Part 24 (2/2)
”I see,” says I. ”But I expect Mr. Leavitt will be up.”
”What, alone?” says she. ”Him? Not much!”
”Oh!” says I, and while I didn't mean it to show, I expect I must have humped my eyebrows a little. Anyway, she comes right back at me.
”Well, why should he?” she demands.
”Why, I don't know,” says I; ”only he--he's the head of the house, ain't he?”
”No, he ain't,” says she. ”I don't say it in a boasting spirit, for it's always been one of the trials of my life; but Mr. Leavitt ain't at the head of anything--never was, and never will be.”
”Had plenty of chance, I expect?” says I sarcastic.
”Just the same chances other men have had, and better,” says she. ”Why, when we was first married I thought he was going to be one of the biggest men in this country. Everyone did. He looked it and talked it.
Talk? He was the best talker in the county! Is yet, for that matter.
Course, he'd been around a lot as a young man--taught school in Rutland for two terms, and visited a whole summer in Bellows Falls. Besides there was the blood, him being an own cousin to Twombley-Crane. Just that was most enough to turn my head, even if that branch of the family never did have much to do with the Leavitt side. But it's a fact that Mr. Leavitt's mother and Twombley-Crane's father were brother and sister.”
”You don't mean it!” says I.
”Of course,” she goes on, ”the Leavitts always stayed poor country folks, and the Cranes went to the city and got rich. When the old homestead was left to Mr. Leavitt, though, he said he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life on an old, worn-out farm. No, Sir! He was going to do something better than that, something big! We all believed it too. For the first six months of our married life I kept my trunk packed, ready to start any minute for anywhere, expecting him to find that grand career he'd talked so much about. But somehow we never started. That wa'n't the worst of it, either. A year slipped by, and we hadn't done a thing,--didn't even raise enough potatoes to last us through Thanksgivin', and if we hadn't sold the hay standing and the apple crop on the trees I don't know how we'd got through the winter.
”Along about the middle of March I got my eyes wide open. I saw that if anything was done to keep us out of the poorhouse I'd got to do it. Old Mr. Clark wanted someone to help in the general store about then, and I took the job at six dollars a week. Inside of a year I was actin'
postmistress, had full charge of the drygoods side, did all the grocery buyin', and was agent for a horse rake and mower concern. Six months later, when Mr. Clark gave up altogether and the store was for sale, I jumped in, mortgaged the Leavitt place all it would stand, borrowed fifteen hundred dollars from a brother-in-law back in Nova Scotia, and put a new sign over the door. That was over thirty years ago; but it's there yet. It reads, 'Mrs. Sallie Leavitt, General Merchandise.'”
”But where did Mr. Leavitt fit in?” says I.
”Humph!” says she. ”Mostly he's set around the store and talked. Oh, he helps with the mail, cooks a little when I'm too rushed and ain't got any hired girl, and washes dishes. That's always been the one useful thing he could do,--wash dishes. I expect that's why everybody at the Mills calls him Mr. Sallie Leavitt. There! It's out. I don't know as I ever said that aloud before in my life. I've been too much ashamed. But I might's well face the truth now. He's just Mr. Sallie Leavitt. And if you don't think that hurts for me to have to own up to it, then you're mighty mistaken. Maybe you can guess too why I ain't so anxious to parade a husband like that before folks.”
”Oh, well,” says I, ”sometimes a man gets tagged with a nickname like that and don't half deserve it.”
”Huh!” says she. ”You don't know Mr. Leavitt as I do. I wa'n't goin' to mention it; but--but--well, he's a book reader.”
”A what?” says I.
”Reads books,” says she. ”Just reads and reads and reads. He's got what he calls our circulatin' lib'ry in a room he's fixed up over the store.
Lends out books at five cents a week, you know. But, land! he reads more of 'em himself than any ten customers. History, explorin' books, and novels--specially novels about English society folks, like 'Lady Thingumbob's Daughter,' and so on. And the fool ideas he gets from 'em!
I expect you'll laugh, but he actually tries to talk and act like them people he reads about. Learned to drink tea out of books, Mr. Leavitt has, and wants me to quit the store every afternoon about half past four and drink it with him. Think of that! And instead of havin' his supper at night he wants to call it dinner. Did you ever? Yes, Sir, that's the kind of tomfoolery I've been puttin' up with all these years, and tryin'
to hide from the neighbors! Maybe you'll notice I always call him Mr.
Leavitt? That's why; to cover up the fact that he's only--well, what they call him. And so, cousin or no cousin, I don't see how I'm goin' to bring myself to let the Twombley-Cranes know. Anyway, I want to sleep on it first. That's why I'd just as soon you wouldn't tell 'em we're here.”
”I see,” says I. ”And you can bank on me.”
I didn't peep a word, either. It's only the followin' evenin', though, that Sadie announces:
”What do you think, Shorty? A Vermont cousin of Mr. Twombley-Crane is in town, with his wife, and they're going to give them a dinner party Friday night.”
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