Part 25 (2/2)

”I dunno,” said Jim. Abstraction had settled upon him. ”Say, Mis'

Marshall, what if I should drop in an' 'tend to them pinies?”

”Fush on the pinies!” said Mrs. Marshall heartily. ”You can, if 't'll be any comfort to ye. 'Twas they that made me think o' the Miller twins.

Husband never got over talkin' about their pinies. I'd ruther have a good head o' lettuce than all the pinies that ever blowed.”

Jim dropped his traps, opened the gate, walked past her without a word, and began a professional examination of the garden-beds. When he came to a neglected line of box, he made a sympathetic clucking of the tongue, and before a rosebush, coming out in meagre leaf.a.ge, he stayed a long time.

”Too bad!” he said, as if the bush appealed to him for comfort. ”Too bad!”

Mrs. Marshall had gone contentedly back to her sewing by the window, and a cautious voice challenged her from the bedroom, where her daughter, Lily, was changing her dress.

”Well,” said Lily, ”I guess you've done it this time. Didn't you know 'twas Jim's wife the man run off with? Well, it was.”

Mrs. Marshall paused in her work.

”Well,” said she, ”I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I believe husband did use to say so. I ain't thought of it for years. How'd you find out so much?”

”I guess I don't have to be in a place long without hearin' all there is to hear,” said Lily, coming out in her crisp pink muslin. ”Here, you hook me up. Why, mother, he's Wilfred's own uncle! Wilfred told me. He said his uncle never'd been the same man since his wife run away.”

Jim was wandering back to the road, deflected now and then by some starveling plant.

”Anything you want to do,” called Mrs. Marshall, with a compensatory impulse, ”you're welcome to. I may put in a few seeds.”

Jim stood there, shaking his head in great dissatisfaction.

”It wouldn't ha' done a mite o' good for me to come here while he was alive,” he said, as if he accounted to himself for that grievous lapse.

”He'd ha' turned me out, neck an' crop, if I'd laid a finger on it.”

”Well, you come when you can,” said Mrs. Marshall. She was benevolently willing to fall in with Gardener Jim's peculiarities, because, being love-cracked, he had no particular occupation save this self-chosen one.

”What you s'pose I said to the new minister about you, Jim?” she continued kindly.

”Dunno,” returned Jim, in his soft voice. ”Dunno.”

”Well, he says to me, 'I never see such a lot o' nice gardins as there is round here.' 'Don't you know the reason?' says I. 'Why, Gardener Jim goes round an' takes care of 'em without money an' without price.' Wake up, Jim. That's what I said.”

The look of response had vanished from his face. He had taken a knife from his pocket and was clipping a dead branch from the prairie queen at the window. When the deed had been done with great nicety, he closed the knife, returned it to his pocket, and took his way silently out of the yard. Mrs. Marshall, glancing up from her sewing, saw him again trudging toward his lonely home.

When Jim went along like that, his head bent and his eyes fixed upon the ground, people often wondered whether he was thinking of anything at all, or whether such intentness did betoken a grave preoccupation.

Sometimes they tested him. ”What you thinkin' about, Jim?” one would ask him, when they met upon the road; but Jim never replied in any illuminating way. If he answered at all, it was only to query, ”How's your gardin?” and then, as soon as the response was given, to nod and hurry on again. If the garden was reported as not doing very well, Jim was there next morning, like the family doctor.

To-day, when he reached the cross-road leading to his little black house, he paused a moment, as if he were working out something and must wait for the answer. Then he continued on the way he had been going, and a quarter of a mile farther on stopped before a great house of a dull and time-worn yellow, where, in the corresponding front window of the upper chambers, two women sat, each in her own solitary state, binding shoes. These were the Miller twins. Sophy saw him as he opened the side gate and went along her path to the back of the house. She rose, tossed her work on the table, and ran into an overlooking chamber to watch him. Sophy had been the pretty one of the family. Now her fair face had broadened, her blond hair showed a wide track at the parting, and her mouth dropped at the corners; but her faded blue eyes still looked wistfully through their gla.s.ses. They had a grave simplicity, like that of a child.

As she watched Gardener Jim, a frown came upon her forehead. ”What under heavens?” she muttered; and then she saw. Jim was examining her neglected garden, and the wonder was not in that. It was that after all these years, when he had worked for other people, suddenly he had come to her. A moment after, he looked up, to find her at his elbow.

”I should think anybody'd be ashamed,” said he, ”to let things go to wrack an' ruin this way.” The paths were thick with weeds. Faithful sweet-william and phlox had evidently struggled for years and barely held their own against misfortune, and bouncing-bet was thrifty. But others of the loved in old-time gardens had starved and died. ”You used to have the handsomest canterbury-bells anywhere round,” said Jim. He spoke seriously, as if it pained him to find things at such a pa.s.s.

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