Volume IX Part 2 (1/2)
Maybury would have been more than human if she had not said ”Scat! scat!
scat!” and she did say it, shaking herself in horror.
It was the last straw. Mrs. Cairnes took her cat in her arms and moved majestically out of the room, put on her rubbers, and went out to tea, and did not come home till the light up stairs told her that Mrs.
Maybury had gone to her room.
Where was it all going to end? Mrs. Cairnes could not send Sophia away after all the protestations she had made. Mrs. Maybury could never put such a slight on Julia as to go away without more overt cause for displeasure. It seemed as though they would have to fight it out in the union.
But that night a glare lit the sky which quite outdid the sunset; the fire-bells and clattering engines called attention to it much more loudly than Sophia had announced the larger conflagration. And in the morning it was found that the Webster House was in ashes. All of Mrs.
Maybury's property was in the building. The insurance had run out the week before, and meaning to attend to it every day she had let it go, and here she was penniless.
But no one need commiserate with her. Instead of any terror at her situation a wild joy sprang up within her. Relief and freedom clapped their wings above her.
It was Mrs. Cairnes who felt that she herself needed pity. A lamp at nights, oceans of fresh air careering round the house, the everlasting canary-bird's singing to bear, her plants exiled, her table revolutionized, her movements watched, her conversation restrained, her cat abused, the board of two people and the wages of one to come out of her narrow h.o.a.rd. But she rose to the emergency. Sophia was penniless.
Sophia was homeless. The things which it was the ashes of bitterness to allow her as a right, she could well give her as a benefactress. Sophia was welcome to all she had. She went into the room, meaning to overwhelm the weeping, helpless Sophia with her benevolence. Sophia was not there.
Mrs. Maybury came in some hours later, a carriage and a job-wagon presently following her to the door. ”You are very good, Julia,” said she, when Julia received her with the rapid sentences of welcome and a.s.surance that she had been acc.u.mulating. ”And you mustn't think I'm not sensible of all your kindness. I am. But my husband gave the inst.i.tution advice for nothing for forty years, and I think I have rights there now without feeling under obligations to any. I've visited the directors, and I've had a meeting called and attended,--I've had all your energy, Julia, and have hurried things along in quite your own fas.h.i.+on. And as I had just one hundred dollars in my purse after I sold my watch this morning, I've paid it over for the entrance-fee, and I've been admitted and am going to spend the rest of my days in the Old Ladies' Home. I've the upper corner front room, and I hope you will come and see me there.”
”Sophia!”
”Don't speak! Don't say one word! My mind was made up irrevocably when I went out. Nothing you, nothing any one, can say, will change it. I'm one of the old ladies now.”
Mrs. Cairnes brought all her plants back into the parlor, pulled down the shades, drew the inside curtain, had the cat's cus.h.i.+on again in its familiar corner, and gave Allida warning, within half an hour. She looked about a little while and luxuriated in her freedom,--no one to supervise her conversation, her movements, her opinions, her food. Never mind the empty rooms, or the echoes there! She read an angry psalm or two, looked over some texts denouncing pharisees and hypocrites, thought indignantly of the ingrat.i.tude there was in the world, felt that any way, and on the whole, she was where she was before Sophia came, and went out to spend the evening, and came in at the nine-o'clock bell-ringing with such a sense of freedom, that she sat up till midnight to enjoy it.
And Sophia spent the day putting her mult.i.tudinous belongings into place, hanging up her bird-cage, arranging her books and her bureau-drawers, setting up a stocking, and making the acquaintance of the old ladies next her. She taught one of them to play double solitaire that very evening. And then she talked a little while concerning Dr.
Maybury, about whom Julia had never seemed willing to hear a word; and then she read, ”Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” and went to bed perfectly happy.
Julia came to see her the next day, and Sophia received her with open arms. Every one knew that Julia had begged her to stay and live with her always, and share what she had. Julia goes now to see her every day of her life, rain or snow, storm or s.h.i.+ne; and the whole village says that the friends.h.i.+p between those two old women is something ideal.
THE MYSTERY OF GILGAL
BY JOHN HAY
The darkest, strangest mystery I ever read, or heern, or see Is 'long of a drink at Taggart's Hall-- Tom Taggart's of Gilgal.
I've heern the tale a thousand ways, But never could git through the maze That hangs around that queer day's doin's; But I'll tell the yarn to youans.
Tom Taggart stood behind his bar, The time was fall, the skies was fa'r, The neighbors round the counter drawed, And ca'mly drinked and jawed.
At last come Colonel Blood of Pike, And old Jedge Phinn, permiscus-like, And each, as he meandered in, Remarked, ”A whisky-skin.”
Tom mixed the beverage full and fa'r, And slammed it, smoking, on the bar.
Some says three fingers, some says two,-- I'll leave the choice to you.
Phinn to the drink put forth his hand; Blood drawed his knife, with accent bland, ”I ax yer parding, Mister Phinn-- Jest drap that whisky-skin.”
No man high-toneder could be found Than old Jedge Phinn the country round.