Part 8 (1/2)
”Who's goin' to play?”
”Brad Freeman an' Jont Marshall agreed to play fust an' second fiddle.”
Heman paused a moment, and straightened himself with an air of conscious pride; then he added,--
”They've asked me to play the ba.s.s-viol.”
The Widder had no special objections to this arrangement, but it did strike her as an innovation; and when she had no other reason for disapproval, she still believed in it on general principles. So altogether effective a weapon should never rust from infrequent use!
”Well!” she announced. ”I never heard of such carryin's-on,--never!”
Heman was lighting a small kerosene lamp. The little circle of light seemed even brilliant in the dusky room; it affected him with a relief so sudden and manifest as to rouse also a temporary irritation at having endured the previous gloom even for a moment.
”'Ain't you got no oil in the house?” he exclaimed, testily. ”I wish you'd light up, evenin's, an' not set here by one taller candle!”
He had ventured on this remonstrance before, the only one he permitted himself against his housekeeper's ways, and at the instant of making it, he realized its futility.
”The gre't lamp's all full,” said the Widder, warming her ap.r.o.n and pressing it to her poulticed face. ”You can light it, if you've got the heart to. That was poor Mary's lamp, an' hard as I've tried, I never could bring myself to put a match to that wick. How many evenin's I've seen her set by it, rockin' back'ards an' for'ards,--an' her needle goin' in an' out! She was a worker, if ever there was one, poor creatur'! At it all the time, jes' like a silk-worm.”
Heman was perfectly familiar with this explanation; from long repet.i.tion, he had it quite by heart. Possibly that was why he did not wait for its conclusion, but tramped stolidly away to his bedroom, where he had begun to kick off his shoes by the time his sister-in-law reached a period.
The Widder had a fresh poultice waiting by the fire. She applied it to her cheek, did up her face in an old flannel petticoat, and then, having covered the fire, toiled up to bed. It was a wearisome journey, for she carried a heavy soapstone which showed a tendency to conflict with the candle, and she found it necessary to hold together most of her garments; these she had ”loosened a mite by the fire,” according to custom on cold nights, after Heman had left her the field.
Next day, Heman went away into the woods chopping, and carried his dinner of doughnuts and cheese, with a chunk of bean-porridge frozen into a ball, to be thawed out by his noontime fire. He returned much earlier than usual, and the Widder was at the window awaiting him. The swelling in her cheek had somewhat subsided; and the bandage, no longer distended by a poultice beneath, seemed, in comparison, a species of holiday device. She was very impatient. She watched Heman, as he went first to the barn; and even opened the back door a crack to listen for the rattling of chains, the signal of feeding or watering.
”What's he want to do that now for?” she muttered, closing the door again, as the cold struck her cheek. ”He'll have to feed 'em ag'in, come night!”
But at last he came, and, according to his silent wont, crossed the kitchen to the sink, to wash his hands. He was an un.o.bservant man, and it did not occur to him that the Widder had on her Tyc.o.o.n rep, the gown she kept ”for nice.” Indeed, he was so unused to looking at her that he might well have forgotten her outward appearance. He was only sure of her size; he knew she cut off a good deal of light. One sign, however, he did recognize; she was very cheerful, with a hollow good-nature which had its meaning.
”I got your shavin'-water all ready,” she began. ”Don't you burn ye when ye turn it out.”
It had once been said of the Widder Poll that if she could hold her tongue, the devil himself couldn't get ahead of her. But fortune had not gifted her with such endurance, and she always spoke too often and too soon.
”Brad Freeman's been up here,” she continued, eying Heman, as she drew out the supper-table and put up the leaves. ”I dunno's I ever knew anybody so took up as he is with that concert, an' goin' to the vestry to sing to-night, an' all. He said he'd call here an' ride 'long o'
you, an' I told him there'd be plenty o' room, for you'd take the pung.”
If Heman felt any surprise at her knowledge of his purpose, he did not betray it. He poured out his shaving-water, and looked about him for an old newspaper.
”I ain't goin' in the pung,” he answered, without glancing at her. ”The shoe's most off'n one o' the runners now.”
The Widder Poll set a pie on the table with an emphasis unconsciously embodying her sense that now, indeed, had come the time for remedies.
”I dunno what you can take,” she remarked, with that same foreboding liveliness. ”Three on a seat, an' your ba.s.s-viol, too!”
Heman was lathering his cheeks before the mirror, where a sinuous Venus and a too-corpulent Cupid disported themselves in a green landscape above the gla.s.s. ”There ain't goin' to be three,” he said, patiently.
”T'others are goin' by themselves.”
The Widder took up her stand at a well-chosen angle, and looked at him in silence. He paid no attention to her, and it was she who, of necessity, broke into speech.
”_Well!_ I've got no more to say. Do you mean to tell me you'd go off playin' on fiddles an' ba.s.s-viols, an' leave me, your own wife's sister, settin' here the whole evenin' long, all swelled up with the toothache?”