Moriah\'s Mourning and Other Half Hour Sketches

R >> Ruth McEnery Stuart >> Moriah\'s Mourning and Other Half Hour Sketches

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"You ricollec' ol' Mis' Meredy, she used to preside over one thet they
had, an' somehow he taken a distaste to her an' to ice-pitchers along
with her, an' he don't never lose a chance to express his disgust. When
them new folks was in town last year projec'in' about the railroad, he
says to me, 'I hope they won't stay, they'd never suit Simpkinsville on
earth. They're the regular swingin' ice-pitcher sort. Git folks like
that in town an' it wouldn't be no time befo' they'd start a-chargin'
pew rent in our churches.' We was both glad when they give out thet they
wasn't a-goin' to build the road. They say railroads is mighty
corrupting an' me, with my sick headaches, an' a' ingine whistle in
town, no indeed! Besides, ef it was to come I know I'd be the first one
run over. It's bad enough to have bulls in our fields without turnin'
steam-ingines loose on us. Jest one look at them cow-ketchers is enough
to frustrate a person till he'd stand stock still an' wait to be run
over--jest like poor crazy Mary done down here to Cedar Springs.

"They say crazy Mary looked that headlight full in the face, jes' the
same ez a bird looks at a snake, till the thing caught her, an' when the
long freight train had passed over her she didn't have a single remain,
not a one, though I always thought they might've gethered up enough to
give her a funeral. When I die I intend to have a funeral, even if I'm
drownded at sea. They can stand on the sho'e, an' I'll be jest ez likely
to know it ez them thet lay in view lookin' so ca'm. I've done give him
my orders, though they ain't much danger o' me dyin' at sea, not ef we
stay in Simpkinsville.

"How much are them willer rockers, Mr. Lawson? I declare that one favors
my old man ez it sets there, even without him in it. Nine dollars?
That's a good deal for a pants'-tearin' chair, seems to me, which them
willers are, the last one of 'em, an' I'm a mighty poor hand to darn.
Jest let me lay my stitches in colors, in the shape of a flower, an' I
can darn ez well ez the next one, but I do despise to fill up holes jest
to be a-fillin'. Yes, ez you say, them silver-mounted brier-wood pipes
is mighty purty, but he smokes so much ez it is, I don't know ez I want
to encourage him. Besides, it seems a waste o' money to buy a Christmus
gif' thet a person has to lay aside when company comes in, an' a
silver-mounted pipe ain't no politer to smoke in the presence o' ladies
than a corncob is. An' ez for when we're by ourselves--shucks.

"Ef you don't mind, Mr. Lawson, I'll stroll around through the sto'e
an' see what you've got while you wait on some o' them thet know their
own minds. I know mine well enough. _What I want_ is _that swingin'
ice-pitcher_, an' my judgment tells me thet they ain't a more suitable
present in yo' sto'e for a settled man thet has built hisself a
residence an' furnished it complete the way _he_ has, but of co'se
'twouldn't never do. I always think how I'd enjoy it when the minister
called. I wonder what Mr. Lawson thinks o' me back here a-talkin' to
myself. I always like to talk about the things I'm buyin'. That's a
mighty fine saddle-blanket, indeed it is. He was talkin' about a new
saddle-blanket the other day. But that's a thing a person could pick up
almost any day, a saddle-blanket is. A' ice-pitcher now--

"Say, Mr. Lawson, lemme look at that tiltin'-pitcher again, please,
sir. I jest want to see ef the spout is gold-lined. Yes, so it is--an'
little holes down in the throat of it, too. It cert'n'y is well made,
it cert'n'y is. I s'pose them holes is to strain out grasshoppers or
anything thet might fall into it. That musician thet choked to death at
the barbecue down at Pump Springs last summer might 'a' been livin' yet
ef they'd had sech ez this to pass water in, instid o' that open pail.
_He's_ got a mighty keerless way o' drinkin' out o' open dippers, too.
No tellin' what he'll scoop up some day. They'd be great safety for him
in a pitcher like this--ef I could only make him see it. It would seem
a sort o' awkward thing to pack out to the well every single time, an'
he won't drink no water but what he draws fresh. An' I s'pose it would
look sort o' silly to put it in here jest to drink it out again.

"Sir? Oh yes, I saw them saddle-bags hang-in' up back there, an' they
are fine, mighty fine, ez you say, an' his are purty near wo'e out, but
lordy, I don't want to buy a Christmus gif' thet's hung up in the
harness-room half the time. What's that you say? Won't you all never
git done a-runnin' me about that side-saddle? You can't pleg me about
that. I got it for his pleasure, ef it was for my use, an', come to
think about it, I'd be jest reversin' the thing on the pitcher. It
would be for his use an' my pleasure. I wish I could see my way to buy
it for him. Both goblets go with it, you say--an' the slop bowl? It
cert'n'y is handsome--it cert'n'y is. An' it's expensive--nobody could
accuse me o' stintin' 'im. Wonder why they didn't put some polar bears
on the goblets, too. They'd 'a' had to be purty small bears, but they
could 'a' been cubs, easy.

"I don't reely believe, Mr. Lawson, indeed I don't, thet I could find a
mo' suitable present for him ef I took a month, an' I don't keer what
he's a-pickin' out for me this minute, it can't be no handsomer 'n
this. Th' ain't no use--I'll haf to have it--for 'im. Jest charge it,
please, an' now I want it marked. I'll pay cash for the markin', out of
my egg money. An' I want his full name. Have it stamped on the iceberg
right beside the bear. 'Ephraim N. Trimble.' No, you needn't to spell
out the middle name. I should say not. Ef you knew what it was you
wouldn't ask me. Why, it's Nebuchadnezzar. It'd use up the whole
iceberg. Besides, I couldn't never think o' Nebuchadnezzar there an'
not a spear o' grass on the whole lan'scape. You needn't to laugh. I
know it's silly, but I always think o' sech ez that. No, jest write it,
'Ephraim N. Trimble, from his wife, Kitty.' Be sure to put in the
Kitty, so in after years it'll show which wife give it to him. Of
co'se, them thet knew us both would know which one. Mis' Mary Jane
wouldn't never have approved of it in the world. Why, she used to rip
up her old crocheted tidies an' things an' use 'em over in bastin'
thread, so they tell me. She little dremp' who she was a-savin' for,
poor thing. She was buyin' this pitcher then, but she didn't know it.
But I keep a-runnin' on. Go on with the inscription, Mr. Lawson. What
have you got? 'From his wife, Kitty'--what's the matter with
'affectionate wife'? You say affectionate is a purty expensive word?
But 'lovin'' 'll do jest ez well, an' it comes cheaper, you say? An'
plain 'wife' comes cheapest of all? An' I don't know but what it's mo'
suitable, anyhow--at his age. Of co'se, you must put in the date, an'
make the 'Kitty' nice an' fancy, please. Lordy, well, the deed's
done--an' I reckon he'll threaten to divo'ce me when he sees it--till
he reads the inscription. Better put in the 'lovin',' I reckon, an' put
it in capitals--they don't cost no more, do they? Well, goodbye, Mr.
Lawson, I reckon you'll be glad to see me go. I've outstayed every last
one thet was here when I come. Well, good-bye! Have it marked
immediate, please, an' I'll call back in an hour. Good-bye, again!"

Part III

When old man Trimble stood before the fireplace at midnight that night,
stuffing little parcels into the deep, borrowed stocking, he chuckled
noiselessly, and glanced with affection towards the corner of the room
where his young wife lay sleeping. He was a fat old man, and as he stood
with shaking sides in his loose, home-made pajamas, he would have done
credit to a more conscious impersonation of old Santa himself.

His task finally done, he glanced down at a tall bundle that stood on
the floor almost immediately in front of him, moved back with his hands
resting on his hips, and thoughtfully surveyed it.

"Well, ef anybody had 'a' told it on me I never would 'a' believed it,"
he said, under his breath. "The idee o' me, Ephe Trimble, settin' up
sech a thing ez that in his house--at my time o' life." Then, glancing
towards the sleeper, he added, with a chuckle, "an' ef they'd 'a'
prophesied it I wouldn't 'a' believed sech ez _thet_, neither--at
my time o' life--bless her little curly head."

He sat down on the floor beside the bundle, clipped the twine, and
cautiously pushed back the wrappings. Then, rising, he carefully set
each piece of the water-set up above the stocking on the mantel. He did
not stop to examine it. He was anxious to get it in place without noise.

It made a fine show, even in the dim, unsteady light of the single taper
that burned in its tumbler of oil close beside the bed. Indeed, when it
arose in all its splendor, he was very much impressed.

"A thing like that ought to have a chandelier to set it off right," he
thought--"yas, and she'll have one, too--she'll have anything she
wants--thet I can give her."

Sleep came slowly to the old man that night, and even long after his
eyes were closed, the silver things seemed arrayed in line upon his
mental retina. And when, after a long while, he fell into a troubled
slumber, it was only to dream. And in his dream old Judge Robinson's
mother-in-law seemed to come and stand before him--black dress, side
curls, and all--and when he looked at her for the first time in his life
unabashed--she began to bow, over and over again, and to say with each
salutation, "Be seated"--"be seated"--"be seated," getting farther and
farther away with each bow until she was a mere speck in the
distance--and then the speck became a spot of white, and he saw that the
old lady had taken on a spout and a handle, and that she was only an
ice-pitcher, tilting, and tilting, and tilting--while from the yellow
spout came a fine metallic voice saying, "Be seated"--"be seated"--again
and again. Then there would be a change. Two ladies would appear
approaching each other and retreating--turning into two ice-pitchers,
tilting to each other, then passing from tilting pitchers to bowing
ladies, until sometimes there seemed almost to be a pitcher and a lady
in view at the same time. When he began to look for them both at once
the dream became tantalizing. Twin ladies and twin pitchers--but never
quite clearly a lady and a pitcher. Even while the vision tormented him
it held him fast--perhaps because he was tired, having lost his first
hours of sleep.

He was still sleeping soundly, spite of the dissolving views of the
novel panorama, when above the two voices that kept inviting him to "be
seated," there arose, in muffled tones at first, and then with
distressing distinctness, a sound of sobbing. It made the old man turn
on his pillow even while he slept, for it was the voice of a woman, and
he was tender of heart. It seemed in the dream and yet not of it--this
awful, suppressed sobbing that disturbed his slumber, but was not quite
strong enough to break it. But presently, instead of the muffled sob,
there came a cumulative outburst, like that of a too hard-pressed
turkey-gobbler forced to the wall. He thought it was the old black
gobbler at first, and he even said, "Shoo," as he sprang from his bed.
But a repetition of the sound sent him bounding through the open door
into the dining-room, dazed and trembling.

Seated beside the dining-table there, with her head buried in her arms,
sat his little wife. Before her, ranged in line upon the table, stood
the silver water-set--her present to him. He was beside her in a
moment--leaning over her, his arms about her shoulders.

"Why, honey," he exclaimed, "what on earth--"

At this she only cried the louder. There was no further need for
restraint. The old man scratched his head. He was very much distressed.

"Why, honey," he repeated, "tell its old man all about it. Didn't it
like the purty pitcher thet its old husband bought for it? Was it too
big--or too little--or too heavy for it to tote all the way out here
from that high mantel? Why didn't it wake up its lazy ol' man and make
him pack it out here for it?"

It was no use. She was crying louder than ever. He did not know what to
do. He began to be cold and he saw that she was shivering. There was no
fire in the dining-room. He must do something. "Tell its old man what it
would 'a' ruther had," he whispered in her ear, "jest tell him, ef it
don't like its pitcher--"

At this she made several efforts to speak, her voice breaking in real
turkey-gobbler sobs each time, but finally she managed to wail:

"It ain't m-m-m-mi-i-i-ne!"

"Not yours! Why, honey. What can she mean? Did it think I bought it for
anybody else? Ain't yours! Well, I like that. Lemme fetch that lamp over
here till you read the writin' on the side of it, an' I'll show you
whose it is." He brought the lamp.

"Read that, now. Why, honey! Wh--wh--wh--what in thunder an' lightnin'!
They've done gone an' reversed it. The fool's put my name first--'
Ephraim N. Trimble. From--his--'

"Why, Jerusalem jinger!

"No wonder she thought I was a low-down dog--to buy sech a thing an'
mark it in my own name--no wonder--here on Christmus, too. The idee o'
Rowton not seein' to it thet it was done right--"

By this time the little woman had somewhat recovered herself. Still, she
stammered fearfully.

"R-r-r-owton ain't never s-s-s-saw that pitcher. It come from
L-l-l-awson's, d-d-down at Washin'ton, an' I b-bought it for y-y-y-you!"

"Why, honey--darlin'--" A sudden light came into the old man's eyes. He
seized the lamp and hurried to the door of the bed-chamber, and looked
in. This was enough. Perhaps it was mean--but he could not help it--he
set the lamp down on the table, dropped into a chair, and fairly howled
with laughter.

"No wonder I dremp' ol' Mis' Meredy was twins!" he screamed. "Why,
h-h-honey," he was nearly splitting his old sides--"why, honey, I ain't
seen a thing but these two swingin' pitchers all night. They've been
dancin' before me--them an' what seemed like a pair o' ol' Mis' Meredys,
an' between 'em all I ain't slep' a wink."

"N-n-either have I. An' I dremp' about ol' Mis' M-m-m-eredy, too. I
dremp' she had come to live with us--an' thet y-y-you an' me had moved
into the back o' the house. That's why I got up. I couldn't sleep easy,
an' I thought I might ez well git up an' see wh-wh-what you'd brought
me. But I didn't no mor'n glance at it. But you can't say you didn't
sleep, for you was a-s-s-snorin' when I come out here--"

"An' so was you, honey, when I 'ranged them things on the mantel. Lemme
go an' git the other set an' compare 'em. That one I picked out is
mighty purty."

"I'll tell you befo' you fetch 'em thet they're exactly alike"--she
began to cry again--"even to the p-p-polar bear. I saw that at a glance,
an' it makes it s-s-so much more ridic'--"

"Hush, honey. I'm reely ashamed of you--I reely am. Seems to me ef
they're jest alike, so much the better. What's the matter with havin' a
pair of 'em? We might use one for buttermilk."

"Th-that would be perfectly ridiculous. A polar bear'd look like a fool
on a buttermilk pitcher. N-n-no, the place for pitchers like them is in
halls, on tables, where anybody comin' in can see 'em an' stop an' git a
drink. They couldn't be nothin' tackier'n pourin' buttermilk out of a'
ice-pitcher."

"Of co'se, if you say so, we won't--I jest thought maybe--or, I tell you
what we might do. I could easy take out a panel o' banisters out of the
side po'ch, an' put in a pair o' stairsteps, so ez to make a sort o'
side entrance to the house, an' we could set one of 'em in _it_. It
would make the pitcher come a little high, of co'se, but it would set
off that side o' the house lovely, an' ef you say so--

"Lemme go git 'em all out here together."

As he trudged in presently loaded up with the duplicate set he said, "I
wonder ef you know what time it is, wife?"

She glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the wall.

"Don't look at that. It's six o'clock last night by that. I forgot to
wind her up. No. It's half-past three o'clock--that's all it is." By
this time he had placed his water-set beside hers upon the table. "Why,
honey," he exclaimed, "where on earth? I don't see a sign of a'
inscription on this--an' what is this paper in the spout? Here, you read
it, wife, I ain't got my specs."

"'Too busy to mark to-day--send back after Christmas--sorry.

ROWTON.'"

"Why, it--an' here's another paper. What can this be, I wonder?"

"'To my darling wife, from her affectionate husband.'"

The little wife colored as she read it.

"Oh, that ain't nothin' but the motter he was to print on it. But ain't
it lucky thet he didn't do it? I'll change it--that's what I'll do--for
anything you say. There, now. Don't that fix it?"

She was very still for a moment--very thoughtful. "An' affectionate is a
mighty expensive word, too," she said, slowly, glancing over the
intended inscription, in her husband's handwriting. "Yes. Your pitcher
don't stand for a thing but generosity--an' mine don't mean a thing but
selfishness. Yes, take it back, cert'nly, that is ef you'll get me
anything I want for it. Will you?"

"Shore. They's a cow-topped butter-dish an' no end o' purty little
things out there you might like. An' ef it's goin' back, it better be
a-goin'. I can ride out to town an' back befo' breakfast. Come, kiss me,
wife."

She threw both arms around her old husband's neck, and kissed him on one
cheek and then on the other. Then she kissed his lips. And then, as she
went for pen and paper, she said: "Hurry, now, an' hitch up, an' I'll be
writin' down what I want in exchange--an' you can put it in yo' pocket."

In a surprisingly short time the old man was on his way--a heaped basket
beside him, a tiny bit of writing in his pocket. When he had turned into
the road he drew rein for a moment, lit a match, and this is what he
read:

"MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I want one silver-mounted brier-wood pipe and
a smoking set--a nice lava one--and I want a set of them fine
overhauls like them that Mis Pope give Mr. Pope that time I said
she was too extravagant, and if they's any money left over I want
some nice tobacco, the best. I want all the price of the ice-set
took up even to them affectionate words they never put on.

"Your affectionate and loving wife,

"KITTY."

When Ephraim put the little note back in his pocket, he took out his
handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

Her good neighbors and friends, even as far as Simpkinsville and
Washington, had their little jokes over Mis' Trimble's giving her
splendor-despising husband a swinging ice-pitcher, but they never knew
of the two early trips of the twin pitcher, nor of the midnight comedy
in the Trimble home.

But the old man often recalls it, and as he sits in his front hall
smoking his silver-mounted pipe, and shaking its ashes into the lava
bowl that stands beside the ice-pitcher at his elbow, he sometimes
chuckles to himself.

Noticing his shaking shoulders as he sat thus one day his wife turned
from the window, where she stood watering her geraniums, and said:

"What on earth are you a-laughin' at, honey?" (She often calls him
"honey" now.)

"How did you know I was a-laughin'?" He looked over his shoulder at her
as he spoke.

"Why, I seen yo' shoulders a-shakin'--that's how." And then she added,
with a laugh, "An' now I see yo' reflection in the side o' the
ice-pitcher, with a zig-zag grin on you a mile long--yo' smile just
happened to strike a iceberg."

He chuckled again.

"Is that so? Well, the truth is, I'm just sort o' tickled over things in
general, an' I'm a-settin' here gigglin', jest from pure contentment."

A MINOR CHORD

I am an old bachelor, and I live alone in my corner upper room of an
ancient house of _Chambres garnies_, down on the lower edge of the
French quarter of New Orleans.

When I made my nest here, forty years ago, I felt myself an old man, and
the building was even then a dilapidated old rookery, and since then
we--the house and I--have lapsed physically with the decline of the
neighborhood about us, until now our only claims to gentility are
perhaps our memories and our reserves.

The habit of introspection formed by so isolated an existence tends to
develop morbid views of life, and throws one out of sympathetic
relations with the world of progress, we are told; but is there not some
compensation for this in the acquisition of finer and more subtle
perception of things hidden from the social, laughing, hurrying world?
So it seems to me, and even though the nicer discernment bring pain, as
it often does--as all refinement must--who would yield it for a grosser
content resulting from a duller vision?

To contemplate the procession that passes daily beneath my window, with
its ever-shifting pictures of sorrow, of decrepitude ill-matched with
want, new motherhood, and mendicancy, with uplifted eye and palm--to
look down upon all this with only a passing sigh, as my worthy but
material fat landlady does, would imply a spiritual blindness infinitely
worse than the pang which the keener perception induces.

There are in this neighborhood of moribund pretensions a few special
objects which strike a note of such sadness in my heart that the most
exquisite pain ensues--a pain which seems almost bodily, such as those
for which we take physic; yet I could never confuse it with the
neuralgic dart which it so nearly resembles, so closely does it follow
the sight or sound which I know induces it.

There is a young lawyer who passes twice a day beneath my window.... I
say he is young, for all the moving world is young to me, at eighty--and
yet he seems old at five-and-forty, for his temples are white.

I know this man's history. The only son of a proud house, handsome,
gifted--even somewhat of a poet in his youth--he married a soulless
woman, who began the ruin which the wine-cup finished. It is an old
story. In a mad hour he forged another man's name--then, a wanderer on
the face of the earth, he drifted about with never a local habitation or
a name, until his aged father had made good the price of his honor, when
he came home--"tramped home," the world says--and, now, after years of
variable steadiness, he has built upon the wreck of his early life a
sort of questionable confidence which brings him half-averted
recognition; and every day, with the gray always glistening on his
temples and the clear profile of the past outlining itself--though the
high-bred face is low between the shoulders now--he passes beneath my
window with halting step to and from the old courthouse, where, by
virtue of his father's position, he holds a minor office.

Almost within a stone's throw of my chamber this man and his aged
father--the latter now a hopeless paralytic--live together in the ruins
of their old home.

Year by year the river, by constant cavings, has swallowed nearly all
its extensive grounds, yet beyond the low-browed Spanish cottage that
clings close within the new levee, "the ghost of a garden" fronts the
river. Here, amid broken marbles--lyreless Apollos, Pegasus bereft of
wings, and prostrate Muses--the hardier roses, golden-rod, and
honeysuckle run riot within the old levee, between the comings of the
waters that at intervals steal in and threaten to swallow all at a gulp.

The naked old house, grotesquely guarded by the stately skeleton of a
moss-grown oak, is thus bereft, by the river in front and the public
road at its back, of all but the bare fact of survival.

No visitor ever enters here; but in the summer evenings two old men may
be seen creeping with difficult steps from its low portal up to the brow
of the bank, where they sit in silence and watch the boats go by.

The picture is not devoid of pathos, and even the common people whisper
together as they look upon the figures of father and son sitting in the
moonlight; and no one likes to pass the door at night, for there are
grewsome tales of ghosts afloat, in which decapitated statues are said
to stalk about the old garden at nightfall.

A sigh always escapes me as I look upon this desolate scene; but it is
not now, but when the old-young man, the son, passes my door each day,
carrying in his pale hands a bunch of flowers which he keeps upon his
desk in the little back office, that my mysterious pain possesses me.

Why does this hope-forsaken man carry a bunch of flowers? Is it the
surviving poet within him that finds companionship in them, or does he
seem to see in their pure hearts, as in a mirror, a reflection of his
own sinless youth?

These questions I cannot answer; but every day, as he passes with the
flowers, I follow him with fascinated eye until he is quite lost in the
distance, my heart rent the while with this incisive pain.

Finally, he is lost to view. The dart passes through and out my breast,
and, as I turn, my eye falls upon a pretty rose-garden across the way,
where live a mother and her two daughters.

* * * *

Seventeen years ago this woman's husband--the father--went away and
never returned. The daughters are grown, and they are poor. The elder
performs some clerical work up in Canal Street, and I love to watch her
trig little figure come and go--early and late.

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