Part 3 (2/2)

”Now you're talking!” the stranger said, removing his arm and making way. ”Why didn't you speak up before, sonny? Here, give me a holt of her!” He lifted Narcissa gently into the buggy, and drew her close to his side, laying her head well up on his shoulder so that she could breathe easily. ”Family man,” he explained. ”Gals of my own. Now you reach under the seat there, and bring out a shawl you'll find.”

Romulus obeyed, and half angry, half pleased, watched the stranger as he deftly wrapped the shawl round the fainting girl, and put her dripping hair tenderly off her face.

”Allers take a shawl along,” he explained further. ”Wife enjoys poor health, and have to be ready for a change of wind. Comes in handy, don't it? Now get in, young feller, and tell me where to drive to. You needn't look down in the mouth, either, 'cause you don't know everything in creation yet. Time enough to learn, and you're likely to learn easy, I should say.

”And you rest comfortable, my dear,” he added, speaking to Narcissa as if she were a small child. ”Here's your friend alongside of you, and you're just as safe as you would be in the best stuffed chair in the settin'-room at home. Fetch your breath, like a good girl, and try to look about you.”

But Narcissa heard never a word, for she had fainted.

An hour later, Romulus Patten and Mrs. Transom were sitting by Narcissa's bedside, watching her. She had fallen into a deep, childlike sleep, and their low voices did not disturb her.

”The old gentleman was so mad he was all cheesed up,” the pedlar was saying. ”There! I was fairly sorry for him, old weasel as he is; so I let him go on for a spell, till he was clean tuckered out, and then I e'en took him up and put him to bed, same as if he was a child. Glad enough he was to get there too, if he was mad. Then I took and made him some warm drink, and gave him to understand I'd stay by till Narcissy come back, and here I be. And now, young man,” she added, fixing her keen blue eyes on Romulus's face, ”I've got a word to say to you. You let fall something when you was bringin' this child in--I won't say that I wasn't mighty glad to see her, and you, too,--but you let on something about keepin' company with her. Now, I want to know right here, what you meant, and who you are, and all about it. Oh, you may look at my pants much as you're a mind to. I come of good folks, and I dress as seems fit to me, and I don't care in any way, shape, or manner what folks say or think. I've been snoopin' round some, since I put that old man to bed, and I found the family Bible; and this child is the lawful daughter of my cousin, Narcissy Merrill, that I haven't heard of this twenty years. Bein' so, I'm goin' to stand by her, as is right and proper; so, now I'll hear what you've got to say. I've as good a right to do for her as that old skimp-jack in there, if he is her father's uncle.”

Romulus Patten spoke out frankly. He had ”taken to” Narcissa from the first moment he saw her. When was that? Well, it wasn't long ago, it was true. It was only yesterday; but he wasn't one to change, and he had never seen a girl yet that he would look twice at. And when she came, in all that awful storm, just to tell him,--here the young man choked a little, and the woman liked him the better for it,--he made up his mind then, he went on, all in a minute, that she should be his wife; and she should, if so be she was willing. He would go back to the place and see if he could get a job in the garden; he might have had one now, but he was some tired and had thought it would rest him to travel a spell. He would quit travelling now, and had little doubt that he could have a good place.

He knew of a pleasant rent--in that part of the country a hired tenement is known as a ”rent”--with four rooms, that belonged to a friend of his, and he could get that, he guessed. In short, the sooner Narcissa got away from Uncle Pinker the better, in his opinion, and he was ready to take her, the first day she would go. That was all he had to say for himself; but he presumed Mr. Brown would give him a character if he was asked. He had worked for Browns three years, and had no reason to think they weren't satisfied with him.

When Romulus had finished his little speech, which left him flushed and tremulous, yet with a brave light in his eyes, and a tender look as he glanced towards his love where she lay sleeping quietly, Mrs.

Transom gazed at him for a while in silence; then she held out her hand and grasped his heartily.

”I guess you'll do,” she said. ”I guess you're the right sort. Now, I'll tell you what. You go along and get your place, and see about your rent. Don't engage it, but get the refusal of it, if it belongs to a friend, as you say. Then you come back here and find your girl all well and peart again, and you say your say, and let her say hers.

You don't want to take advantage of her being sick and weakly now--now, you no need to flare up! I say you don't want to, and I mean it. You'll need a box of my salve, if you're so thin-skinned as all that comes to.

”You go along, I say, and when you come back, come over to my place, Tupham Corner, third house from the cross-road, white house with a yeller door. Everybody knows Mis' Transom's house. You'll find your gal there, and you'll marry her there, with her mother's cousin to stand up with her. There, don't be scairt! Pity some gals haven't got the trick of blus.h.i.+n' as you have, young man. I've got as good a black silk as any in Tupham or Cyrus, and n.o.body's goin' to say 'Bloomer Joe' round where my own folks live, you'd better believe. What say?

Like my idee, or have you got a better one yourself?”

”You're real good!” Romulus cried. ”Poor little Narcissa! It does seem as if she had found all her friends at once, and she never having any in her life before, as you may say. I tell you, Mis' Transom, I'll treat her as well as I know how. If she was a queen, she shouldn't have any more care than what I'll give her. I--I think a sight of her!” he added simply. ”Seems as if she always belonged to me, somehow.”

”That's right!” said Mrs. Transom, who was as romantic as any lady in silk and satin. ”That's right, young man. We'll get her away from this old rathole, and then I guess it'll be a good while before either you or I travels this way again, hey?”

”I don't know as I have anything to say against the country,” said Romulus Patten, with another loving look at the sleeper. ”It isn't exactly the place to sell trees, but yet there's good things to be found on this road,--the road to Rome.”

IN VERONA.

IN VERONA.

First of all, let me correct the mistaken impression that my t.i.tle cannot fail to make upon the patient reader. On reading the words, ”In Verona,” his mind instantly conjures up a vision of white palaces; of narrow streets across which the tall houses nod at each other, hinting at the mysteries they dare not reveal; of ancient fountains, embowered in myrtle and laurel; finally, of Juliet's tomb, and a thousand memories of the immortal lovers.

All this is natural, but it will not do. Here in Verona are no fountains, but half a dozen old well-sweeps, and all the rest cuc.u.mber-wood pumps; no palaces, but neat white houses with green blinds, and flowers in their front-yards; no laurel, but good honest sunflowers instead; finally, no tomb of Juliet, for our Juliet did not die; briefly, and to have done with mystery, our Verona is in the State of Maine.

I have often wondered what manner of men they were, who named the towns in the good old State. Lyceum teachers for the most part, one would think,--men who had read books, and whose hearts yearned for the historic glories of the old world, glories which their narrow lives might never see. So, disagreeing with this same Juliet in the matter of names, they did what they could, and not being able to go to Europe, did their best to bring Europe over into their own new country. So we have here in Maine Rome and Paris, Palermo and Vi-enny (miscalled ”Vienna” by pedants, and those thinking themselves better than other people), Berlin Falls and South China,--in fact, half the continent to choose from, all in our own door-yard, as it were.

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