Part 22 (1/2)

CHAPTER XII

DRUSILLA'S REMINISCENCES

One afternoon immediately after school, Suzanna, taking Maizie with her, went to call on Drusilla. Twice since her first visit in July she had gone to the little home, but on both occasions Drusilla had been ill, unable to see anyone. But today the pleasant faced maid admitted the children.

”Go right up to the attic,” she said. ”Mrs. Bartlett is there looking over some old trunks.”

In the attic, a tiny place with slanting roof and unfinished walls, the children found Mrs. Bartlett, sitting on the floor beside a huge, overflowing trunk. Old-fas.h.i.+oned dresses, high-heeled satin slippers, dancing programs, painted fans, were all heaped together.

”We've come to see you, Drusilla,” said Suzanna at once. ”I've been twice before, but you didn't know it. This is my sister, Maizie. I've got a very important question to ask you.”

Drusilla rose from the floor. ”I'm glad to see you both. I've often thought of you, Suzanna. Close the lid of that trunk and sit on it and your little sister Maizie can sit in that old easy chair in the corner.

That is, if you want to stay up here in the attic.”

Suzanna looked about her. The attic was rather sad-looking, she thought, not full of its own importance as the one at home, but still, very interesting. Old portraits hung on the slanting walls. In corners were piles of old furniture looking strangely lifelike in the shadows.

”We'd rather stay up here, Drusilla,” she said. ”And we'll stay a long time with you, if you like.”

”Very good,” said Drusilla. She drew forth a low rocker and seated herself.

Suzanna suddenly remembered her manners. ”Perhaps we shouldn't have come today anyway,” she said. ”You were busy with your trunk when we came up.”

”I was just looking over some old dresses and relics I've kept for many years,” said Drusilla. ”There's a dress in there,” she said, ”that I wore when as a young girl I lived with my parents way back across the ocean.”

”A big city?” asked Maizie. ”Not like Anchorville?”

”A big city,” returned Drusilla. ”You see that gla.s.s case in the corner?

Go and look at it.”

Suzanna and Maizie sprang up and went to the dusky corner. On a table stood the gla.s.s case, and under it was an apple, a pear, a bunch of grapes, and a banana, all made of wax.

”That came from the city across the water,” said Drusilla. ”It was given to my grandmother by our old herb woman.”

The children left the wax fruit and went and stood quite close to Drusilla. ”What's an old herb woman?” asked Maizie, interestedly.

”Why, she was our doctor in those days. She had an old shop buried away in a part of the town that we reached by crossing a ca.n.a.l. Many is the time my grandmother took me to that old shop with its rows of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling; with its old worn corners, and its barrel of white cocoanut oil standing near the door. Oh, I loved that place. I loved the smell of the herbs and I loved the little old woman who could brew teas from her herbs that would cure any ailment in the world, I thought. And then right next to the old herb shop was a p.a.w.n shop with three tarnished golden b.a.l.l.s above the door.”

”A p.a.w.n shop?” The children wanted to know the meaning of that kind of shop.

”A shop,” said Drusilla, warming to her keen audience, ”to which you could bring anything, from a worn out dress to a piece of jewelry, and get money for it and a ticket. And if you wanted the dress or the jewelry back again, then you brought the ticket and the money and a little interest.

”The old p.a.w.n shop was a landmark. It had stood next to the herb shop, my grandmother told me, for a hundred years; during all these years owned by the same family. When I was a little girl a woman kept the shop. She was very tall, very thin, with quant.i.ties of black hair braided and wound round and round her head. She wore always a Paisley shawl of faded colors, and her hair coiled as it was made me think always of a crown.

”The shop was long and narrow and full of wonderful rare, old curios--old violins, cameos, and uncut stones. I was allowed to go all over the shop; to open quaint cases, to go upstairs and out upon an old gallery and to lift from their drawers silken c.r.a.pes, and to find, buried away, whispering sea-sh.e.l.ls and crystal bottles, and irregular pieces of blue-veined marble and alabaster. Oh, the happy, thrilling hours I spent in that place! My grandmother told me that scholars came from every part of the country to see this tucked-away, historic old p.a.w.n shop.”

Drusilla paused, but in a moment to the children's relief she went on: ”Then on a quite busy street, back this side of the ca.n.a.l, the side we lived on, was a large place called an ovenry. And there we sent our bread to be baked.”

The children's eyes widened.