Part 50 (1/2)

inquired aunt Hannah, setting the gathers in a neck-gusset with the point of her needle, which she dashed in and out as if it had been a poniard, and that cotton cloth her enemy's heart.

”You always. .h.i.t the nail right on the head when you do strike, aunt Hannah. She don't want her gal to come here, nor your gal to come there; that's the long and short on it.”

”What for?” inquired uncle Nathan, moving uneasily in his great wooden chair. ”Isn't our little gal good enough?”

”Good enough, gracious me, I wonder if she thinks anybody in these parts good enough for her to wipe her silk slippers on? Why, she speaks of Judge Sharp as if he was n.o.body, and of the country here as if G.o.d hadn't made it.”

”But what has she against that poor child?” inquired aunt Hannah, sternly.

”She ain't handsome, and she came from the Poor-House; isn't that enough?” answered Salina, stretching forth her hand, and counting each word down with a finger into the palm of her hand as if it had been a coin. ”She's homely, she came from the poor-house, and more than all, she lives here.”

”So she remembers us, then?” said aunt Hannah, resting the point of her needle in a gather while she steadied her hand.

”Yes, you are the only people she has asked about, and her way of doing it was snappish enough, I can tell you.”

”I have not seen this woman in sixteen years,” said aunt Hannah, thoughtfully, ”we change a good deal in that time.”

”She hasn't changed much, though; fallen away a little; her red cheeks have turned to a kind of papery white; her mouth has grown thin and _meachen_; there's something kind o' lathy and unsartin about her; as for temper that's just the same, only a little more so, sharp as a muskeeters bill, tanterlizing as a green nettle. The rattlesnake is a king to her; there's something worth while about his bite, it's strong and in arnest, it kills a feller right off; but she keeps a nettling and harrering one about all the time, without making an end on't, I wish you could see her with that poor little gal, dressing her up as if she was a rag-baby, scolding her one minute, kissing her the next, calling her here, sending her there, I declare to man, it's enough to put one out of conceit with all womankind.”

”Where is Mrs. Farnham's son now?” inquired uncle Nathan, to whose genial heart the sharp opinions of his visitor came unpleasantly; ”he ought to be a smart young fellow by this time.”

”I don't know who he'd take after then,” observed the housekeeper, drily.

”His father was an enterprising man, understood business, knew how to take care of what he made,” said uncle Nathan. ”We never had many smarter men than Farnham here in the mountains.”

”Farnham was a villain!” exclaimed aunt Hannah, whose face to the very lips had been growing white as she listened.

Uncle Nathan started as if a shot had pa.s.sed through his easy-chair.

”Hannah!”

The old woman did not seem to hear him, but lowering her face over her work sewed on rapidly, but the whiteness of her face still continued, and you could see by the unequal motion of the cotton kerchief folded over her bosom, that she was suppressing some powerful emotion.

Uncle Nathan was not a man to press any unpleasant subject upon another; but he seemed a good deal hurt by his sister's strange manner; and sat nervously grasping and ungrasping the arm of his chair, looking alternately at her and Salina, while the silence continued.

”Well,” said Salina, who had no delicate scruples of this kind to struggle with, ”you do beat all, aunt Hannah; I hadn't the least idea that there was so much vinegar in you. Now Mr. Farnham was a kind of father to me, and I'm bound to keep any body from raking up his ashes in the grave.”

”Let them rest there--let them rest there!” exclaimed aunt Hannah, slowly folding up her work. ”I did not mean to speak his name, but it is said, and I will not take anything back.”

”Well, n.o.body wants you to, that I know of; it's a kind of duty to defend one's friends, especially when they can't do it for themselves; but after all Mr. Farnham up and married that critter, I don't know as it's any business of mine, what you call him.”

”I remember his mother,” said uncle Nathan, striving to shake off the heavy feeling that his sister had created.

”I remember her well, for she took me for sort of company,” said Salina. ”I was a little gal then; Farnham hadn't made all his money, and he was glad enough for me to settle down and do his work. But it was awful lonesome, I can tell you, after she was gone; and I used to go down into the grave-yard and set down by her head-stone for company, day after day. But it was afore this then your sister came to help spin up the wool--wasn't she a harnsome critter?--your sister Anne.”

Aunt Hannah seemed turning into marble, her face and hands grew so deathly white; but she neither moved nor spoke.

Uncle Nathan did not speak either, but he pressed both hands down on the arms of his chair, and half rose; but he fell back as if the effort were too much, and with one faint struggle sat still, with the tears of a long-buried grief stealing down his cheeks.

”Well, what have I done wrong now?” asked Salina, looking from the old man to the pallid sister, and shaking her head till the horn comb rose like a crest among her fiery tresses.