches and your plates and spoons. I’ll open the sauce and make the tea and whip up some drop sponge cakes. And meantime, let’s us get together everything we can for her.”
And though hardly anybody in the village ever goes to anything two days in succession, they all said they’d come.
By the time they got there next day we had carpet to sew out of some of our attics49, and some new sheets to make, and some white muslin curtains out of Mis’ Puppy’s back room. And I explained to them that we couldn’t rightly put it to vote whether we should furnish up the Toll Gate House, because we didn’t have any president to put the motion, so the only way was to go ahead anyhow and do it; which we done; and which, if not parli-mental, was more than any mental, because it was out of our hearts.
Right while we was in the midst of things, in come my roomer, Mr. Dombledon. He’d come in the back door, as usual, and plumped into the sitting-room before he saw we were there. He’d had Donnie with him that day, because I had to be out most of the forenoon, and I called to them to stop, because I wanted the ladies should see the little fellow.{247}
Donnie shook hands with us, all around, like a little general, and then: “What’s these?” says he, with his hands on the curtains in my lap. “A nighty for me?”
“No, lambin’,” says I. “It’s curtains for a lady.”
“Are you that lady?” he says.
“No, lambin’,” says I. “A lady that ain’t got any curtains.”
But this he seemed to think was awful funny, and he laughed out—a little boy’s laugh, and kep’ it up.
“Ladies always has curtains,” says he, superior.
“I donno,” says I. “I saw one yesterday that didn’t even have a carpet.”
“Where?” asks Mr. Dombledon.
It kind of surprised me to hear him speak up—of course I’d introduced him all around, same as you do roomers and even agents in a little town, where you behave in general more as if folks were folks than you do in the City where they ain’t so much folks as lawyers, ladies, milkmen, ministers, and so on. But yet I hadn’t really expected Mr. Dombledon to volunteer.
“Down on the Tote road,” I says, “the old Toll Gate House. You ain’t familiar with it, I guess.”
“Is this hers curtains?” asks Donnie. “And{248} can I have some pink peaches sauce like in the kitchen?”
“They’s hers curtains,” says I, “and if you’d just as soon make it plums, you shall have all of them in the kitchen that’s good for you.” And off he went outdoors making up a song about pink plums.
All of a sudden his father spoke up again.
“Do—do you need any more help?” he says.
“Sure we do,” says I.
“Well,” he says, gentling with the words careful, “I’m kind of sure-moved with a needle.”
“Then,” says I, “mebbe you’ll needle this carpet seam that’s pulling my fingers off in pairs. We’d be grateful,” says I, ready.
So down he sat and begun to sew, and I never see handier. He whipped up the seam as nice and flat as a roller machine. And things was going along as fine as salt and as smooth as soap when Mis’ Puppy picked up from the pile of things a red cotton table-cover.
“Well,” she says, “I donno where we solicited50 this from, but whoever give it shows their bringing up. Holes. And not only holes, but ink. And not only so, but look there where their lamp set. Would you think anybody of a donatin’ mind would donate such a thing as this?”{249}
And Mis’ Pettibone spoke up sour and acid and bitter in one:
“I give that table-spread, Mis’ Puppy,” says she. “And it come off our dining-room table. We don’t throw things away to our house before the new is wore off. Anything more to say?”
“A grea’ deal,” says Mis’ Puppy, unflabbergasted, “but I’m too much of a lady to say it.”
“A lady ...” says Mis’ Pettibone, and done a little mock-at-her laugh.
Quick as a flash, and before anybody could say a word more, up hopped51 Mr. Dombledon and got out of the room. I followed him out on the side porch, thinking he was took sick; and there he stood, staring off acrost my wood lot.
“What is it, Mr. Dombledon?” I says.
“Don’t you mind me,” he says, “I got hit in a sore spot. I—guess I’ll be stayin’ out here a little while.”
Pretty soon he went out and sat on the wood pile, and I took some supper out to him on a pie-tin, and I told him then that we wanted to have Donnie to the table with us.
He looked up at me kind of suffering.
“I wouldn’t want to refuse you anything,” he says, “but—will they say any more things like that?”{250}
Right with the sweep of my wondering at him, that I’d never heard a man speak like him before, come a sweep of shame and of grieving and of being kind of mad, too.
“No, sir,” says I. “We won’t have any more of that. What’s the good o’ being hostess if you can’t turn your guests out of the house?”
I went back into the house, and marched into the sitting-room. I donno what I was going to say, but I never had to say it. For there was Mis’ Puppy, wiping her eyes on the red table-cover she’d scorned, and she was sitting on the arm of Mis’ Pettibone’s chair.
“Them things hadn’t ought to be said, ladies,” says she, as well as she could. “I can’t take back what I said about the table-cover, being it’s what I think. But I wish I’d kep’ my mouth shut, and I don’t care who knows it.”
I thought then, and I still think, it was one of the honestest and sweepingest apologies I ever heard.
And all at once everybody kind of got up and folded their work, and patted somebody on the elbow; and I see we was feeling a good deal the way we had in the rig the night before; and it come to me, kind of big and dim, that with the job we was doing, we couldn’t possibly nip{251} out at one another, like we would in just regular society. And all I done was to sing out, “Your supper’s ready and the toast’s on the table.” And we all went out, lion and lamb, and helped to set Donnie up on my ironing-stool for a high chair. And it made an awful pleasant few minutes.
We met three afternoons all together to sew for the Toll Gate House. And when we begun to plan to take the things to her, and get the roof mended, we realized we didn’t know her name.
“Ain’t that kind of nice?” says Mis’ Pettibone, dreamy. “And here we’re just as interested in her as if her father’d been our butcher, or something that’d make a real tie.”
“How shall we give these things to her?” says Mis’ Puppy. “Don’t let’s us let it be nasty, same as charity is.”
And it was Mis’ Lockmeyer, her of all the folks under the canopy, that set forward on the edge of her chair and thought of the thing to do. “Ladies,” she says, “there’s one more pair of curtains to hem. Why don’t we get her to one of our houses to hem ’em, and make her spend the day? And get her roof fixed52 and her ceiling mended and this truck in, and let it all be there when she gets home?”{252}
“That’s what we will do,” says we, with one set of common eyebrows53 expressing our intention.
We decided54 that I’d be the one to ask her down, being I was the one that first went in her house, and similar. She said she’d come ready enough, and bring the little girl; and it made it real convenient, because Mr. Dombledon had gone off on one of his two-days tramps and taken Donnie with him. And the living minute I’d started her in sewing on the things we’d saved for her to sew, and set the little girl to playing with some of the things I’d fixed up for Donnie, I was out of the house and making for the Toll Gate.
Land, land, the things we’d found we could spare and that we’d piled in that house—stuff that we hadn’t known we had and that we couldn’t miss if we’d tried, but had hung on to sole and only because we were deformed55 into economizing56 that way. Honestly, I believe more folks economizes57 by keeping old truck around than is extravagant58 by throwing new stuff away. I don’t stand up for either, but I well know which has the most germs in. What we’d sent we’d cleaned thorough. And it was clean as wax there—but the roof was being mended and the ceiling was being fixed and carpets were going down. And when we got{253} done with it, I tell you that little house looked as cozy as a Pullman car—and I don’t know anything whatever that looks cozier after you’ve set up in the day coach all night. And lions and lambs laying down together on swords and plow-shares were nothing to the way we worked together all day long. We had to jump to keep out of the way of being “been-nice” to so’s to get a chance to be nice ourselves. I liked to be there. I like to think about it since.
At five o’clock, old Mis’ Lockmeyer, dead-tuckered, was standing in the door with a corner of her apron59 caught up in the band, when Jem drove me away.
“Leave her come out any time now,” she says, “we’re ready for her. Mebbe she’ll be mad but, land—even if she is, I can’t be sorry we done it. It’s been as enjoyable,” she says, “as anything I’ve ever done.”
I looked back at her, and at all the other women back of her and in the windows, and at Mis’ Pettibone and Mis’ Puppy leaning on the same sill, and I nodded; and Mis’ Puppy—well, it was faint and ladylike, but just the same the look that we give each other was far, far more than a squint60, and it was bordering on, and right up to, a regular wink61.
When I come in sight of my house I was so{254} busy thinking how she’d like hers that I didn’t see for a minute what my front yard had in it. And when I did see, my heart kind of went plap!—but a pleasant plap. My front yard looked so exactly the way I’d used to dream of it looking, and it never had. It was little and neat and green, with flowers and a white door-step as usual, but out in front was a little girl, with my clothes-rope doubled up for lines, and she was driving round and round the pansy bed a little boy. Just before I got to the gate, and before they saw me, they dropped the rope and went off around the house hand in hand, like they’d known each other all their days.
“I wish everybody was like that,” thinks I, and went in my front door and through to the dining-room.
And there, sitting on my couch with their arms around each other, was the Toll Gate House lady and my roomer, Mr. Dombledon.
“Well,” says I. “Sudden—but real friendly!”
I see I had to say something, for they didn’t seem real capable of it. And besides, I’d begun to suspicion, deep in the part of the heart that ain’t never surprised at love anywheres.
Mr. Dombledon come over to me—and now his eyes were like the sitting-room with all the curtains up.{255}
“Oh, ma’am!” he says, “how did you know? How did you find out?”
“Know?” I says. “I know less all the time. And I ain’t found out yet. I’m a-waiting for you to tell me.”
“We’re each other’s wife and husband,” says he, neat but shy.
They told me as well as they could, now together, now separate, now both keeping still. I made it out more by means of the air than by means of words, anyhow. But this thing that he said came home to me then, and it’s never left me since:
“Nothin’ come between us,” he says. “No great trouble or sorrow or like that, same as some. It was just every day that wore us out. We got to snappin’ and snarlin’—like you do. We done it at everything—whenever either of us opened our heads, the other one took ’em up on it. We done it because we was tired. And we done it because we didn’t have much to do with—nor no real home. And we done it for no reason too, I guess ... an’ that come to be the oftenest of all. It got hold of us. That was what ailed me that day at your meeting—I’d always run from it now same as I would from the pest. It is the pest.... Well, finally I went off with Donnie and left Pearl{256} with her. Then when I found out she’d come here, I come here too, a-purpose. But I couldn’t go and face her, even then. And it’s been six months. And now we both know.”
I stood there looking at those two little people, shabby and or’nary-seeming; and I could have said something right past the lump in my throat if only I could of thought how to put it. But I couldn’t—like you can’t. Only—I knew.
“Where is he?” I heard her saying. “Where is he?”
I knew who she meant, and I went and got him. He come running in with his swing-board on him for a breast-plate. And his mother never said a word—she just gathered him up, swing-board and all, and kissed him at the back of his neck, there in the hollow that had been a-waiting for her.
“She made me cookies wiv buttins on!” he give out, for my biography. And it was enough for me.
Mr. Dombledon had his little girl’s hands in his, swinging her arms back and forth62, and never saying a word.
Pretty soon I sent ’em off down the road, Donnie and Pearl ahead, they two behind, carrying my ex-roomer’s things. And I knew how, at the Toll Gate House, everything was{257} warm and bright and furnished and suppered, waiting for them. And life was nice.
I went and stood out on my porch, looking off acrost my wood lot, thinking. I was thinking about the two of them, and about us women. And I knew I’d been showed the little bit of an edge to something that’s so small it don’t seem like anything, and so sordid63 we won’t any of us let on it comes near us, and so big it reaches all over the world.
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1
tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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2
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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3
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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4
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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7
vaudevillian
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| n.轻歌舞剧编剧者，杂耍演员 | |
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8
satchel
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| n.(皮或帆布的)书包 | |
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9
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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11
moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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12
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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13
trotting
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| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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14
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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15
hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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16
hurrah
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| int.好哇，万岁，乌拉 | |
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17
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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18
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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19
sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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20
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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21
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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22
festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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23
wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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24
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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25
catchy
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| adj.易记住的，诡诈的，易使人上当的 | |
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26
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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27
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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28
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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29
toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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30
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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31
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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32
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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33
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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34
ailed
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| v.生病( ail的过去式和过去分词 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳 | |
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35
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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36
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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37
embroiders
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| v.（在织物上）绣花( embroider的第三人称单数 )；刺绣；对…加以渲染（或修饰）；给…添枝加叶 | |
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38
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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39
goaded
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| v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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40
dab
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| v.轻触，轻拍，轻涂；n.(颜料等的)轻涂 | |
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41
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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42
coffins
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| n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物 | |
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43
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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44
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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45
cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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46
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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47
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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48
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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49
attics
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| n. 阁楼 | |
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50
solicited
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| v.恳求( solicit的过去式和过去分词 )；（指娼妇）拉客；索求；征求 | |
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51
hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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52
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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53
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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54
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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55
deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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56
economizing
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| v.节省，减少开支( economize的现在分词 ) | |
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57
economizes
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| n.节省，减少开支( economize的名词复数 )v.节省，减少开支( economize的第三人称单数 ) | |
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58
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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59
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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60
squint
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| v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
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61
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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62
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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63
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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