Did you ever look through an old school-book of your own and, say, on the history picture of Vesuvius in eruption1 impose your own memory of Pompeii, visited in these twenty years since you studied about it; and have you not stared hard at the time between and felt yourself some one other than that one who once dreamed over the Vesuvius picture? Or, years after you read the Letters, you have made a little mark below Cicero's cry from exile, "Oh, that I had been less eager for life!" and you look at the cry and at the mark, and you and one of these become an anachronism—but you are not sure which it is that so becomes. So now, in reading over these notes some while after I have set them down, I am minded here to give you my look ahead to the end of the summer and to slip in some account of what happened as a closing of the tale. And I confess that something about me—perhaps it is the [Pg 137]Custodian herself—likes this way of pretending a freedom from time and of looking upon its fruit to say which seeds have grown and which have not.
Friendship Village is not superstitious2, but when curious coincidences occur we do, as we say, "take down note." And it did seem like a judgment3 upon us that, a little time after the Java fiasco, and while indignation was yet at high noon, Mrs. Oliver Wheeler Johnson fell ill.
At first I think we affected4 not to know it. When she did not appear at church, none of us mentioned it for a Sunday or two. Then when some one casually5 noted6 her absence we said, "Oh, wasn't she? Got little cold, likely." That we saw her no more down town or "brushing up" about her door we facilely laid to chance. When the village heard that her maid—who always offended by talking almost in a whisper—had once or twice excused her mistress to callers, every one shut lips and hardened hearts and said some folk acted very funny about their calling duties. But when, at the twelve o'clock breakfast of the new minister's wife—("Like enough breakfast at noon was a real Bible custom," the puzzled devotees solved that amazing hour), Mrs. Johnson did not appear, the village was forced to admit that something must be wrong.
Moreover, against its will the behaviour of young Mr. Johnson was gravely alarming Friendship.[Pg 138] Mr. Johnson was in real estate and insurance in the city, and this did not impress the village as a serious business. "Because, what does he sell!" as Abigail Arnold said. "We know he don't own property. He rents the very house they live in. A doctor's a doctor an' he gives pills, an' a store's a store with the kind o' thing you need. But it don't seem like that man could make a real good livin' for her, dealin' vague in nothin' that way." His income, it was felt, was problematical, and the village had settled it that what the Oliver Wheeler Johnsons' had was chiefly wedding presents "an' high-falutin' tastes." But, in the face of the evidence, every afternoon at three o'clock the young husband ordered a pha?ton from Jimmy Sturgis and came home from the city to take his wife to drive. Between shutters7 the village saw that little Mrs. Johnson's face did look betrayingly pale, and the blue ostrich8 plume9 lay motionless on her bright hair.
"I guess Mis' Johnson's real run down," her acquaintances said to one another uneasily. Still we did not go to see her. The weeks went by until, one morning, Calliope met the little new Friendship doctor on the street and asked him about his patient.
"I up an' ask' him flat out," Calliope confessed afterward10; "not that I really cared to be told, but I hated to know I was heathenish. You don't like the feelin'. To know they ain't heathens is all[Pg 139] that keeps some folks from bein' 'em. Well, so I ask' him. 'Doctor Heron,' s'I, 'is that Mis' Johnson real sick, or is she just sickish?' He looks at me an'—'Looks pretty sick, don't she?' s'e. 'Well,' s'I, 'I've seen folks look real rich that wa'n't it by right-down pocketbook evidence.' 'Been to see her?' s'e. 'No,' s'I, short. 'Might drop in,' s'e, an' walks off, lookin' cordial. That little Doctor Heron is that close-mouthed I declare if I don't respect him same as the minister an' the pipe-organ an' the skippin' hills."
So, as midsummer passed and found the little woman still ailing11, I obeyed an idle impulse and went one evening to see her. I recall that as soon as I had crossed her threshold the old influence came upon me, and I was minded to run from the place in sheer distaste of the overemphasis and the lifted, pointed12 chin and the fluttering importances of her presence. I was ashamed enough that this should be so, but so it was; and I held my ground to await her coming to the room only by a measure of will.
I sat with Mrs. Johnson for an hour that evening. And it would seem that, as is the habit of many, having taken my own way I was straightway possessed13 to draw others after me. There are those who behave similarly and who set cunningly to work to gain their own ends, as, for example, I did.[Pg 140] For one night soon I devised a little feast, which I have always held to be a good doorway14 to any enterprise, and, at the Friendship-appointed supper hour of six, I made my table as fair as possible, as has been done in like case ever since butter was first served "in a lordly dish." And my guests were Calliope, without whom no festival is wholly in keeping, and Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, and Mis' Postmaster Sykes, and that great, tolerant Mis' Amanda Toplady.
Because they had arrived so unsuspectingly I own myself to have felt guilty enough when, in that comfortable half-hour after a new and delectable15 dessert had been pronounced upon, I suggested with what casualness I might summon that we five pay a visit that night to Mrs. Oliver Wheeler Johnson.
"Land!" said Mis' Holcomb, "I've thought I would an' then I've thought I wouldn't till I feel all two-faced about myself. I donno. Sometimes I think one way an' sometimes I think the other. Are you ever like that?"
"I s'pose," said Mis' Postmaster Sykes, majestically16, "that them in our position ought to overlook. I donno's 'twould hurt us any to go," she added graciously.
Calliope's eyes twinkled.
"That's it," she said; "let them that's got the[Pg 141] social position to overlook things be Christian17 an' overlook 'em."
That great Mis' Amanda Toplady folded her hands, dimpled like a baby giant's.
"I'd be glad to go," she said simply; "I've got some grape jell that looks to me like it wasn't goin' to keep long, an' I'd be thankful to be on terms with her so's I could carry it in to her. They ain't a single other invalid18 in Friendship."
Calliope sprang to her feet and crossed her little arms, a hand hugging either shoulder.
"Well said!" she cried; "do let's go! I'm sick to death of slidin' off the subject whenever it comes up in my mind."
So, in the fair October dusk, we five went down the Plank19 Road—where Summer lingers late. The air was gentle with the soft, impending20 dark. I wonder why the colonnade21 of sweet influences, down which we stepped, did not win us to themselves. But I remember how, instead, our imminent22 visit drew us back to the days of Mrs. Johnson's coming, so that presently we were going over the incident of the Java entertainment, and, as Calliope would have put it, "crystallizing and boiling over" again in the old distaste.
But when we reached the little cottage of the Johnsons, our varied23 motives24 for the visit were abruptly25 merged26 in a common anxiety. For Doctor[Pg 142] Heron's buggy stood at the gate and the little one-story cottage was dark save for a light in what we knew to be a corner bedroom. The hallway was open to the night, but though we could distinctly hear the bell jingle27 in the kitchen no one answered the summons. Then, there being somewhere about a murmur28 of voices, Calliope stepped within and called softly:—
"Doctor, Doctor Heron—you there? Is they anything we can do?"
The doctor came momentarily to the lighted doorway down the hall.
"That you, Calliope?" he said. "You might come here, will you? Tell the rest to sit down somewheres. And you tell Mr. Johnson he can come."
On which, from out the dark living room, some one emerged very swiftly and without a word pushed by us all where we were crowded in the passage and strode down to the little lighted chamber29. Calliope hurried after him, and we four shrank back in sudden dread30 and slipped silently into the room which the young husband had left, and stood together in the dimness. Was she so sick? In that room he must have heard the door-bell as we had heard it, and yet he had not answered. Was it possible that we had come too late?
While we waited we said nothing at all, save that[Pg 143] great Mis' Amanda Toplady, who said three times or four, "Oh, dear, oh, dear, I'm always waitin' till somethin's too late—either me or the other thing." It seemed very long before we heard some stir, but it can have been only a few minutes until the doctor came down the little hall and groped into the room. In answer to all that we asked he merely occupied himself in lighting31 a match and setting it deliberately32 to the candles on the table and adjusting their shades. They were, we noted afterward, the same candles whose presence we had detected and derided33 at those long ago tête-à-tête suppers in that house. The light glowed on the young doctor's pale face as he looked at us, each in turn, before he spoke34. And when he had done with his slow scrutiny—I think that we cannot wholly have fancied its accusation—he said only:—
"Yes, she's pretty sick. I can't tell yet."
Then he turned and closed the outer door and stood leaning against it, looking up the hall.
"Miss Marsh35!" he called.
But why did the man not tell us something, we wondered; and there flashed in my mind Calliope's reference to the pipe-organ and the skipping hills. At all events, Calliope would tell us.
And so she did. We heard her step in the hall, coming quickly and yet with a manner of exceeding care. I think that with the swift sense which wings[Pg 144] before intelligence, the others understood before they saw her, even as I understood. Calliope stopped in the doorway as if she could trust herself to go no farther. And she was holding something in her arms.
"Calliope," we said; "Calliope...."
She looked down at that which she held, and then she looked at us. And the tears were in her eyes, but her face was brighter than I have ever known it.
"It's a baby," she said, "a little bit of a baby. Her baby. An' it makes me feel—it makes me feel—oh," she broke off, "don't it make you feel that way, too?"
We looked at one another, and avoided one another's look, and then looked long at the baby. I do not remember that we said anything at all, or if we did so, that it bore a meaning. But an instant after Calliope gave the baby to the nurse who appeared in the doorway, we all tiptoed down to the kitchen by common consent. And it was plain that Mrs. Johnson's baby made us feel that way, too.
In our desire to be of tardy36 service we did the most absurd things. We took possession of the kitchen, rejoicing that we found the supper dishes uncared for, and we heated a great kettle of water, and washed and wiped and put away, as softly as we could; and then we "brushed up around." I think that only the need of silence kept us from[Pg 145] cleaning windows. When the nurse appeared—who had arrived that day unknown of Friendship—we sprang as one to do her bidding. We sent the little maid to bed, we tidied the living room, walking tiptoe, and then we went back through the kitchen and sat down on the little side "stoop." And all this time we had addressed one another only about the tasks which we had in hand.
After a little silence,
"The milkman was quite late this morning," observed Mis' Holcomb.
"Well, he's begun to deliver in cans instead o' bottles," Mis' Sykes explained; "it takes him some longer to get around. He says bottles makes his wife just that much more to do."
Then we fell silent again.
It was Calliope, sitting on the porch step outside, where it was dark, who at last had the courage to be articulate.
"I hope—I hope," she said, "she's goin' to be all right."
Mis' Sykes shaded her eyes from the bracket lamp within.
"I'll go bail," she said, "that little you-do-as-I-say chin'll carry her through. I'm glad she's got it."
Just then we heard the thin crying of the child and we could divine Calliope, that on the step where[Pg 146] she sat she was hugging her arms and rocking somewhat, to and fro.
"Like enough," she said, "oh, like enough—folks ain't so cramped37 about runnin' their own feelin's as they think they are!"
To this we murmured something indefinite in sound but positive enough in sense. And we all knew what we all knew.
"Let's go out around the house to the front gate," said that great Mis' Amanda Toplady, abruptly. "Have any of you ladies got two handkerchiefs?"
"I've got two," said Mis' Postmaster Sykes, "an' I ain't used either one. Do you want the one with essence or the one without?"
"I ain't partial," said Mis' Amanda.
We rose and stumbled along the grassy38 path that led round the house. At the gate we met Doctor Heron.
"Well," he said slowly, "well." And after a moment, "Will—will any of you be here in the morning?" he asked.
"Yes," we all said simply.
"That's good," he commented shortly, "I didn't know."
We five had to separate at the first corner to go our home ways, and we stood for a moment under the gas-light. I remember how, just then, Peter's father came singing past us, like one of the [Pg 147]Friendship family who did not understand his kinship. Even as we five had not understood ours.
"You haven't got a shawl, hev you?" Mis' Sykes said to me solicitously39.
"The nights have been some chilly40 on a person's shoulders for a day or two now," said Mis' Holcomb.
Calliope put her hand up quickly to her throat.
"Quit," she said. "All of you. Thank God. An' shake hands. I tell you, after this I bet I'll run my own feelin's about folks or I'll bring down the sky an' make new feelin's! Oh," said Calliope, "don't her—an' now—an' the baby—an'—oh, an' that bright star winkin' over that hitchin' post, make things seem—easy? Good night. I can't stand out here any longer."
But when we had gone away a few steps, Calliope called us back. And as we turned again,
"To bring down the sky," she repeated, "I bet that's the way God meant us to do. They ain't any of us got enough to us to piece out without it!"
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1
eruption
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| n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作 | |
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2
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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3
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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4
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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5
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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6
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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7
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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8
ostrich
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| n.鸵鸟 | |
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9
plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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10
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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11
ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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12
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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13
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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14
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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15
delectable
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| adj.使人愉快的；美味的 | |
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16
majestically
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| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
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17
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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18
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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19
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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20
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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21
colonnade
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| n.柱廊 | |
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22
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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23
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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25
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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26
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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27
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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28
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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29
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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30
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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31
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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32
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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33
derided
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| v.取笑，嘲笑( deride的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
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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35
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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36
tardy
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| adj.缓慢的，迟缓的 | |
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37
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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38
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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39
solicitously
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| adv.热心地，热切地 | |
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40
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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