Read Ebook: Poppea of the Post-Office by Wright Mabel Osgood Kinney Margaret West Illustrator Kinney Troy Illustrator

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Ebook has 1385 lines and 110971 words, and 28 pages

This proposition being in the direct path of 'Lisha's own desires, he gave a cheerful whistle of consent and followed Gilbert through the partly roofed grape arbor that made a passageway between the post-office and the sloped roofed house of Gilbert's forefathers, that stood well back in the garden with its porch facing the hill road.

"Nobody'll see the lights this time of night," criticised 'Lisha, as Gilbert, mustering an array of six sperm-oil lamps and three sturdy pewter candlesticks, proceeded to distribute them between the various rooms, not forgetting the icy "spare chamber" upstairs, or the "foreroom" at the right of the front door with its scriptural engravings, bright three-ply carpet, and melodeon.

"That's as may be," Gilbert answered, while he regulated a wick, stiff from lack of use, "but they'll be there all the same, and we'll know it anyhow. What'll you have? There's beans and brown bread been in the oven all afternoon, besides apple pie, crullers, biscuits, and spice snaps in the pantry. I think this time o' night when we're wakeful anyway, we might as well have hot coffee to mix and blend the vittles and put some ginger in us. Mebbe you'd prefer hard cider, but since I found the stuff was tangling the feet of some good neighbors, I haven't kept any about. Yes, get a pail of fresh water while I grind the coffee; you can never get the flavor, Mary always said, without fresh-drawn water come to its first boil."

To have seen the neatness of the kitchen, pantry, and long, low bedroom that ran across the back of both, no one would have supposed that the house had been without the touch of a woman's hand for nine years. To be sure, at the critical periods of spring and fall cleaning the postmaster's sister, Satira Pegrim, a bustling widow of forty, came down from her little hill farm to officiate. Why she did not stay on and keep house for her brother had been a subject of much speculation during the year after the baby Marygold had followed her young mother. But though Gilbert said nothing, they came to understand that without the child to care for there was not sufficient work to keep in check Mrs. Pegrim's nervous energy, which found vent in a species of incessant reminiscent sympathy that poor Gilbert could not bear.

When the only love of a silent man's life comes upon him when he is nearly forty, fairly sweeping him from his feet, and in less than three years wife and the child just forming her first words are snatched away, leaving him deaf at heart, work is the only consoler that can gain even his ear. So Gilbert had baked and swept and garnished, kept the geraniums and the calla lilies and pink flowering "Gypsey" in the windows, and a white spread upon the bed, and the hooded mahogany cradle-cover of pink and white basket-pattern patchwork, as it had been during those years.

As Gilbert added an armful of wood to the fire in the cooking stove that was set in the wide chimney place, and opened the iron door of the brick oven at the side, the bright light threw against the opposite wall his somewhat remarkable silhouette. He was fully six feet tall with close-cut, iron-gray hair, bushy eyebrows, and long, gray beard that reached his waist, and so frequently got in his way that he twisted it up and fastened it under his chin with an elastic band, or hairpin, as upon the present occasion. Gilbert had craved education, but lacked the strength to force the opportunity, though his reading had nourished a gentle sentiment in him, and better speech than is often found in New Englanders of his surroundings.

When 'Lisha had filled the kettle, the two men lighted their pipes, and slipping off their clumsy shoes, in unison, spread feet covered by blue yarn socks before the open front of the stove and, puffing comfortably, drifted into desultory talk.

"It's mighty queer that John Angus, leading man in this town and his folks Yankee all through after they stopped being Scotch, should stand for slavery," mused 'Lisha. "Do you suppose he's got any reason other than his usual one of taking the off side of things?"

"He has big cotton interests for one thing," said Gilbert; "otherwise, who can tell why he does this or that? Why does he hate me? Because he can't drive me off the earth, I take it. We played together as boys, but I've never presumed on that. His father left him fully two hundred acres of land, mine left me three; but it stood something like a nose on the face of his holding, coming in the south front of it. He seemed to think all he had to do was offer me money for my home; he thought I had no right to love the place where I was born, but that he had. Once or twice I've been on the point of yielding, but never since it became the home of my wife and child."

"That's why, then, he did all he could to keep you from getting the post-office?"

"I reckon so, and now I've got it, he has all his mail sent to Westboro to keep down the receipts."

"Whew--!" whistled 'Lisha. "I didn't think he'd spite himself that far."

"Well," replied Gilbert, "I don't know but at bottom I'm sorry for him. He's got a grand place here, a city home, and money; he's been senator, and, they say, could have been governor; but he's all alone up there without love or kin."

"He had a dreadful pretty wife, and pleasant spoken. I remember selling her quail and partridge every fall of the year."

"Yes; when she first came home, she was not over twenty, and most as pretty as my Mary. He met her when he was travelling in Europe, the Miss Feltons said. She was there learning to sing or something. I heard her sing once up where the end of their garden stops short and the ground drops to my bit. It was just like the voice of the last wood robin that keeps singing till after dark, and then quits sudden as if he was lonesome. After living up there for ten years, she, that at first had a laughing face and skin like a peach, grew thin and white as marble, and then all of a sudden, she left him and died away in England, they say, about a year ago. Some claim he was always reproaching her because she was childless; others, that once when he was away, she went to the midsummer ball up at Felton Manor against his wish and danced with a nephew of Mr. Esterbrook's so beautifully that folks spoke of it until it got round to him. He'd never let her dance before, so nobody knew she could. Then next Sabbath the young man walked from church with her.

"I well remember the day she went, it's less than two years since. There was no running about it; she came down the hill in her carriage as if she was only going on a short journey. As she passed the shop, she plucked the coachman by the coat to stop him and came in to ask me to fit a key to her watch. I remember the watch too, small and thin, with a flower on the back in diamonds. Oh, yes, Angus was generous enough, and kept her well in clothes and jewels.

"All of a sudden she said, 'Mr. Gilbert, I'm going away and never coming back, and there's nobody to miss me or be sorry.'

"With that, she put her poor thin arms about my shoulders, looked me straight in the face, and said, 'Yes, I believe you would,' and pulling my head down, kissed me on the forehead as if I'd been her father. Before I got my wits again, she was in her carriage and away, and now she's dead and gone. They say that the Miss Feltons have heard that John Angus is to be married again this spring to a woman as rich as he is, the daughter of somebody high up in New York life. So I suppose he'll raise a grand family now, and poor little roseleaf is forgotten."

"Hi there! the water's biled over," cried 'Lisha, and soon the subtle aroma of good coffee filled the kitchen, and the men drew the table toward the stove before sitting down to their supper, for in spite of the rousing fire, the room was draughty.

Three clocks that hung in a row between dresser and chimney, which were undergoing the delicate process of being regulated, struck twelve with different emphases and in three different keys before Gilbert had made a bed for his guest upon the wide lounge by the chimney-corner, and the two men went about the house to put out the lamps.

"What's that?" said Gilbert, pausing as they came down the creaking back stairs.

"Just a log of wood rolling off the heap on the stoop, I reckon," answered 'Lisha.

"There isn't any wood there; I fetched it all in," said Gilbert, giving a decided start, as the noise was repeated and this time resolved itself into a rhythmic knocking on the outer door.

'Lisha strode through the kitchen, picking up the poker on his way, and threw open the door. At first he saw nothing, the change from light to darkness was so sudden; then something white in the shadow beside the door caught his attention.

"It's only a dog," he thought; yet as training had made him cautious, he called, "Bring the lantern," to Gilbert, who had stopped to pull on his coat.

THE WRONG AT HIS DOOR

As the lantern held by Gilbert flashed upon the furry object, 'Lisha, who was bending over it, jumped back as though he had been shot, crying, "Good God, Gilbert, it isn't a dog; I reckon it's a child!"

At the same time he gathered up the bundle, and, almost trampling Gilbert in his haste, strode into the kitchen, where he laid it on the table.

The outer wrapping was a well-worn buffalo-robe, and from between its folds a small, white-mittened hand was visible.

For a moment the two men stood side by side, speechless with astonishment; then Gilbert began to unfold the robe with fingers that trembled so he could scarcely direct them. Inside the skin was an afghan of soft wool tied crosswise, while in the depths of this nest lay a child, wrapped from foot to head in coat and cap of white coney, even the face being hidden by a knitted Shetland veil. The little form was so still that Gilbert dreaded to touch it, but 'Lisha, having pulled himself together, lifted the veil, disclosing softly rounded, pink cheeks and red lips slightly parted in regular, if rather heavy, breathing. This action disturbed the sleeper without waking her, for she relaxed the arm that had been pressed close against her breast, and from under it a tiny puppy sprawled out, dragging with it a large handkerchief in which it had been wrapped, as if to make a doll of it. He was not an aristocrat of the dog world, but one of those waifs that, decorated with a bit of ribbon, are sold on city street corners for a dollar, the appeal of their youth, added to the speculative element in all of us, finding ready purchasers for them.

The puppy, tawny and roughish as to coat, having one ear that stuck up while the other lopped, and the keenest of eyes, after licking the face and the long-lashed lids of the child without getting a response, tumbled to the edge of the table and began wagging his ridiculous rat tail and making friendly advances to the men. Seeing that even the puppy's rough caresses did not waken the baby, Gilbert raised one of the eyelids gently, and then after holding his face close, whispered to 'Lisha: "Just as I thought, she's drugged with paregoric; we'll have to rouse her even if she is scared of us and makes a time. I well remember how it was with Marygold when sister Pegrim, not having her glasses, gave her a large instead of a small spoon of cough syrup by mistake. I'll wash her face and see if I can't liven her up. Just pull that rocker over here, 'Lisha, and give me the tin basin of water."

As he talked, Gilbert was undoing the coat and cap from which came the head of a child of about a year, covered with a mass of hair that lay in close golden rings, with here and there a tinge of copper, in strange contrast to the dark lashes and eyebrows.

"Now, precious, wake up and look at the pretty light," crooned Gilbert, holding her with awkward hands, against his shoulder, so that her head came above it, yet in a way that no man would have done who had not held his own child.

Presently, the heavy eyelids drew upward, and then after the consciousness of light became complete, she looked about the room, gave a little cry of delight, and held out her hands when she saw the puppy, rounding her lips into a sound like wow-wow; but as her eyes rested upon big, ugly 'Lisha, her chin quivered, her cooing voice trailed off into a heart-broken wail, and she hid her face in Gilbert's neck.

What the confiding touch meant to the lonely man, only he and his Maker knew. It thrilled him to his finger-tips, awakened life springs that he believed forever dry, and tears, unknown to him these nine years, became a possibility, but not while 'Lisha stood there gaping at him with hanging jaw. In a few moments the wailing stopped, and she began to look about once more.

"Fetch me a cup of water, 'Lisha; mebbe she's thirsty."

As he turned to carry out Gilbert's directions, the young lady began to smack her lips and show by her bodily motions that she knew what the word "thirsty" and a cup in sight promised.

As Gilbert helped to guide it to her mouth with one hand, the corners of her lips, assisted by a little quiver of the nose, expressed unmistakable disgust at finding only water.

"Guess she's looking for milk same as kittens do," suggested 'Lisha, tiptoeing to the table and peering into an empty pitcher. "Great snakes!" his favorite ejaculation, "I spilled the last drop into my coffee. The pup wants some, too, I reckon," as the queer little beast, nose in air and tail wagging furiously, seemed bound to climb up his trousers leg.

"Of course she does, the lamb!" said Gilbert, holding her from him upon his knee, the better to look over her. "But where is it to come from? It's half an hour past midnight and I don't like to wake up the neighbors," he mused.

"Got a small open kettle?" asked 'Lisha, rummaging in the pantry. "I've found it; now do you fix up a place for her to sleep while I fetch her supper," he continued, with the air of one to whom the care of strange lady babies was an everyday occurrence, when, truth be told, he had never before come in contact with any young thing more delicate than a calf or a long-legged colt.

"Don't go to the Bakers'," pleaded Gilbert; "I know they're the nearest, but Mrs. Baker'll come back with you for sure, and I want time to turn around before any women folks bear down on me."

"Nope, I'm not going to confide in any female, least it's Brooks's red cow. I milked for them when the old man broke his leg last fall, 'n' the cow knows me. It's only a quarter of a mile up the road; cow barn has no windows on house side; key's kept under a mustard box on the window-sill. Baker took his gun to Bridgeton Saturday to get her cleaned. Not a bit of danger, and I'll explain to 'em to-morrow. Back in no time."

So, jerking out his words with gestures as mysterious as if he were going to commit a desperate crime, 'Lisha went out through the back hallway, lest opening the front door should let in too much air.

He had no sooner gone than Gilbert's whole attitude changed. Settling the little girl comfortably on his knees, he began to scrutinize her clothing carefully, babbling a string of baby talk that would have been almost unintelligible to the uninitiated, but that seemed very soothing and reassuring to the child, who, after wriggling for a few minutes, as though determined to get to her feet, suddenly discovered Gilbert's beard, which he had knotted up to get it out of the way of the cooking. It was fastened with a large shell hairpin that he had probably picked up in the post-office. Fascinated by this unusual object, she clutched at it with both hands, gave a crow of delight, and began jerking up and down on his knee as if riding on a hobby-horse, treating Gilbert's beard as its mane. Next spying the puppy on the floor, she stiffened herself and prepared to slide down to him.

"All right," crooned Gilbert. "Let's see if the little lammy can stand? Yes, but not so very well," he added, as, after taking a single step, she doubled up and almost sat on the pup.

"Now we'll sit her on the lounge to play with doggy, while daddy gets her bed fixed."

The word "daddy" slipped from his lips unconsciously, as he pulled the high-backed sofa out from the wall and propped the child up with some husk pillows and a comforter. Then he stole across to the bedroom where, after choosing a key from the chain that was fastened to his pocket, he unlocked a high chest of drawers still keeping his eye on the lounge and its occupants.

Having taken some clothes from the drawers,--a pair of knitted socks, a little night-dress of yellow shaker flannel, and a quilted wrapper in gay-flowered print, all smelling of camphor and their long, pent-up years in the chest,--he spread them on a chair by the stove to air and warm.

Meanwhile, the child had nestled back among the pillows and was half dozing, the puppy clasped tight in her arms. Going once more to the bedroom, Gilbert stood a moment before the quaint hooded cradle, made up ready for occupancy from spread to pilch, the cradle from out of which he himself had gazed alternately at the leaves on the wall paper and the leaves against the sky, dreaming in knowledge after the manner of babies. Then lifting the cradle, he carried it into the kitchen, negotiating the doorway with difficulty, for his burden was heavy and the rockers wide of angle to prevent the overthrow of the occupant. Pushing his hand between the sheets and finding them clammy to the touch, he pulled them off and brought others from the inexhaustible chest.

Then came the undressing of the lady baby herself, which was done as dexterously as a woman might, for Gilbert's fingers, used to the handling of mere specks of machinery, did not fumble with strings, buttons, or the intricacies of shield pins. Moreover, memory crept into his finger-tips and guided the almost-forgotten task, even as feet that once have trodden a daily path, returning to it in the dark, after the lapse of a lifetime, follow each rise and fall.

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