Part 38 (1/2)

Isabel was going on in that persuasive voice; it seemed to call the town to her to do her bidding.

”No, we ain't goin' to do it their way. We're goin' to do it our way.

They've set out to see how young they can be. Le' 's see 'f we can't beat 'em seein' how old we can be. Le' 's dress up like the oldest that ever was, an' act as if we liked it.”

The electrifying meaning ran over them like a wave. They caught the splendid significance of it. They were to offer, in the guise of jesting, their big protest against the folly of sickening over youth by showing how fearlessly they were dancing on toward age. It was more than bravado, more than repudiation of the cowards who hesitated at the onward step. It was loyal and pa.s.sionate upholding of the state of those who were already old, and of those who had continued their beneficent lives into the time when there is no pleasure in the years, and yet had given honor and blessing through them all. They fell to laughing together, and two or three cried a little on the heels of merriment.

”I dunno what mother'd say,” whispered Hannah Call, whose mother, old and yet regnant as the best housekeeper in town and a repository of all the most valuable recipes, had died that year. ”I guess she'd say we was possessed.”

”We be,” said Isabel recklessly. ”That's the only fun there is, bein'

possessed. If you ain't one way, you'd better be another. It's the way's the only thing to see to.”

”I said I was sick o' paint an' powder,” said Caddie. ”Well, so I be, but I'll put flour in my hair so 't's as white as the drifted snow. I've got aunt Hope's gre't horn spe'tacles.”

”I guess I could borrer one o' gramma Ellsworth's gounds,” said Mrs.

Pray. A light rarely seen there had come into her dull eyes. Isabel, with that prescience she had about the minds of people, knew what it meant. Mrs. Pray, though she was contemplating the garb of eld, was unconsciously going back to youth and the joy of playing. ”She ain't quite my figger, but I guess 'twill do.”

Lydia Vesey gave her a kindly look, yet scathing in its certainty of professional strictures.

”There ain't n.o.body that ever I see that's anywhere near your figger,”

she said, in the neighborly ruthlessness that was perfectly understood among them. ”But you hand the gound over to me, an' I can fix it.”

”Everybody flour their hair,” cried Isabel, with the mien of inciting them deliriously.

”Everybody that's got plates, take 'em out,” added Martha, the administrative, catching the infection and going a step beyond.

”Why, we can borrer every st.i.tch we want,” said Lydia Vesey. ”Borrer of the dead an' borrer of the livin'. I know every rag o' clo'es that's been made in this town, last thirty years. There's enough laid away in camphire, of them that's gone, to fit out three-four old ladies' homes.”

”It'll be like the resurrection,” said Ellen Bayliss, with that little breathless catch in her voice.

”What you mean by that, Ellen?” asked Martha gently.

”I know what she means,” said Isabel, while Ellen, the blood running into her cheeks, looked helplessly as if she wished she had not spoken.

”She means we're goin' to dress ourselves up in the things of them that's gone, a good many of 'em, an' we can't help takin' on the ways of folks that wore 'em. We can't anyways help glancin' back an' kinder formin' ourselves on old folks we've looked up to. Seems if the dead would walk.”

Sometimes people shuddered at Isabel's queer sayings, but at this every one felt moved in a solemn way. It seemed beautiful to have the dead walk, so it was in the remembrance of the living.

”Shall we let the men in?” asked Caddie anxiously. ”I dunno what they'll say 'f we don't.” Her silent husband was the close partner of her life.

To Marshmead it seemed as if he might as well have been born dumb, but Caddie never omitted tribute to his great qualities.

”Mercy, yes,” said Isabel, ”if they'll dress up. Not else. They've got to be gran'ther Graybeards every one of 'em, or they don't come. You tell 'em so.”

”You going home, aunt Ellen?” came a fresh voice from the doorway. ”I've been staying after school, and I thought maybe you'd be tired and like me to call for you.”

It was Nellie Lake, a vision of youth and sweet unconsciousness. She stood there in the doorway, hat and parasol in hand, crowned by her yellow hair, and in the prettiest pose of deprecating grace. Aunt Ellen smiled at her with loving pride, and yet wistfully, too. Nellie had called for her many times, just to walk home together, but never because aunt Ellen might be tired. The infection of age was in the air, and Nellie Lake had caught it.

”Come in, Nellie,” she said. ”No, I don't feel specially tired, but maybe I'll go along in a minute.”

”Want to come to an old folks' party?” called Isabel, who was reading all these thoughts as swiftly as if they were signals to herself alone.