Part 36 (1/2)

”It's the Brownrig woman,” Aunt Naomi announced. ”If you get mixed up with that sort of creatures there's no knowing what you'll come to.”

”But what about her?” I demanded so eagerly that I became suddenly conscious of the keen curiosity which my manner brought into her glance.

”What has she been doing?” I went on, trying to be cool.

It was only by much questioning that I got the story. Had it not been for my real interest in Tom I would not have bothered so much, but as it was she had me at her mercy, and knew it. What happened, so far as I can make out, is this: The Brownrig woman has been worse than ever since Julia's death. She has been drunk in the streets more than once, and I am afraid the help she has had from Tom and others has only led her to greater excesses. Once Deacon Richards came upon her lying in the ditch beside the road, and she has made trouble more than once, besides disturbing the prayer-meeting.

Last evening Tom came upon a mob of men and boys down by the Flatiron Wharf, and in the midst of them was Mrs. Brownrig, singing and howling.

They were baiting her, and saying things to provoke her to more outrageous profanity.

”They do say,” observed Aunt Naomi with what seemed to me, I am ashamed to say, an unholy relish, ”her swearing was something awful. John Deland told me he never heard anything like it. He said no man could begin to come up to it.”

”John Deland, that owns the smoke-houses?” I put in. ”What was he doing there? I always thought he was a decent man.”

”So he is. He says,” she returned with her drollest smile, ”he was just pa.s.sing by and couldn't help hearing. I dare say you couldn't have helped hearing if you'd been pa.s.sing by.”

”I should have pa.s.sed pretty quickly then; but what did Tom Webbe do?”

She went on to say that Tom had come upon this disgraceful scene, and found the crowd made up of all the lowest fellows in town. The men were shouting with laughter, and the old woman was shrieking with rage and intoxication.

”John Deland says as soon as Tom saw what was going on and who the woman was, he broke through the crowd, and took her by the arm, and told her to come home. She cursed him, and said she wouldn't go; and then she cried, and they had a dreadful time. Then somebody in the crowd--John says he thinks it was one of the Bagley boys that burnt Micah Sprague's barn. You remember about that, don't you? They live somewhere down beyond the old s.h.i.+pyard”--

”I remember that the Spragues' barn was burned,” answered I; ”but what did the Bagley boy do last night?”

”He called out to Tom Webbe to get out of the way, and not spoil the fun. Then Tom turned on the crowd, and I guess he gave it to them hot and heavy.”

”I'm sure I hope he did!” I said fervently.

”He said he thought they might be in better business than tormenting an old drunken woman like that, and called them cowards to their faces.

They got mad, and wanted to know what business it was of his, anyway.

Then he blazed out again, and said”--

I do not know whether the pause Aunt Naomi made was intentionally designed to rouse me still further, or whether she hesitated unconsciously; but I was too excited to care.

”What did he say?” I asked breathlessly.

”He told them she was his mother-in-law.”

”Tom Webbe said that? To that crowd?” cried I, and I felt the tears spring into my eyes. It was chiefly excitement, of course, but the pluck of it and the hurt to Tom came over me in a flash. ”What did they do?”

”They just muttered, and got out of the way. John Deland said it wasn't two minutes before Tom was left alone with the old woman, and then he took her home. It's a pity she wouldn't drink herself to death.”

”I think it is, Aunt Naomi,” was my answer; though I wished to add that the sentiment was rather a queer one to come from anybody who believes as she does.

I do not know what else Aunt Naomi said. Indeed when she had told her tale she seemed in something of a hurry to leave, and I suspect her of going on to repeat it somewhere else. Tom's sin has left a trail of consequences behind it which he could never have dreamed of. I cannot tell whether I pity him more for this or honor him for the courage with which he stood up. Poor Tom!

October 24. An odd thing has happened to the Westons. A man came in the storm last night and dropped insensible on the doorstep. He might have lain there all night, and very likely would have died before morning, but George, when he started for bed, chanced to open the door to look at the weather. He found the tramp wet and covered with sleet, and at first thought that he was either dead or drunk. When he had got him in and thawed out by the kitchen fire, the man proved to be ill. George sent for Dr. Wentworth, and had a bed made up in the shed-chamber, but when he told me this morning he said it seemed rather doubtful if the tramp could live.