Read A White Heron and Other Stories Online
Authors: Sarah Orne Jewett
They went into the front room, which was dim with the twilight of the half-closed blinds and two great syringa bushes that grew against them. Sarah Ellen put down her bundle and bestowed herself in the large, cane-seated rocking-chair. Mrs. Crane directed her to stay there awhile and rest, and then come out into the kitchen when she got ready.
A cheerful clatter of dishes was heard at once upon Mrs. Crane's disappearance. “I hope she's goin' to make one o' her nice shortcakes, but I don't know's she'll think it quite worth while,” thought the guest humbly. She desired to go out into the kitchen, but it was proper behavior to wait until she should be called. Mercy Crane was not a person with whom one could venture to take liberties. Presently Sarah Ellen began to feel better. She did not often find such a quiet place, or the quarter of an hour of idleness in which to enjoy it, and was glad to make the most of this opportunity. Just now she felt tired and lonely. She was a busy, unselfish, eager-minded creature by nature, but now, while grief was sometimes uppermost in her mind and sometimes a sense of wrong, every moment found her more peaceful, and the great excitement little by little faded away.
“What a person poor Sister Barsett was to dread growing old so she couldn't get about. I'm sure I shall miss her as much as anybody,” said Mrs. Crane, suddenly opening the kitchen door, and letting in an unmistakable and delicious odor of shortcake that revived still more the drooping spirits of her guest. “An' a good deal of knowledge has died with her,” she added, coming into the room and seeming to make it lighter.
“There, she knew a good deal, but she didn't know all, especially o' doctorin',” insisted Sarah Ellen from the rocking-chair, with an unexpected little laugh. “She used to lay down the law to me as if I had neither sense nor experience, but when it came to her bad spells she'd always send for me. It takes everybody to know everything, but Sister Barsett was of an opinion that her information was sufficient for the town. She was tellin' me the day I went there how she disliked to have old Mis' Doubleday come an' visit with her, an' remarked that she called Mis' Doubleday very officious. âWent right down on her knees an' prayed,' says she. âAnybody would have thought I was a heathen!' But I kind of pacified her feelin's, an' told her I supposed the old lady meant well.”
“Did she give away any of her things?âMis' Barsett, I mean,” inquired Mrs. Crane.
“Not in my hearin',” replied Sarah Ellen Dow. “Except one day, the first of the week, she told her oldest sister, Mis' Deckettâ't was that first day she rode overâthat she might have her green quilted petticoat; you see it was a rainy day, an' Miss Deckett had complained o' feelin' thin. She went right up an' got it, and put it on an' wore it off, an' I'm sure I thought no more about it, until I heard Sister Barsett groanin' dreadful in the night. I got right up to see what the matter was, an' what do you think but she was wantin' that petticoat back, and not thinking any too well o' Nancy Deckett for takin' it when 't was offered. âNancy never showed no sense o' propriety,' says Sister Barsett; I just wish you'd heard her go on!”
“If she had felt to remember me,” continued Sarah Ellen, after they had laughed a little, “I'd full as soon have some of her nice crockery-ware. She told me once, years ago, when I was stoppin' to tea with her an' we were havin' it real friendly, that she should leave me her Britannia tea-set, but I ain't got it in writin', and I can't say she's ever referred to the matter since. It ain't as if I had a home o' my own to keep it in, but I should have thought a great deal of it for her sake,” and the speaker's voice faltered. “I must say that with all her virtues she never was a first-class housekeeper, but I wouldn't say it to any but a friend. You never eat no preserves o' hers that wa'n't commencin' to work, an' you know as well as I how little forethought she had about putting away her woolens. I sat behind her once in meetin' when I was stoppin' with the Tremletts and so occupied a seat in their pew, an' I see between ten an' a dozen moth millers come workin' out o' her fitch-fur tippet. They was flutterin' round her bonnet same's 't was a lamp. I should be mortified to death to have such a.thing happen to me.”
“Every housekeeper has her weak point; I've got mine as much as anybody else,” acknowledged Mercy Crane with spirit, “but you never see no moth millers come workin' out o' me in a public place.”
“Ain't your oven beginning to get over-het?” anxiously inquired Sarah Ellen Dow, who was sitting more in the draught, and could not bear to have any accident happen to the supper. Mrs. Crane flew to a shortcake's rescue, and presently called her guest to the table.
The two women sat down to deep and brimming cups of tea. Sarah Ellen noticed with great gratification that her hostess had put on two of the best tea-cups and some citron-melon preserves. It was not an everyday supper. She was used to hard fare, poor, hard-working Sarah Ellen, and this handsome social attention did her good. Sister Crane rarely entertained a friend, and it would be a pleasure to speak of the tea-drinking for weeks to come.
“You've put yourself out quite a consid'able for me,” she acknowledged. “How pretty these cups is! You oughtn't to use 'em so common as for me. I wish I had a home I could really call my own to ask you to, but't ain't never been so I could. Sometimes I wonder what's goin' to become o' me when I get so I'm past work. Takin' care o' sick folks an' bein' in houses where there's a sight goin' on an' everybody in a hurry kind of wears on me now I'm most a-gittin' in years. I was wishin' the other day that I could get with some comfortable kind of a sick person, where I could live right along quiet as other folks do, but folks never sends for me âless they're drove to it. I ain't laid up anything to really depend upon.”
The situation appealed to Mercy Crane, well to do as she was and not burdened with responsibilities. She stirred uneasily in her chair, but could not bring herself to the point of offering Sarah Ellen the home she coveted.
“Have some hot tea,” she insisted, in a matter of fact tone, and Sarah Ellen's face, which had been lighted by a sudden eager hopefulness, grew dull and narrow again.
“Plenty, plenty, Mis' Crane,” she said sadly, “'t is.beautiful teaâyou always have good tea”; but she could not turn her thoughts from her own uncertain future. “None of our folks has ever lived to be a burden,” she said presently, in a pathetic tone, putting down her cup. “My mother was thought to be doing well until four o'clock an' was dead at ten. My Aunt Nancy came to our house well at twelve o'clock an' died that afternoon; my father was sick but ten days. There was dear sister Betsy, she did go in consumption, but't wa'n't an expensive sickness.”
“I've thought sometimes about you, how you'd get past rovin' from house to house one o' these days. I guess your friends will stand by you.” Mrs. Crane spoke with unwonted sympathy, and Sarah Ellen's heart leaped with joy.
“You're real kind,” she said simply. “There's nobody I set so much by. But I shall miss Sister Barsett, when all's said an' done. She's asked me many a time to stop with her when I wasn't doin' nothin'. We all have our failin's, but she was a friendly creatur'. I sha'n't want to see her laid away.”
“Yes, I was thinkin' a few minutes ago that I shouldn't want to look out an' see the funeral go by. She's one o' the old neighbors. I s'pose I shall have to look, or I shouldn't feel right afterward,” said Mrs. Crane mournfully. “If I hadn't got so kind of housebound,” she added with touching frankness, “I'd just as soon go over with you an' offer to watch this night.”
“'T would astonish Sister Barsett so I don't know but she'd return.” Sarah Ellen's eyes danced with amusement; she could not resist her own joke, and Mercy Crane herself had to smile.
“Now I must be goin', or 't will be dark,” said the guest, rising and sighing after she had eaten her last crumb of gingerbread. “Yes, thank ye, you're real good, I will come back if I find I ain't wanted. Look what a pretty sky there is!” and the two friends went to the side door and stood together in a moment of affectionate silence, looking out toward the sunset across the wide fields. The country was still with that deep rural stillness which seems to mean the absence of humanity. Only the thrushes were singing far away in the walnut woods beyond the orchard, and some crows were flying over and cawed once loudly, as if they were speaking to the women at the door.
Just as the friends were parting, after most grateful acknowledgments from Sarah Ellen Dow, some one came driving along the road in a hurry and stopped.
“Who's that with you, Mis' Crane?” called one of their near neighbors.
“It's Sarah Ellen Dow,” answered Mrs. Crane. “What's the matter?”
“I thought so, but I couldn't rightly see. Come, they are in a peck o' trouble up to Sister Barsett's, wonderin' where you be,” grumbled the man. “They can't do nothin' with her; she's drove off everybody an' keeps a-screechin' for you. Come, step along, Sarah Ellen, do!”
“Sister Barsett!” exclaimed both the women. Mercy Crane sank down upon the doorstep, but Sarah Ellen stepped out upon the grass all of a tremble, and went toward the wagon. “They said this afternoon that Sister Barsett was gone,” she managed to say. “What did they mean?”
“Gone where?” asked the impatient neighbor. “I expect't was one of her spells. She's come to; they say she wants somethin' hearty for her tea. Nobody can't take one step till you get there, neither.”
Sarah Ellen was still dazed; she returned to the doorway, where Mercy Crane sat shaking with laughter. “I don't know but we might as well laugh as cry,” she said in an aimless sort of way. “I know you too well to think you're going to repeat a single word. Well, I'll get my bonnet an' start; I expect I've got considerable to cope with, but I'm well rested. Good-night, Mis' Crane, I certain did have a beautiful tea, whatever the future may have in store.”
She wore a solemn expression as she mounted into the wagon in haste and departed, but she was far out of sight when Mercy Crane stopped laughing and went into the house.
OLD MISS PORLEY put on her silk shawl, and arranged it carefully over her thin shoulders, and pinned it with a hand that shook a little as if she were much excited. She bent forward to examine the shawl in the mahogany-framed mirror, for there was a frayed and tender spot in the silk where she had pinned it so many years. The shawl was very old; it had been her mother's, and she disliked to wear it too often, but she never could make up her mind to go out into the street in summer, as some of her neighbors did, with nothing over her shoulders at all. Next she put on her bonnet and tried to set it straight, allowing for a wave in the looking-glass that made one side of her face appear much longer than the other; then she drew on a pair of well-darned silk gloves; one had a wide crack all the way up the back of the hand, but they were still neat and decent for every-day wear, if she were careful to keep her left hand under the edge of the shawl. She had discussed the propriety of drawing the raveled silk together, but a thick seam would look very ugly, and there was something accidental about the crack.
Then, after hesitating a few moments, she took a small piece of folded white letter-paper from the table and went out of the house, locking the door and trying it, and stepped away bravely down the village street. Everybody said, “How do you do, Miss Porley?” or “Good-mornin', Esther.” Every one in Daleham knew the good woman; she was one of the unchanging persons, always to be found in her place, and always pleased and friendly and ready to take an interest in old and young. She and her mother, who had early been left a widow, had been for many years the village tailoresses and makers of little boys' clothes. Mrs. Porley had been dead three years, however, and her daughter “Easter,” as old friends called our heroine, had lived quite alone. She was made very sorrowful by her loneliness, but she never could be persuaded to take anybody to board: she could not bear to think of any one's taking her mother's place.
It was a warm summer morning, and Miss Porley had not very far to walk, but she was still more shaky and excited by the time she reached the First Church parsonage. She stood at the gate undecidedly, and, after she pushed it open a little way, she drew back again, and felt a curious beating at her heart and general reluctance of mind and body. At that moment the minister's wife, a pleasant young woman with a smiling, eager face, looked out of the window and asked the tremulous visitor to come in. Miss Esther straightened herself and went briskly up the walk; she was very fond of the minister's wife, who had only been in Daleham a few months.
“Won't you take off your shawl?” asked Mrs. Wayton affectionately; “I have just been making gingerbread, and you shall have a piece as soon as it cools.”
“I don't know's I ought to stop,” answered Miss Esther, flushing quickly. “I came on business; I won't keep you long.”
“Oh, please stay a little while,” urged the hostess. “I'll take my sewing, if you don't mind; there are two or three things that I want to ask you about.”
“I've thought and flustered a sight over taking this step,” said good old Esther abruptly. “I had to conquer a sight o' reluctance, I must say. I've got so used to livin' by myself that I sha'n't know how to consider another. But I see I ain't got common feelin' for others unless I can set my own comfort aside once in a while. I've brought you my name as one of those that will take one o' them city folks that needs a spell o' change. It come straight home to me how I should be feeling it by this time, if my lot had been cast in one o' them city garrets that the minister described so affecting. If 't hadn't been for kind consideration somewheres, mother an' me might have sewed all them pleasant years away in the city that we enjoyed so in our own home, and our garding to step right out into when our sides set in to ache. And I ain't rich, but we was able to save a little something, and now I'm eatin' of it all up alone. It come to me I should like to have somebody take a taste out o' mother's part. Now, don't you let âem send me no rampin' boys like them Barnard's folks had come last year, that vexed dumb creatur's so; and I don't know how to cope with no kind o' men-folks or strange girls, but I should know how to do for a woman that's getting well along in years, an' has come to feel kind o' spent. P'raps we ain't no right to pick an' choose, but I should know best how to make that sort comfortable on 'count of doin' for mother and studying what she preferred.”
Miss Esther rose with quaint formality and put the folded paper, on which she had neatly written her name and address, into Mrs. Wayton's hand. Mrs. Wayton rose soberly to receive it, and then they both sat down again.
“I'm sure that you will feel more than repaid for your kindness, dear Miss Esther,” said the minister's wife. “I know one of the ladies who have charge of the arrangements for the Country Week, and I will explain as well as I can the kind of guest you have in mind. I quite envy her: I have often thought, when I was busy and tired, how much I should like to run along the street and make you a visit in your dear old-fashioned little house.”
“I should be more than pleased to have you, I'm sure,” said Miss Esther, startled into a bright smile and forgetting her anxiety. “Come any day, and take me just as I am. We used to have a good deal o' company years ago, when there was a number o' mother's folks still livin' over Ashfield way. Sure as we had a pile o' work on hand and was hurrying for dear life an' limb, a wagon-load would light down at the front gate to spend the day an' have an early tea. Mother never was one to get flustered same's I do âbout everything. She was a lovely cook, and she'd fill 'em up an' cheer 'em, and git âem off early as she could, an' then we'd be kind o' waked up an' spirited ourselves, and would set up late sewin' and talkin' the company over, an' I 'd have things saved to tell her that had been said while she was out o' the room. I make such a towse over everything myself, but mother was waked right up and felt pleased an' smart, if anything unexpected happened. I miss her more every year,” and Miss Esther gave a great sigh. “I s'pose 't wa'n't reasonable to expect that I could have her to help me through with old age, but I'm a poor tool, alone.”
“Oh, no, you mustn't say that!” exclaimed the minister's wife. “Why, nobody could get along without you. I wish I had come to Daleham in time to know your mother too.”
Miss Esther shook her head sadly. “She would have set everything by you and Mr. Wayton. Now I must be getting back in case I'm wanted, but you let âem send me somebody right away, while my bush beans is so nice. An' if any o' your little boy's clothes wants repairin', just give 'em to me; 't will be a real pleasant thing to set a few stitches. Or the minister's; ain't there something needed for him?”
Mrs. Wayton was about to say no, when she became conscious of the pleading old face before her. “I'm sure you are most kind, dear friend,” she answered, “and I do have a great deal to do. I'll bring you two or three things to-night that are beyond my art, as I go to evening meeting. Mr. Wayton frayed out his best coat.sleeve yesterday, and I was disheartened, for we had counted upon his not having a new one before the fall.”
“'T would be mere play to me,” said Miss Esther, and presently she went smiling down the street.
The Committee for the Country Week in a certain ward of Boston were considering the long list of children, and mothers with babies, and sewing-women, who were looking forward, some of them for the first time in many years, to a country holiday. Some were to go as guests to hospitable, generous farmhouses that opened their doors willingly now and then to tired city people; for some persons board could be paid.
The immediate arrangements of that time were settled at last, except that Mrs. Belton, the chairman, suddenly took a letter from her pocket. “I had almost forgotten this,” she said; “it is another place offered in dear quiet old Daleham. My friend, the minister's wife there, writes me a word about it: âThe applicant desires especially an old person, being used to the care of an aged parent and sure of her power of making such a one comfortable, and she would like to have her guest come as soon as possible.' My friend asks me to choose a person of some refinementââone who would appreciate the delicate simplicity and quaint ways of the hostess.'”
Mrs. Belton glanced hurriedly down the page. “I believe that's all,” she said. “How about that nice old sewing-woman, Mrs. Connolly, in Bantry Street?”
“Oh, no!” someone entreated, looking up from her writing. “Why, isn't it just the place for my old Mr. Rill, the dear old Englishman who lives alone up four flights in Town Court and has the bullfinch? He used to engrave seals, and his eyes gave out, and he is so thrifty with his own bit of savings and an atom of a pension. Someone pays his expenses to the country, and this sounds like a place he would be sure to like. I've been watching for the right chance.”
“Take it, then,” said the busy chairman, and there was a little more writing and talking, and then the committee meeting was over which settled Miss Esther Porley's fate.
The journey to Daleham was a great experience to Mr. Rill. He was a sensible old person, who knew well that he was getting stiffer and clumsier than need be in his garret, and that, as certain friends had said, a short time spent in the country would cheer and invigorate him. There had been occasional propositions that he should leave his garret altogether and go to the country to live, or at least to the suburbs of the city. He could not see things close at hand so well as he could take a wide outlook, and as his outlook from the one garret window was a still higher brick wall and many chimneys, he was losing a great deal that he might have had. But so long as he was expected to take an interest in the unseen and unknown he failed to accede to any plans about the country home, and declared that he was well enough in his high abode. He had lost a sister a few years before who had been his mainstay, but with his hands so well used to delicate work he had been less bungling in his simple household affairs than many another man might have been. But he was very lonely and was growing anxious; as he was rattled along in the train toward Daleham he held the chirping bullfinch's cage fast with both hands, and said to himself now and then, “This may lead to something: the country air smells very good to me.”
The Daleham station was not very far out of the village, so that Miss Esther Porley put on her silk shawl and bonnet and everyday gloves just before four o'clock that afternoon, and went to meet her Country Week guest. Word had come the day before that the person for Miss Porley's would start two days in advance of the little company of children and helpless women, and since this message had come from the parsonage Miss Esther had worked diligently, late and early, to have her house in proper order. Whatever her mother had liked was thought of and provided. There were going to be rye short-cakes for tea, and there were some sprigs of thyme and sweet-balm in an old-fashioned wine-glass on the keeping-room table; mother always said they were so freshening. And Miss Esther had taken out a little shoulder-shawl and folded it over the arm of the rocking-chair by the window that looked out into the small garden where the London-pride was in full bloom, and the morning-glories had just begun to climb. Miss Esther was sixty-four herself, but still looked upon age as well in the distance.
She was always a prompt person, and had some minutes to wait at the station; then the time passed and the train was late. At last she saw the smoke far in the distance, and her heart began to sink. Perhaps she would not find it easy to get on with the old lady, andâwell it was only for a week, and she had thought it right and best to take such a step, and now it would soon be over.
The train stopped, and there was no old lady at all.
Miss Esther had stood far back to get away from the smoke and roarâshe was always as afraid of the cars as she could beâbut as they moved away she took a few steps forward to scan the platform. There was no black bonnet with a worn lace veil, and no old lady with a burden of bundles; there were only the station master and two or three men, and an idle boy or two, and one clean-faced, bent old man with a bird-cage in one hand and an old carpet-bag in the other. She thought of the rye short-cakes for supper and all that she had done to make her small home pleasant, and her fire of excitement suddenly fell into ashes.
The old man with the bird-cage suddenly turned toward her. “Can you direct me to Miss Esther Porley's?” said he.
“I can,” replied Miss Esther, looking at him with curiosity.
“I was directed to her house,” said the pleasant old fellow, “by Mrs. Belton, of the Country Week Committee. My eyesight is poor. I should be glad if anybody would help me to find the place.”
“You step this way with me, sir,” said Miss Esther. She was afraid that the men on the platform heard every word they said, but nobody took particular notice, and off they walked down the road together. Miss Esther was enraged with the Country Week Committee.
“You were sent toâMiss Porley's?” she asked grimly, turning to look at him.
“I was, indeed,” said Mr. Rill.
“I am Miss Porley, and I expected an old lady,” she managed to say, and they both stopped and looked at each other with apprehension.
“I do declare!” altered the old seal-cutter anxiously. “What had I better do, ma'am? They most certain give me your name. May be you could recommend me somewheres else, an' I can get home to-morrow if 't ain't convenient.”
They were standing under a willow-tree in the shade; Mr. Rill took off his heavy hatâit was a silk hat of by-gone shape; a golden robin began to sing, high in the willow, and the old bullfinch twittered and chirped in the cage. Miss Esther heard some footsteps coming behind them along the road. She changed color; she tried to remember that she was a woman of mature years and considerable experience.
“'T ain't a mite o' matter, sir,” she said cheerfully. “I guess you'll find everything comfortable for you”; and they turned, much relieved, and walked along together.
“That's Lawyer Barstow's house,” she said calmly, a minute afterward, “the handsomest place in town, we think 't is,” and Mr. Rill answered politely that Daleham was a pretty place; he had not been out of the city for so many years that everything looked beautiful as a picture.