Part 25 (1/2)

”Yes, I was thinkin' a few minutes ago that I shouldn't want to look out an' see the funeral go by. She's one o' the old neighbors. I s'pose I shall have to look, or I shouldn't feel right afterward,”

said Mrs. Crane mournfully. ”If I hadn't got so kind of housebound,”

she added with touching frankness, ”I'd just as soon go over with you an' offer to watch this night.”

”'T would astonish Sister Ba.r.s.ett so I don't know but she'd return.”

Sarah Ellen's eyes danced with amus.e.m.e.nt; she could not resist her own joke, and Mercy Crane herself had to smile.

”Now I must be goin', or 'twill be dark,” said the guest, rising and sighing after she had eaten her last crumb of gingerbread. ”Yes, thank ye, you're real good, I will come back if I find I ain't wanted. Look what a pretty sky there is!” and the two friends went to the side door and stood together in a moment of affectionate silence, looking out toward the sunset across the wide fields. The country was still with that deep rural stillness which seems to mean the absence of humanity.

Only the thrushes were singing far away in the walnut woods beyond the orchard, and some crows were flying over and cawed once loudly, as if they were speaking to the women at the door.

Just as the friends were parting, after most grateful acknowledgments from Sarah Ellen Dow, some one came driving along the road in a hurry and stopped.

”Who's that with you, Mis' Crane?” called one of their near neighbors.

”It's Sarah Ellen Dow,” answered Mrs. Crane. ”What's the matter?”

”I thought so, but I couldn't rightly see. Come, they are in a peck o'

trouble up to Sister Ba.r.s.ett's, wonderin' where you be,” grumbled the man. ”They can't do nothin' with her; she's drove off everybody an'

keeps a-screechin' for you. Come, step along, Sarah Ellen, do!”

”Sister Ba.r.s.ett!” exclaimed both the women. Mercy Crane sank down upon the doorstep, but Sarah Ellen stepped out upon the gra.s.s all of a tremble, and went toward the wagon. ”They said this afternoon that Sister Ba.r.s.ett was gone,” she managed to say. ”What did they mean?”

”Gone where?” asked the impatient neighbor. ”I expect 'twas one of her spells. She's come to; they say she wants somethin' hearty for her tea. n.o.body can't take one step till you get there, neither.”

Sarah Ellen was still dazed; she returned to the doorway, where Mercy Crane sat shaking with laughter. ”I don't know but we might as well laugh as cry,” she said in an aimless sort of way. ”I know you too well to think you're going to repeat a single word. Well, I'll get my bonnet an' start; I expect I've got considerable to cope with, but I'm well rested. Good-night, Mis' Crane, I certain did have a beautiful tea, whatever the future may have in store.”

She wore a solemn expression as she mounted into the wagon in haste and departed, but she was far out of sight when Mercy Crane stopped laughing and went into the house.

Decoration Day

I.

A week before the thirtieth of May, three friends--John Stover and Henry Merrill and Asa Brown--happened to meet on Sat.u.r.day evening at Barton's store at the Plains. They were ready to enjoy this idle hour after a busy week. After long easterly rains, the sun had at last come out bright and clear, and all the Barlow farmers had been planting.

There was even a good deal of ploughing left to be done, the season was so backward.

The three middle-aged men were old friends. They had been school-fellows, and when they were hardly out of their boyhood the war came on, and they enlisted in the same company, on the same day, and happened to march away elbow to elbow. Then came the great experience of a great war, and the years that followed their return from the South had come to each almost alike. These men might have been members of the same rustic household, they knew each other's history so well.

They were sitting on a low wooden bench at the left of the store door as you went in. People were coming and going on their Sat.u.r.day night errands,--the post-office was in Barton's store,--but the friends talked on eagerly, without being interrupted, except by an occasional nod of recognition. They appeared to take no notice at all of the neighbors whom they saw oftenest. It was a most beautiful evening; the two great elms were almost half in leaf over the blacksmith's shop which stood across the wide road. Farther along were two small old-fas.h.i.+oned houses and the old white church, with its pretty belfry of four arched sides and a tiny dome at the top. The large c.o.c.kerel on the vane was pointing a little south of west, and there was still light enough to make it s.h.i.+ne bravely against the deep blue eastern sky. On the western side of the road, near the store, were the parsonage and the storekeeper's modern house, which had a French roof and some attempt at decoration, which the long-established Barlow people called gingerbread-work, and regarded with mingled pride and disdain. These buildings made the tiny village called Barlow Plains.

They stood in the middle of a long narrow strip of level ground. They were islanded by green fields and pastures. There were hills beyond; the mountains themselves seemed very near. Scattered about on the hill slopes were farmhouses, which stood so far apart, with their cl.u.s.ters of out-buildings, that each looked lonely, and the pine woods above seemed to besiege them all. It was lighter on the uplands than it was in the valley, where the three men sat on their bench, with their backs to the store and the western sky.

”Well, here we be 'most into June, an' I 'ain't got a bush-bean above ground,” lamented Henry Merrill.

”Your land's always late, ain't it? But you always catch up with the rest on us,” Asa Brown consoled him. ”I've often observed that your land, though early planted, was late to sprout. I view it there's a good week's difference betwixt me an' Stover an' your folks, but come first o' July we all even up.”

”'Tis just so,” said John Stover, taking his pipe out of his mouth, as if he had a good deal more to say, and then replacing it, as if he had changed his mind.

”Made it extry hard having that long wet spell. Can't none on us take no day off this season,” said Asa Brown; but n.o.body thought it worth his while to respond to such evident truth.

”Next Sat.u.r.day'll be the thirtieth o' May--that's Decoration Day, ain't it?--come round again. Lord! how the years slip by after you git to be forty-five an' along there!” said Asa again. ”I s'pose some o'