Part 23 (1/2)
The Widow Sprigg held up a shaking hand protesting against this volley of questions and answering none. But after a little time the woman in her got the better of the judge, and, rising, she went to the wall cupboard and took from it a bottle containing brown fluid and plainly labelled, ”Cholera Mixture. Poison.” Pouring a generous dose into a gla.s.s, she diluted it with water and was returning to the bed when Katharine caught her hand to stay it, crying:
”Why, Susanna! How dare you? That's marked poison!”
The widow shook the girl's hand off, calmly replying:
”My suz! I guess I know what I'm about. That 'cholera mixture' 's one the old doctor's own prescriptions, an' I've give more of it to more folks 'an you could shake a stick at. It's marked 'poison' so's to keep childern like you from meddlin' with it. A dose of it won't hurt n.o.body, an' if his malady is the sort I cal'late, I'm treatin' him like the Good Samaritan would on the Sabbath Day. I've made it a powerful dose, an' I 'low it'll settle his hash one way or other. But I hate to touch him. I certainly do.”
A last faint moan issued from the sufferer, and his eyes turned upon the girl. He looked so wan and so forlorn that her own natural repugnance left her, and she caught the medicine-gla.s.s from Susanna to present it to the sick man's lips. He opened them and drank obediently, even smacking his lips over the fiery mixture, and Kate, having finished her task, hastily withdrew to the outer room.
But what had come over the Widow Sprigg? Her whole manner had changed.
Fear seemed to have left her and a stern determination taken its place.
Katharine could only observe, wondering, as the mistress of the cottage caught up a pail, and going to the well drew it full several times, throwing out all but the last pailful, which she brought back into the house and set on a table in the bedroom. Beside it she placed a dipper, and observed:
”That water's all right. Moses, he had the well cleaned out for me only last month. We always do do it twicet a year, lest somebody comes along an' drinks it stale. More'n that, the well's fed by a spring, runnin' in an' out, so really don't need any cleanin', but--”
Such solicitude on account of that detested tramp! It was amazing. Yet her next procedure was even more so. Going up-stairs, she looked that the window was shut, and the nail, its only fastening, put in above the lower sash. Anybody inside could have opened it, of course, but that did not occur to her. Each of the windows was thus treated, and, beckoning to Katharine, she led the way out-doors. The door was locked on the outside and Susanna started homeward. She was no longer a weary or a sad-faced woman. She was alert, silent, but unmistakably cheerful.
Kate kept close pace with the now swift steps of the housekeeper, and finally ventured to ask: ”Who is he?”
”We may not all hope to be constables, but some of us is constables without ever runnin' for office! Well, well, well! I shouldn't be surprised if the end o' the world happens along now, any time,” said Susanna, irrelevantly, and fell into such a brown study that Katy dared not interrupt her, and the rest of the way home was pa.s.sed in silence.
The deacon was waiting restlessly. He had not liked to desert his post and leave the disabled Moses alone in the house. Neither had he liked to lose his Sunday afternoon nap, well-earned refreshment of a diligent man. One other thing he had not liked: Moses' flat refusal to discuss their employer's affairs. This had led to other controversies, and two disgruntled men were ready to greet the tardy wanderers.
”Hm-m. Thought you never was a-comin' back. That's all the sense a silly woman has; let her get off grounds an' she don't know when to step on to 'em again. The deacon, he's been purty patient, but--I guess we'll be better friends if we part for a spell now,” was Moses' greeting; and, instead of resenting it, Susanna said never a word.
In silence she brought him his cup of beef tea. In silence she went out and fed the poultry; came in and gave Sir Philip his bowl of milk and Punch his plate of sc.r.a.ps. She had long since taken the feeding of both animals upon herself, declaring, with some show of truth, that they did not dare ”muss around” for her as they did for Eunice or Kate.
Till it was supper-time she sat in absolute silence beside the sitting-room window, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, and an expression of great perplexity.
Katharine bore this as long as she could, then stole softly up to the hired man's room, careless whether he were asleep or not. She had not been bidden to secrecy, and, finding him awake, she poured out the story of the afternoon so fast that her words fairly tripped each other up.
Then Moses made her go back and tell it all over again, and when she had finished, exclaimed:
”Beats thunder! A silly woman! An' me, a man! Bedrid here, like an old block of wood, an' her--She thinks she's arrested somebody, Susanna does! She thinks she's made herself into a constable, does she? Turned her house into a jail--an' forgot to fasten the winders outside! Ho! Ho!
Silly women!”
The disappointed old fellow got as much enjoyment as he could out of the situation, and was more than delighted by thought of a tramp's shoes smirching the log-cabin quilt. It served the widow right, he maintained, because she had wasted so much labor on the thing. ”Bought good new Merrimac print, she did, an' then set there o' nights a snip-snip-snippin' it up into little sc.r.a.ps an' sewin' 'em together again. If a woman'll do that, it's proof what sort o' brains she's got.”
Then, with sudden energy, he advised: ”Don't you never let her set you a sewin' patchwork, Kitty Keehoty. It's all on a piece with knittin'
mittens for the Hottentots--a waste of time. A waste o' sinful time, I mean a sinful waste of--Oh, hum!”
She waited till he had cooled off from his own vexation, and then asked:
”Uncle Moses, will you tell me all about Montgomery's father?”
If she had surprised him before she startled him now. Flas.h.i.+ng his keen old eyes upon her, he asked in return:
”Why do you want to know? Who egged you on to say that?”
”n.o.body. Why, surely, n.o.body at all. But it seems so queer that none talk of him, yet of his mother speak so often and so lovingly. Aunt Eunice says she was a Marsden lady, a farmer's daughter, and 'as lovely as a flower.' Even Madam, who didn't like her at first, grew to be fond of her and to call her 'my sweet daughter.' But when I asked Monty of his father, and had told him all about mine, about everything, about the second Mrs. John, the s...o...b..a.l.l.s, and all--he just said: 'I guess I'll go hunt old Whitey,' and off he went, without saying 'excuse me.' His face was as red as red, and there came a queer look in his eyes as if--as if he was ashamed. Was his father a wicked man, Uncle Moses?”
Quite diverted by this time from his own vexations, the hired man lay silently thinking for a moment. Then he said:
”Well, little Kitty Keehoty, I hain't seen that your warm heart gets any colder toward folks when they get into trouble 'an when they don't. That tramp, now, that stole your victuals--Oh, I know! I did know last night, though you didn't know that I knowed--”
”'I saw Esau kissing Kate, Esau saw that I saw,'” quoted this other Kate, in laughing interruption.
Moses laughed, too, as he was glad to do. He had had enough of gloom and grumble for that sweet Lord's Day, now so near its close. And though the story he was going to tell was anything but a bright one, he meant to tell it in such wise that his young listener should be the tenderer and more compa.s.sionate because of hearing it.