Part 5 (1/2)
”Housewifery,” remarked Blossy sagely, as she began to gather her missives together, ”is an accomplishment to be scorned in a young husband, but not in an old one. They say there hasn't been a woman inside Samuel's house since he built it, but it's as clean as soap and sand can make it.”
”I bet yer,” agreed Abe. ”Hain't never been no fly inside it, neither, I warrant yer. Fly can't light arter Sam'l's cleanin' up nohaow; he's got ter skate.”
”He says he built that little house for me,” said the old lady, as she closed down the lid of the trunk. There was a wistful note in Blossy's voice, which made Abraham declare with a burst of sympathy:
”'T ain't no disgrace ter git married at no time of life. Sam'l's a good pervider; why don't yew snap him up ter-day? We'll miss yew a lot; but--”
”Here's the apple-picker right over your head,” interrupted Blossy tartly, and Abe felt himself peremptorily dismissed.
Scarcely had he left the attic, however, than she too hastened down the steep, narrow stairs. She spent the remaining hours before train-time in donning her beautiful lace gown, and in making the woman within it as young and ravis.h.i.+ng as possible. And lovely, indeed, Blossy looked this day, with a natural flush of excitement on her cheek, a new sparkle in her bright, dark eyes, and with her white hair arranged in a fas.h.i.+on which might have excited a young girl's envy.
The hour for the train came and went, and, lo! for the first time in the history of twenty years Captain Darby did not appear.
Blossy pretended to be relieved, protesting that she was delighted to find that she would now have an extra hour in which to ponder the question. But the second train came and went, and still no Captain Darby.
All the afternoon long Blossy wore her lace gown, thinking although there were no more trains from the eastward that day, that Samuel would still find his way to her. He might drive, as he usually did in June, or he might even walk from his home at Twin Coves, she said.
At night, however, she was obliged to admit that he could not be coming; and then, quivering with honest anxiety for her old friend, Blossy dipped into her emergency fund, which she kept in the heart of a little pink china pig on a shelf in her room,--a pink china pig with a lid made of stiff black hair standing on edge in the middle of his back,--and sent a telegram to Captain Darby, asking if he were sick.
The answer came back slowly by mail, to find Blossy on the verge of a nervous collapse, under the care of all the women in the house.
That letter Blossy never showed to Brother Abe, nor to any one else.
Neither did she treasure it in the sentimental trunk beneath the attic eaves. The letter ran:
DEAR BETSY ANN: I never felt better in my life. Ain't been sick a minute. Just made up my mind I was a old fool, and was going to quit. If you change your intentions at any time, just drop me a postal. As ever,
SAM'L DARBY, ESQ.
”This, Captain Darby, makes your rejection final,” vowed Blossy to herself, as she tore the note into fragments and drowned them in the spirits of lavender with which the sisters had been seeking to soothe her distracted nerves.
VIII
THE ANNIVERSARY
About this time Blossy developed a tendency to draw Brother Abraham aside at every opportunity, convenient or inconvenient, in order to put such questions as these to him:
”Did you say it is fully thirty-five years since you and Captain Darby were on the beach together? Do you think he has grown much older? Had he lost his hair then? Did he care for the opposite s.e.x? Was he very brave--or would you say more brave than stubborn and contrary? Isn't it a blessing that I never married him?”
Fearful of the ridicule of the sisters, Blossy was always careful to conduct these inquiries in whispers, or at least in undertones with a great observance of secrecy, sometimes stopping Abe on the stairs, sometimes beckoning him to her side when she was busy about her household tasks on the pretense of requiring his a.s.sistance. On one occasion she even went so far as to inveigle him into holding a skein of wool about his clumsy hands, while she wound the violet worsted into a ball, and delicately inquired if he believed Samuel spoke the truth when he had protested that he had never paid court to any other woman.
Alas, Blossy's frequent tete-a-tetes with the amused but sometimes impatient Abraham started an exceedingly foolish suspicion. When, asked the sisters of one another, did Abe ever help any one, save Blossy, sh.e.l.l dried beans or pick over prunes? When had he ever been known to hold wool for Angy's winding? Not once since wooing-time, I warrant you.
What could this continual hobn.o.bbing and going off into corners mean, except--flirtation?
Ruby Lee whispered it first into Aunt Nancy's good ear. Aunt Nancy indulged in four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, sneezed an amazing number of times, and then acridly informed Ruby Lee that she was a ”jealous cat” and always had been one.
However, Aunt Nancy could not refrain from carrying the gossip to Miss Ellie, adding that she herself had been suspicious of Abe's behavior from the start.