Books: Miss Gibbie Gault
K >>
Kate Langley Bosher >> Miss Gibbie Gault
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17
"Eleven. Let me see." John counted again. "No, ten. Miss Cary makes
the eleventh. I believe she's going to tell them a story. They're
getting ready to sit down under your mulberry-tree. Yes, that's what
they're going to do. Let them alone. They're having a good time."
"And so am I. Certainly am enjoyin' of myself hearin' all about you.
I tell you the mother of nine don't often have time to set down and
rock in daylight, and at night I'm so tired that if 'twasn't for the
basin of cold water I keep on the back porch to put my face in I'd go
to sleep before I'd read a page."
A fresh cigarette was lighted. "Like to read? Why didn't you tell
me? Got a lot of books I don't know what to do with. Will send
them down if you want them--"
"Want them?" Mrs. McDougal sat upright, hands up also. "It's the sin of
my life, readin' is. But it's saved me from losin' my mind. When a
person gets up at five o-clock three hundred and sixty-five days in the
year, except Sundays, when it's six; cooks, washes dishes, cleans, sews,
cooks, washes dishes, sews, cooks, washes dishes, and in between
times scrambles round doin' dozens of odd jobs that don't count, life
ain't true poetry, and if 'twarn't for risin' out the world I live in
and gettin' into a book one at night I'd gone crazy long before this.
Makes my mouth water just to think of havin' some books of my own. All
I read is borrowed, and I have to hide 'em under the mattress to keep
the children from gettin' 'em dirty. I thank you hearty, Mr. John;
I certainly do."
John Maxwell took a note-book and pencil out of his pocket. "I've a
good forgettery and if I don't put that down you'd have to write,
perhaps. How about Mr. McDougal? What kind does he like?"
Mrs. McDougal's jolly laugh reached to the mulberry-tree and the
children looked up. "Books! McDougal!" Her hands came down on her
knees with a resounding smack. "If McDougal has read a book since
I've been married to him he's done it in the dark. Books ain't his line.
He's a good man, McDougal is, but you couldn't call him lit'rary. You
see"--she settled herself back in her chair and again folded her arms--
"he hasn't got what you might say was imaginations. He can't understand
why some days I'd so much rather use the axe on the kitchen stove than
in the wood-house, or why the sight of a dish-pan makes me sick in my
stomach. As for my chickens--calling hens and roosters by names of big
people is tommy-rot to him, and he don't any more know my longin's
for a look at high life and for people who use elegant language and
paint pictures and play the pianer than I understand how he can live
in a teacup and not smash it. He's one of the kind what believes you
ought to stay where you're put, but in my opinion them what believes
that, as a rule, ain't got sense or hustle enough to get out. I'm not
sayin' McDougal is lazy or lackin', but his own ma couldn't think he had
a brain that was lively. He ain't got it. Did you ever see a mule goin'
round a cider mill? That's McDougal. In the daytime he's as given to
silence as I am to talk, but couldn't anybody beat him snorin'.
Sometimes I think the roof has gone."
John Maxwell coughed. The smoke from the cigarette had gone the
wrong way and his eyes were watery.
"But he's a good man, McDougal is," his wife continued, "and everything
he makes he hands over to me. A woman couldn't ask a man to do
more than that, even if she'd like a little more to be handed. But we
ain't never had no quarrels about money. Some men is so cussin' mean
about money, and some women is so cussin' onreasonable in demandin' of
it, that it's caused more trouble between husbands and wives than any
one thing on earth, I believe. No, we ain't ever had no words that way.
But I know a lot what has. Sam Winter is one of them kind of men who
thinks a woman don't need to know the color of cash. When he married
his wife you'd think he'd bought her by the pound. She's his. He gives
her what he feels like, and his feelin's are few. What'd you ask me
about her just now? Did he strike her? No, he don't strike her, not with
his fists, but there ain't a day he don't hurt her some way. It don't do
to have too tender feelin's, and there ain't much show for a woman born
meek and humble. A man can't stand it. I don't blame him much. Nothin'
is so wearin' on you as humbleness. Good gracious, if it ain't strikin'
seven o'clock!"
She got up, pushed her chair back and started down the steps. "Excuse
me, Mr. John, but if I don't send them children home they'll stay to
supper. That they will. I'll be back in a moment."
It was ten minutes before she came, and John Maxwell, who had
changed his seat and was now on the upper step of the little porch,
rose as she and Miss Cary, followed by the five children, approached,
and held out his hand.
"Hello, Peggy! Had a good time? Much obliged to you for inviting me.
Sorry I missed the fireworks. Miss Cary's fault. She was an hour late."
Peggy shook hands and also her head. "Miss Mary ain't never late.
'Twas you, I reckon. We've had a grand time. Wash and Jeff drank
thirteen glasses of lemonade apiece. I counted. Mineola and me didn't
drink but five. We couldn't." She turned to her mother. "You sit down,
muther; I'll fix supper. Good-bye, Mr. Maxwell. Good-bye, Miss Mary.
That was a beautiful story you told, but I don't believe it. There
ain't fairies sure 'nough." And marshalling the boys before her she
disappeared in the little hall and closed the door behind her.
Mary Cary put on her hat, wiped her face, and handed John her gloves.
"Put them in your pocket; it's too warm to wear them." She turned to
the woman beside her and laid her hand on her shoulder. "It's been a
fine party, Mrs. McDougal. The children had a lovely time and
certainly did behave nicely."
"Lor', Miss Mary, you didn't see 'em. Half was gone when you got here.
The hour to come was four, but some come by three. Becky Koontz
says she always goes early to a party, 'cause if you don't there's just
scraps, and she don't like leavin's. I did all the invitin', and when I
thought out who I'd ask I felt downright fashionable. That I did. Ain't
a child been here this evenin' that I care shucks for, 'cept two; and
they tell me that's the way they do now in high society. You don't ask
the folks you like or really want, but the folks what's asked you or you
think 'twould sound nice to have. I ain't familiar with high life, but
you have to do a heap of things for peace and politics, and Milltown and
King Street does pretty much the same things in different ways, I
reckon. If there's anybody in this town I ain't got any use for it's
Mis' Feckles, but Mr. Feckles is my boy's boss, and if her children
hadn't been invited she'd never let up till she got even. Some women is
like that. And there was that frisky little Mary Lou Simmons. She's a
limb of the law, Mary Lou is, and my hands just itch to spank her. But I
had to invite her. Her mother invited Peggy to her party, and her
mother's right smart of a devil when she gets mad with you. But I
certainly am sorry you've got to go. It takes me back to old times to
see you, Mr. John. And what a shakin' up there's been since you young
people lived here ten years ago! Funny you ain't either one married. I
don't blame you. There's a heap to be said both ways, and times when
you'd wish you hadn't, no matter which one you went. Good-bye. I
certainly have enjoyed hearin' of you talk. Come again. Good-bye." And
as long as they could be seen Mrs. McDougal's arm was waving up and down
at the backs of the unthinking couple, who forget to turn and wave in
reply.
Chapter IX
JOHN MAXWELL AND MARY CARY
"She's had a good time all right." John Maxwell turned to the girl
beside him and laughed in the face which looked into his and laughed
also. "I never even tried as much as a sentence. She must have some
sort of an automatic arrangement somewhere inside of her. Does she
never run down, never stop talking?"
"Never." Mary Cary was looking ahead at the windows of a large
building some distance away. "But she's a dear all the same, and does
the work of four people every day of her life. She hasn't, as she says,
an educated tongue, but her understanding of human nature is greater
than mine or yours is ever likely to be. And she doesn't mind saying
what other people think. I like her." She stood still. "Did you ever see
such an improvement in a place as there has been in the woolen mills in
the past year? Every window, back, front, and sides, has its box of
flowers, and the grounds are downright pretty. I know you thought it
was nonsense when I asked you to put flower-boxes in the shoe factory's
windows, but you don't know what a help it's been to the hands. Their
pride is as great as their pleasure, and since the prize of fifty
dollars was offered for the best general showing the rivalry is
threatening to give trouble."
"Of course it is, and then there'll be a strike. But they do look
better, both buildings." And John Maxwell looked critically first at the
large and now rather shabby factory of which he was the owner, and then
at the newer woolen mills of which Mr. Moon was president. "I suppose I
did think it was nonsense, putting flower-boxes in factory windows, but
if the people like them I'm glad they're there. It must be rather dreary
pegging away on leather six days in the week, and if the flowers help,
certainly it's a pretty way of helping. But a man wouldn't have thought
of it. As a suggester a woman might get a steady job. How did you make
Mr. Moon go in?"
"Sarah Sue made him. Solemn, sensible Sarah Sue told him it was his
duty. You don't know what a help she is. We were born the same year,
but she's ages older than I am. And the flowers were just the
beginning. They were andirons, you know, and now the factories are so
much cleaner. Each has a rest-room, and something we call a dining
room, where coffee and sandwiches and soup are served every day at
cost, just a few pennies for each person. Some of these times we hope
there is going to be a real dining-room and kitchen in all the
factories, but of course everything can't be done at once. Don't go
that way." She put her hand lightly on his arm. "I want to stop a
moment at Mr. Bailley's and leave him this book. He was paralyzed
last week."
The book was left and again they started up the long, partly paved
street, never called by a name, which separated Milltown from
Yorkburg, or the silks from the calicoes, as Mrs. McDougal put it, and
soon were on King Street. The asylum, where the early years of Mary
Cary's life had been spent, stood out clearly against the soft dusk of
twilight, and the street, now quite deserted, stretched in a straight
tree-bordered line as far as the eye could see. The usual chatter of
neighbors on each other's porches was nowhere heard, for the hour was
that of supper, but through the open doors and windows came the high
notes of children's voices and an occasional clatter of knives and
forks.
The sun, which had sunk in a bed of golden glory, had left behind a
sky of shifting purple and orange and pink, and, as the colors were
absorbed, grew warmer, fainter, widened, narrowed, and were lost,
the glow of the dying day faded, and out of the soft grayness one by
one the stars appeared.
Walking slowly and more slowly, and all unconscious of their lingering
steps, John Maxwell and Mary Cary watched in silence the changes in
the sky; noted the soft green of trees and grass, the blossoming of
old-fashioned flowers in gardens of another day, reached out hands to
pull a spray of bridal wreath or yellow jessamine, and as they neared
the asylum both stopped, though why they hardly knew themselves.
"Study hour," said Mary Cary, explanatorily. "Poor little things! Of
course I am very impractical, and I would never do for the head of
anything, because I have such queer ideas, especially about children.
But I don't believe they will ever learn anything in a book that would
do them as much good as a beautiful sunset. And yet they're shut up in
the house on an evening like this studying something about the sun,
perhaps, and not allowed to see its glories and wonders, because it sets
at an hour that is set apart for something else. Sometimes"--she pulled
a bit of bridal wreath to pieces and threw its petals on the ground--
"sometimes I wonder if more harm isn't done by too much system than by
too little."
"Doubtless it is." John Maxwell smiled, though in his eyes were other
thoughts than those which were filling hers. "But there's been a big
change in this place since you were here. That wing was a great
improvement. Looks now pretty much like a big home instead of a
place for herding humans, as it once looked. How I used to hate it!"
"Hate it?" They had resumed their walk and she looked up. "I don't see
what you hated it for."
"Don't you?" He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, and as
he put it back in his pocket he looked in her questioning eyes.
"It was because you were in it and I couldn't take you out."
She shook her head. "It was well you couldn't. You wouldn't have
known what to do with me, and--"
"I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted mother to send you to the finest
school in the country, get you beautiful clothes, and give you
everything you wanted until I could marry you. Then I was going to pay
her back."
"What a silly boy!" She laughed, but she did not look at him. They had
turned the corner and were now at the end of the asylum yard, enclosed
by its high wooden fence, and as they started to go down the street
which would lead into the road to Tree Hill she laid her hand again on
his arm.
"Wait a minute." Her foot was against a certain paling, and with her
heel she made a hole in the ground. "Do you remember this?"
"Of course I do." Sudden color filled his face. "You used to put your
apple there. Every time I came for it my heart nearly jumped in the
hole you hid it in, I was so afraid I'd be seen and would have to stop
coming. I never ate one of those apples. I couldn't."
"I don't see why you didn't. They were awfully nice apples. I loved
them."
"I know you did." He looked straight ahead. "That's why I couldn't eat
yours. It used to make me so fighting furious to think--to think
things were like they were that every night I'd throw rocks at the
brick wall in front of the house for half an hour before I went home.
Did you know the first time I ever saw you you were hanging over that
wall? It was on a Sunday afternoon and I asked the boy with me what
was your name. From that Sunday to the week you went away I never
missed going to Sunday-school. Mother couldn't understand it. She
didn't know you were compelled to be there. That's the one bit of
system I approved of in your institution.
"I don't remember whether it was on the next Sunday after I saw you
looking over the wall that I made up my mind I was going to marry
you, or the Sunday after, but it was one or the other. That was over
ten years ago, and--"
"We ought to be home this minute." She started down the half-dark
street. "I'm not going to listen to things like that. Besides, it's
after supper-time and Hedwig will be tired of waiting. You walk so
slow, John!"
"All right." He joined her and together they turned into the
Calverton road, up which at the top of the hill was the home now
her own. "If you don't want to hear me I'll wait until later." He
smiled in the half-knowing face. "You are tired, aren't you, of my
asking when you are going to marry me? I'm perfectly willing to
stop, but not until you tell me."
"Do you think I'd marry anybody for years and /years/ and
YEARS?" She rolled the "years" out with increasing emphasis on each.
"I have just begun to really live here--to start some things; to get
used to having a home of my own; to knowing all the people. And then"
--she looked in his face, indignant protest in her eyes--"there's
Miss Gibbie. Do you think I would go away and leave her like this?"
"It is asking a good deal, I know." Out of his voice had dropped all
lightness and in it were quiet purpose and gravity. "And in asking it
I may seem selfish, yet I do ask it. For ten years I have had but one
thought, one hope, one dream, if you will. It took me through college
that I might please you; made me settle down to work at once when
through with study; made me hold all my property interests here
because I know you loved the place. But not until two years ago did
I ask you to marry me."
"What did you ask me for then?" she interrupted, pulling a branch of a
mock-orange bush on the side of the road and stripping it of its
leaves. "We are such good friends, John, you and I. We have always
been, and I don't want you to marry anybody--not even me." She turned
to him, but she did not hear his quick, indrawing breath. "I need you
too much, John. You always know the things I don't, and you unravel all
the knots and straighten all the twisted strings when I get mixed up,
but if we got married it wouldn't be the same at all."
"Why wouldn't it?"
"It wouldn't." She shook her head. "I'd be thinking just about you,
and that--"
"Wouldn't be bad for me." His steady eyes looked into her
unawakened ones. "I should ask nothing more of life."
"But life would ask something more of me. Don't you see it would be
just selfishness. Mary mightn't mind"--her forehead puckered--"Mary
always was self-indulgent, and if Martha didn't watch her--" She threw
the stripped twig away impetuously. "I am not going to get married,
I'm not. I don't see why men always tag love in. Just as soon as I
get to be real friends with a man and like him just--just as he is,
he turns round and spoils it! Why can't they let love alone?"
"Love will not let them alone, I imagine." He looked down on her,
frowning slightly, in his eyes sudden pain as of fear for her.
"You are such a child, Mary. Many things you can be serious about.
Love alone you treat lightly. I don't understand you."
"And I don't understand love--the kind you mean. And if it is going
to make me as cross and huffy and injured as it seems to do some people
I don't want to know. I thought love was the happiest thing in life."
"It is. Or the unhappiest."
She turned. The note in his voice was new. Bitterness did not belong
to John.
"Are you going to do like that, too, and--be like the rest? Why
can't we keep on in the old way, John, and be as we've been so
long? We were happy and--"
"Because I can't go on in the old way and be happy. I want you with
me. I need you. And you--you need me, Mary. You are so alone here,
except for Miss Gibbie, and you know so little of--of so many
things in life. When are you going to be my wife?"
"I really--do--not--know!" With each word was a nod. "I am too busy
to get married. I don't want a husband yet. He'd be so in the way."
She looked at him, eyebrows slightly raised. "I don't think that
expression on your face suits you. And if I've got to look at it all
through supper it won't make things taste very nice. That is one of
the troubles about getting married. The foot of the table could be
so unpleasant!"
With a half frown, half sigh, he turned his head away. "I wonder if
you will ever grow up? And I wonder, also, if in all your thought
for others you will ever think of me?"
He stood aside that she might pass between the vine-covered
pillars marking the entrance to Tree Hill, and looking ahead saw
Hedwig standing in the porch.
"There is you friend faithful," he said, and his face cleared.
Chapter X
THE FORGOTTEN ENGAGEMENT
Then minutes later they were at the table and again alone. Hedwig
had left them, and John, leaning forward, held out his glass.
"More tea and less ice, please," he said, nodding between the
candles and over the bowl of lilacs to the girl at the head of the
table. "I don't see why women put so much ice in these queer-shaped
glasses, anyhow. All ice and no tea makes--"
The glass he had handed her came down with a crash, and Mary
Cary's hands were beaten together in sudden excited dismay.
"Oh, my goodness! Guess what we've done--/guess/ what we've
done!" she repeated over and over, and now it was her elbows with
which the table was thumped. "It is your fault, John! You know I
haven't a bit of memory about some things, and you ought to have
reminded me! I told you not to let me forget! You know I told you!"
"In the name of thunderation!" John Maxwell put down his fork
and pushed back his chair. "Is it hydrophobia or hysterics or
brain trouble or--For the love of mercy--"
"What time is it? Do you suppose we have time to go now, or is it
too late? Why /did/ you let me forget?" And now, standing up,
Mary Cary looked despairingly first at John and then at the clock,
at sight of which she sank back limply in her chair.
"Would you mind telling me what crime we've committed?" John got
up and filled his glass with tea.
"It's worse than a crime. It's a discourtesy. Anybody might forgive
any sort of sin, but nobody forgives rudeness. The council meeting
will be nothing to this."
"But what have we done?" John, still standing, put one, two, three
lumps of sugar in his tea. "I thought you were having a fit, and
convulsions were going to follow. You scared me silly. What's the
fuss about?"
She leaned forward dejectedly, elbows on the table, then put her
hand over the sugar-bowl. "You can't have four lumps! You know
sweet things don't suit you. We were to take tea with Mrs. Deford
to-night. You knew we were, and you didn't remind me. Sit down.
You haven't a bit of manners."
"Good heavens! Is that what you've been making all this row about?
I thought something was the matter." He put down the sugar-tongs,
went back to his seat, and took out his watch. "Quarter-past eight.
What time were we to be there?"
"Seven o'clock. Everybody has supper at seven o'clock in Yorkburg."
"Too late now." He put his watch back and helped himself to another
piece of fried chicken. "Terrible in you to forget such a thing as
that! Terrible! But I'm much obliged to you for doing it. I was so
afraid you'd remember, I--"
Her hands dropped on the table and she half rose. "Didn't you
forget, too? John Maxwell, do you mean--"
"I do. These certainly are good rolls." He broke one open and let
the steam escape. "Mrs. McDougal and I have much the same opinion
of Mrs. Deford, and what's the use of taking tea with people you
don't like? No, I didn't forget, and if you'd remembered and made
me go, I'd gone. As you didn't, I took the part of wisdom and
opened not my mouth. Your lack of memory is excuse enough for both.
Can I have some more tea? These glasses are frauds. I'm not going
to have glasses this shape when I get married."
"Indeed you are! I like this shape. I mean when I get married I'm
always going to use this kind." She put the glass down. "I'm not
going to give you another drop. You didn't forget and you didn't
remind me. Don't you know what it is going to mean? To-morrow
everybody in town will be told of my rude behavior--and the asylum
will be blamed for it. Everything I do wrong socially is attributed
to my childhood's lack of opportunities for knowing enough, and
everything I do wrong in every other way is due to my later
opportunities for knowing too much. Mrs. Deford doesn't like me,
anyhow, doesn't approve of me, and this will end us."
"That won't be bad for you. Do you like Mrs. Deford?"
"No, I don't. I don't exactly know why, either. I see very little
of her, and she is polite enough. Too polite. She doesn't ring
right."
"Then what did you accept her invitation to tea for?" He put out
his hand to bring back the plate Hedwig was removing. "What have
I done that my supper should be taken from me? I'm not through."
"There some salad is now, sir." And Hedwig looked helplessly first
at the head and then at the foot of the table.
"Oh, all right." He waved her away. "I just didn't want to be held
up." He put his elbows on the table, and his chin on the back of his
hands and looked at the girl in front, whose eyes were fastened
indignantly on him. "If you don't like her why did you accept her
invitation?"
"If that isn't Adamic! Why did /I/ accept her invitation? I
didn't until you had done so first. You said you'd come with
pleasure. I thought you meant it. You were almost gushing."
"And you were almost crushing. You were so indifferent I tried to
be polite enough for two. When a woman hits you in the face with
an invitation you don't expect a man to run, do you? I always
accept, but never go if I can manage to stay away. And I generally
manage. It is purely automatic, written or spoken, this 'Thank you
so much. I will come with pleasure.' Some people would say it in
their sleep if waked suddenly."
"Some people mean it."
"I know they do. It takes little to give some people pleasure.
Parties and picnics and teas, and even dinners, with the wrong sort
of mixtures, are the breath of life to certain types. But I am like
you, I don't like Mrs. Deford. She is a friend of mother's and visits
her at the blink of an eye. I always have business out of the city
when she is at the house. She puts her head on the side when she talks.
I can stand almost any kind of woman but that kind. She's got a tongue,
too, like Mrs. McDougal's friend, one that tells all it knows and makes
up what it doesn't. Why aren't you eating your salad?"
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17