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The little maid threw back her tangle of curls, and looked Lucindy squarely in the eyes.
"Yes," she answered.
Lucindy's grasp tightened round her.
"How should you like to live with me?"
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The child touched her little breast inquiringly with one finger.
"Me?" She pointed over to Mrs. McNeil, who lay listening and stretching her limbs in lazy comfort. "Leave _her_?" And then,
gravely, "No; she's good to me."
Lucindy's heart sank.
"You could come over to see her," she pleaded, "and I'd come too. We'd all go plummin' together. I should admire to! And we'd have
parties, and ask 'em all over. What say?"
The child sat straight and serious, one warm hand clinging to Lucindy's slender palm. But her eyes still sought the face of her older
friend. Molly McNeil rose to a sitting posture. She took the straw from her mouth, and spoke with the happy frankness of those who
have no fear because they demand nothing save earth and sky room.
"I know who you are," she said to Lucindy. "You're left well off, and I guess you could bring up a child, give you your way. We're as
poor as poverty! You take her, if she'll go. Ellen, she's a nice lady; you better say 'yes.'"
Lucindy was trembling all over.
"You come, dear," she urged, piteously. "You come and live with me."
Ellen thought a moment more. Then she nodded.
"I'll come," said she.
Lucindy could not wait.
"I'll send a wagon over after her to-night." She had put Ellen down, and was rising tremblingly. "I won't stop to talk no more now, but
you come and see me, won't you? Now, if you'll help me mount up--there! My! it's higher 'n 'twas before! Well, I'll see you again."
She turned Old Buckskin's head away from the fence; then she pulled him fiercely round again. "Here!" she called, "what if she should
jump up behind me and come now!"
Mrs. McNeil, being the thrall only of the earth, saw no reason, why a thing should not be done as one wanted it. She lifted; the child
and set her on the horse behind Lucindy. And so, in this strange fashion, the two entered the high street of Tiverton.
A few weeks after this, Mrs. Wilson and Lucindy went together to the little millinery shop. Ellen trotted between them, taking
excursions into the street, now and again, in pursuit of butterflies or thistledown. When they entered, Miss West, who had seen their
approach from her position at the ironing-board, came forward with a gay little hat in her hand. It was trimmed with pink, and a
wreath of tiny white flowers clung about the crown. She set it on Ellen's curls; and Ellen, her face quite radiant, looked up at Miss
Lucindy for approval. But that lady was gazing anxiously at Mrs. Wilson.
"Now, there ain't anything unsuitable about that, is there?" she asked. "I know, it's gay, and I want it to be gay. I can tell about _that_!
But is it all right? Is it such as you'd be willin' to have Claribel wear?"
"It's a real beauty!" Mrs. Wilson answered, cordially; but she could not refrain from adding, while Miss West was doing up the hat,
and Ellen surreptitiously tried on a black poke bonnet, "Now, don't you spile her, Lucindy! She's a nice little girl as ever was, but you
ain't no more fit to bring up a child than the cat!"
Lucindy did not hear. She was smiling at Ellen, and Ellen smiled back at her. They thought they knew.
TOLD IN THE POORHOUSE.
"Le' me see," said old Sally Flint, "was it fifty year ago, or was it on'y forty? Some'er's betwixt 1825 an' '26 it must ha' been when they
were married, an' 'twas in '41 he died."
The other old women in the Poorhouse sitting-room gathered about her. Old Mrs. Forbes, who dearly loved a story, unwound a length
of yarn with peculiar satisfaction, and put her worn shoe up to the fire. Everybody knew when Sally Flint was disposed to open her
unwritten book of folk-tales for the public entertainment; and to-day, having tied on a fresh apron and bound a new piece of red
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flannel about her wrist, she was, so to speak, in fighting trim. The other members of the Poorhouse had scanty faith in that red flannel.
They were aware that Sally had broken her wrist, some twenty years before, and that the bandage was consequently donned on days
when her "hand felt kind o' cold," or was "burnin' like fire embers;" but there was an unspoken suspicion that it really served as token
of her inability to work whenever she felt bored by the prescribed routine of knitting and sweeping. No one had dared presume on that
theory, however, since the day when an untactful overseer had mentioned it, to be met by such a stream of unpleasant reminiscence
concerning his immediate ancestry that he had retreated in dismay, and for a week after, had served extra pieces of pie to his justly
offended charge.
"They were married in June," continued Sally. "No, 'twa'n't; 'twas the last o' May. May thirty-fust--no, May 'ain't but thirty days, has
it?"
"'Thirty days hath September,'" quoted Mrs. Giles, with importance. "That's about all I've got left o' my schoolin', Miss Flint. May's
got thirty-one days, sure enough."
"Call it the thirty-fust, then. It's nigh enough, anyway. Well, Josh Marden an' Lyddy Ann Crane was married, an' for nine year they
lived like two kittens. Old Sperry Dyer, that wanted to git Lyddy himself, used to call 'em cup an' sasser, 'There they be,' he'd say,
when he stood outside the meetin'-house door an' they drove up; 'there comes cup an' sasser.' Lyddy was a little mite of a thing, with
great black eyes; an' if Josh hadn't been as tough as tripe, he'd ha' got all wore out waitin' on her. He even washed the potaters for her, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]