"What's in the settin'-room?" asked Mittie May. "S'pose we're in it now; tell me!"
"S'pose we are! There's a rag carpet on the floor; see it? hit-or-miss pattern. Mother made it herself; leastways, the mother of the boy I'm comin' to bimeby. I always liked hit-or-miss better than any other pattern. Then there's smaller rugs, and one of 'em has a dog on it, with real glass eyes; golly, but they shine! And a table in the middle with a lamp on it, glass lamp, with a red shade; and a Bible, and Cap'n Cook's voyages, and Longfellow's poems. Mother was a great hand for poetry – that is, the boy's mother, you understand."
"S'pose about the boy!" said Mittie May eagerly.
"Well – s'pose he was a brown boy, same as I am man; brown to match the house. Hair and eyes, jumper and pants, just plain brown; not much of a boy to look at, you understand. S'pose there was jest him and father and mother. There had been a little gal; – s'pose she was like you, little un, slim and light on her feet, singin' round the house – but she was wanted somewheres else, and she went. S'pose the boy thought a sight of his mother, specially after the little gal went. Him and her used to play together for all the world like two kids. S'pose he dug her gardin for her, and sowed her seeds, and then he'd take and watch the plants comin' up, and seems though he couldn't wait for 'em to bloom so's he could git a posy to carry in to mother. Yes, sir! she liked them posies, mother did; she liked 'em, sure enough!"
He was silent a moment. "Go on!" cried the child. "You ain't half s'posing, brown man."
"No more I am!" said Calvin Parks. "Well, little un, I dono as I can play this game real well, after all. S'pose after a spell the boy's mother went away too. Where? Well, she'd go to the best place there was, you know; nat'rally she would."
"That's heaven!" said the child decidedly.
"Jes' so! to be sure!" Calvin assented. "S'pose she went to heaven; to see after the little gal, likely; hey? That'd leave father and the boy alone, wouldn't it? Well now, s'pose father couldn't stand it real well without her. What then, little un? S'pose the more he tried it the less he liked it, till bumby he begun to take things to make him forget, as warn't the best things in the world for him to take. S'pose he did; do you blame him?"
"N – no!" said the child. "Unless you mean stole 'em!"
"No! no! not that kind of takin', little un; 'tother kind, like when you take med'cine. S'pose he kind o' made believe 'twas med'cine for a spell. Then s'pose he got so he warn't jest like himself, and spoke kind o' sharp, and took a strap to the boy now and then, harder than he would by natur', you wouldn't blame him, would you? Not a mite! But s'pose things went on that way till they warn't real agreeable for neither one of 'em. Then – s'pose one night – when he warn't himself, mind you! – he shook out his pipe on the settin'-room carpet and set the house afire. You wouldn't blame him for that either, would you? Poor father!"
He paused.
"What do you s'pose then?" cried the child eagerly. "Did the house burn up?"
Calvin made a silent gesture toward the ruined cellar. Something in it struck the child silent too. She crept nearer, and slid her hand into Calvin's.
"You don't s'pose they was burned, do you?" she said in an awestruck whisper.
"No, they warn't burned," said Calvin slowly. "But father never helt his head up again, and 'twarn't a great while before he was gone too, after mother and the little gal. So then the boy was left alone. See?"
"Poor brown boy!" said the child. "S'pose what he did then!"
"S'pose he lit out!" said Calvin Parks; "And s'pose I light out too, little gal. It's gettin' towards sundown, and I've got quite a ways to go before night."
He rose, and stretched his brown length, towering a great height above the rose-bush.
"But before I go," he added; "s'pose we see what hossy's got in back of him. I shouldn't wonder a mite if we found a stick of candy. S'pose we go and look!"
"S'pose we do!" cried Mittie May.
CHAPTER IX
CANDY-MAKING
"If there's a pleasanter place than this in your village, I wish you'd show it to me!" said Calvin Parks. "I declare, Mr. Cheeseman, it does me good every time I come in here."
Mr. Cheeseman looked about him with contented eyes.
"It is pleasant," he said. "I'm glad you like it, friend Parks, for you are one of the folks I like to see in it, and them isn't everybody."
Mr. Ivory Cheeseman certainly did look rather like a monkey, but such a wise monkey! He was little and spare, with nothing profuse about him save his white hair, which grew thick and close as a cap; his whole aspect was dry and frosty, "like the right kind of winter mornin'," Calvin Parks said when he described the old man to Mary Sands. The kitchen in which he and Calvin were sitting was just behind the shop; a low, dark room, with a little stove in the middle, glowing like a red jewel, and waking dusky gleams in the pots and pans ranged along the walls. They were not altogether ordinary pots and pans. Uncle Ivory, as East Cyrus called him, was a collector in a modest way, and his bits of copper, brass and pewter were dear to his heart. Lonzo, the village "natural," found the gaiety of his life in polishing them, and receiving pay in sugar-plums. He was at work now in a dim corner, chuckling to himself as he scoured a huge old pewter dish.
The air was full of the warm, homely fragrance of molasses candy; a pot of it was boiling on the stove, and from time to time Uncle Ivory stirred it, lifted a spoonful, and watched the drip. On a table near by other candies were cooling, peanut taffy, lemon drops, and great masses of pink and white cream candy.
"Yes," said Calvin, pursuing his own thoughts. "This is another pleasant home. Considerable many of 'em in these parts, or so it appears to a lone person. I judge you're a single man, Mr. Cheeseman?"
"Widower!" said Mr. Cheeseman briefly.
"That so!" said Calvin.
They watched the molasses for a time, as it bubbled up in little gold-brown mounds that flowed away in foam as the spoon touched them.
"She's killin' good to-day!" remarked the old man.
"Cream-o'-tartar?" asked Calvin.
"Yes! I never use any other. Yes, sir; I had a good wife, a real good one; and might have had another, if I'd judged it convenient."
Calvin looked up expectantly; it was evident that more was coming.
Mr. Cheeseman began to stir the molasses with long, slow sweeps of the spoon, talking the while.
"It was this way. My wife had a friend that she thought the world of. Well, she thought the world of me too, and when it come time for her to go, nothin' to it but I must marry this woman. The night before 'Liza was taken, she says to me, 'Ivory,' she says, 'I've left it in writin' that if you marry Elviry you'll get that two thousand dollars that's in the bank; and if not it goes to the children.' Children was married and settled, two of 'em, and well fixed. 'I want you to promise me you will!' she says."
"And did you?" asked Calvin.
"No, I didn't. I warn't goin' to tie myself up again. I'd been married thirty years, and that was enough."
"What did you say, if I may ask?"
"I said I'd think about it, and let her know in the mornin'. I knew she'd be gone by then, and she was."
Again they watched the boiling in silence. Calvin looked somewhat disturbed.
"But yet you liked the married state?" he asked presently.
"Fust-rate!" said Mr. Cheeseman placidly. He glanced at Calvin; stirred the candy, and glanced again.
"You ain't married, I think, friend Parks?"
"N – no!" said Calvin slowly. "I ain't; but – fact is, I'm wishful to be, but I don't see my way to it."
"I want to know!" said Mr. Cheeseman. "Would you like to free your mind, or don't you feel to? I'm not curious, not a mite; but yet there's times when a person can tell better what he thinks if he outs with it to somebody else. Like molasses! Take it in the cask, and it's cold, and slow, and not much to look at; but take and bile it, and stir it good, and – you see!"
The molasses boiled up in a fragrant geyser, threatening to overflow the pot; but obedient to the spoon, fell away again in foamy ripples.
"Like that!" Mr. Cheeseman repeated. "If it would clear your mind any to bile over, friend Parks, so do!"
Calvin glanced toward the corner. "Does he take much notice?" he asked.
"Lonzo? no! he's no more than a child. But yet 'tis time for him to go home. Lonzo! dinner-time!"
The simpleton rose and shambled forward, a huge uncouth figure with a face like a platter; not an empty platter now, though, for it was wreathed in smiles. He held out the shining dish. "Done good?" he asked.
"Elegant, Lonzo, elegant! you are smart, no mistake about that. Help yourself to the cream candy! that square pan is o' purpose for you."
Lonzo stowed a third of the contents of the pan in his cavernous mouth, the rest in various pockets, and departed grinning happily.
"He's as good as gold!" said Mr. Cheeseman. "Not a mite of harm in Lonzo; I wish all sensible folks was as pleasant. Now, friend Parks, bile up!"
Calvin pulled his brown moustache, and looked shy.
"I guess I'm pretty slow molasses, Mr. Cheeseman," he said. "I ain't used to bilin', except in the way of gettin' mad once in a while, and I don't do that real often; but yet I'll try my best."
In a few words he described the twins and his relation to them. "No kin, you know, blood nor married; only just neighbors all our lives till late years. I should expect to do a neighbor's part by the boys, week-days and Sundays, and I dono as ever I've done contrary."
Then he told, with more reserve, of "Miss Hands's" coming; of his finding her there; of her striking him as, take it all round, the likeliest woman ever he saw; of his saying to himself that if ever things turned out so that he had a right to ask a woman to hitch her wagon to a middle-aged hoss that had some go in him yet, here was the woman.
"But yet I told myself first thing," he added, taking up the poker and tapping the bright little stove with it; "I told myself she would be marryin' one of the boys most likely; I kep' that in mind steady, as you may say. I thought I was so used to the idee that it wouldn't jar me much of any when it come to the fact. But it did; yes siree, it did, sure enough. 'Peared as if a cog slipped somehow, and my whole works was jolted out of kilter."
He looked anxiously at Mr. Cheeseman, who nodded with grave comprehension.
"And when it comes," he went on, "to each one of them beseechin' me to get her to marry the other – why – I really am blowed, Mr. Cheeseman, and do you wonder at it?"
"She's done!" said Mr. Cheeseman, rising. "Lend a hand with that pan, friend Parks; the big square one yonder."
A moment of anxious silence followed, as the thick golden-brown mass flowed into the pan, curled into the corners, and finally settled in a smooth glossy sheet.
"There!" said Mr. Cheeseman. "Now we'll let her cool a spell till she's fit to handle. Take your seat, friend Parks! No, I don't wonder no way in the world at your bein' blowed, or jolted either. What gets me is, why don't you speak for yourself, like that other feller in the story?"
Calvin Parks pulled his moustache meditatively.
"I know!" he said. "Longfellow's poems. Mother thought a sight of Longfellow's poems. John Alden, warn't it? and the old fellow was Miles Standish? Yes, I rec'lect well. But you see, Mr. Cheeseman, the young woman herself give him the tip that time. 'Why don't you speak for yourself, John?' I rec'lect well enough. Now, Miss Hands never give me any reason to think she'd rather have me than ary one of the boys."
"Has she given you any reason to think she wouldn't?" queried the old man.
"Well – no! I don't know as she has."
"Well, then, where does the trouble come in? You're twice the man they are, I take it, from all accounts. Don't know as ever I saw them, but I knew the old woman, and used to hear of her goin's on bringing these young uns up. I don't see as you're bound to canvass for them, no way in the world. Rustle in and get her yourself, is what I say."
Calvin looked at him anxiously.
"You see, Mr. Cheeseman, it's this way," he said. "I think a sight of her, don't I? I've said so, and I haven't said half. That bein' so, nat'rally I want her to be well fixed, don't you see? The best that can be, ain't that so? Now, either one of those two darned old huckleberries can give her a first-rate home; as nice a place as there is in this State, house, stock and fixin's all to match. A woman wants a home; one of them old gooseberries said so, and it's true. Now, what have I got to offer her? I've got a hole in the ground, and a candy route. You see how it is, don't you, Mr. Cheeseman?"
Mr. Cheeseman reflected for a few minutes.
"Where's your savin's?" he asked abruptly. "You were master of a coasting schooner for ten year, you say. Single man, and no bad habits, I should judge, – you'd ought to have money in the bank, young man. What have you done with it?"
Calvin hung his head.
"That's right!" he said. "That's so, Mr. Cheeseman. I had money in the bank. Last year I drawed it out, like a fool; somebody'd been talkin' investments to me, and I thought I could do better with it; and – well, I had it on board, and there was a feller, – well, I needn't go into that. I never thought he would have, if his mind had been quite straight. Wife died, and he warn't the same man afterwards. You can see how 'twas! He took it, and then got drownded with it in his pants pocket – or so it seemed likely – so nobody got much out of that deal. I had some part of it in another place, though, sufficient to buy me the route, and five dollars over. I put the five dollars in the bank, but it don't yield what you'd call an income precisely. So there it is, Mr. Cheeseman, and I can't see that things looks much like matrimony for little Calvin. Honest now, do you?"
Mr. Cheeseman rumpled his thick hair till it gave the impression of Papa Monkey's having married a white cockatoo. He glanced at Calvin sidewise.
"She has money, – " he said slowly.
"And she can keep it!" said Calvin Parks. "I ain't that kind."
"Just so!" said Mr. Cheeseman. "Precisely. Where are you livin' now, friend Parks?"
"I'm boardin' with Widder Marlin;" said Calvin.
The old man looked up sharply. "You are?" he said. "Humph! that don't seem a very likely place, 'cordin' to folks's ideas round here. Them two aren't thought specially well of by their neighbors."
"That so?" said Calvin. "I guess they won't hurt me any. I sailed mate to Cap'n Marlin," he added, "and he was always good to me."
"Humph!" said Mr. Cheeseman again. "I see." He rumpled his hair again, and rose to his feet. "Friend Parks," he said, slowly, "you've got to lay by, that's all there is to it; and I'm going to show you how."
CHAPTER X
JOHN ALDEN – WITH A DIFFERENCE
Winter had come. Early December though it was, the snow lay deep and smooth over meadow and hill, and hung in fluffy masses on the branches of pine and fir. Calvin Parks had got rid of the wheels that never ceased to incommode him, and jingled along merrily on runners, both he and Hossy enjoying the change.
It had become a matter of course that he should turn in at the Sills' gateway whenever he passed along their road, and he managed to pass once or twice a week. So on this crystal morning he found himself driving into the stable yard almost unconsciously. The brown horse whinnied as he clattered into the stable, and an answering whinny came from the furthest stall in the corner.
"That's old John sayin' good mornin', hossy!" said Calvin. "How are you, John? Who else is to home?"
He looked along the row of stalls. "Here's the old hoss of all, and here's the mare. The young colt is out; presume likely Sam is gone to market, hossy. What say to gettin' a bite in his stall? He won't be back till dinner time."
Hossy approving, Calvin unharnessed him, and he stepped into the stall without further invitation.
"Now you be real friendly with old John and the mare!" said Calvin, "and I'll come for you sooner than you're ready."
The brown horse flung him a brief snort of assurance, and plunged his head into the manger; and Calvin fastened the door and made his way slowly toward the house.
The back view of the Sill farmhouse was hardly less pleasant than the front, especially when, as now, the morning sun lay full on the warm yellow of the house, the bright green of the door, and the reddish granite of the well-scoured steps. A screen of dark evergreens set off all these cheerful tints; and to make the picture still gayer Mary Sands, a scarlet "sontag" tied trimly over her blue dress, was sitting on the cellar door, picking over tomatoes.
Calvin Parks was conscious of missing Hossy. He wanted some one to appeal to.
"Do you see that?" he murmured, addressing the landscape. "Do you call that handsome? because if you don't, you are a calf's-head, whatever else you may be."
Mary Sands looked up, and her bright face grew brighter at sight of him.
"Oh, Mr. Parks!" she cried. "I am glad to see you. I've been wishin' all the week you'd come by and stop in a bit. Now this is a pleasure, surely! Come right in!"
"Hold on, Miss Hands!" said Calvin, as she moved toward the door. "Hold on just a minute. How about the tomaytoes?"
"Oh, they can wait!" said Mary. "I was just turning 'em so they'd get the sun on all sides."
"Ain't it remarkable late for tomaytoes?" asked Calvin. "I dono as ever I see ripe ones at this season. I expect you can do what you like with gardin truck, Miss Hands, same as with most things."
Mary blushed and twinkled.
"Oh, I don't know!" she answered. "I've always had good luck with late vegetables. I do suppose I've kept these tomaytoes on later than common, though; I confess I'm rather proud of them, Mr. Parks. Cousins say I tend 'em like young chickens, and I don't know but I do. I put 'em out mornings, when 'tis bright and warm like this, and take 'em in before sundown, fear they'll get chilled. Anything ripens so much better in the sun."
"I don't believe you've turned 'em all," said Calvin. "I should admire to set here a spell, if 'tis warm enough for you. I ripen better in the sun, too;" he twinkled at her. "Is it warm enough for you?" he added anxiously.
"My, yes!" said Mary Sands. "Why, 'tis like summer in this bright sun, and this cellar door is warm as a stove. Well, if you're really a mind to help, Mr. Parks, – I'm sure you're more than kind."
There was plenty of room on the cellar door for them and the tomatoes. Calvin curled up his long legs under him, and gave his attention for several minutes to the Crimson Cushions and Ponderosas, turning them with careful nicety.
"Pretty, ain't they?" he said; "some of 'em, that is."
"Real pretty!" said Mary Sands. "I do enjoy them, Mr. Parks; 'tis a kind of play with me, tending my tomaytoes. I expect I'm foolish about growin' things."
"I expect if there was more had your kind of foolishness," replied Calvin, "the world would be a better place than it is."
"See this one!" Mary went on; "for all the world like a red satin pincushion my grandmother used to have in her basket. 'Tis well named, the Crimson Cushion is."
"Look at this feller," said Calvin, "all green and yeller, and squinnied up like his co't was too tight for him. It looks like the boys; honest now, don't it, Miss Hands?"
Mary tinkled a reproachful laugh.
"Now Mr. Parks, I wonder at you. Poor Cousins!"
"I ain't takin' up no collection for the boys!" said Calvin coolly. "Where's Sam? I see the young colt is out."
"He's gone to market; and Cousin Sims' in a dreadful takin', for fear he'll get run away with, or hove out, or something."
Calvin stared. "Why, the colt is ten year old if he is a day!" he said.
"I told him that; but he said it didn't make no odds, he'd never found out he was grown up, and acted accordin'. He werries terrible about Cousin Sam every time he goes out, and Cousin Sam werries about him. I notice it growin' on the two of 'em. Mr. Parks, I believe that down in their hearts them two are missin' each other more than tongue can tell, and neither one of them knows what's the matter with him."
"You don't say!" said Calvin. "Why don't they make up, then? Ridic'lous old lobsters!"
"They don't know how!" said Mary. "Even if they mistrust what ails 'em, and I don't believe they do as yet."
She was silent a moment, and then added: "Mr. Parks, I feel I can speak out to you, that have been their friend right along. I wish't one of Cousins would marry; there! I do so!"
Calvin Parks's face, which had been radiant with cheerfulness, turned to brown wood. He looked straight before him, with no more expression than the green tomato he held in his hand.
"That so!" he said slowly. "Which – which one of 'em would you consider best suited to matrimony, Miss Hands, if 'tisn't too much to ask?"
"I don't know as I care which it is," cried Mary, earnestly, – Calvin winced, and dropped the tomato, which rolled slowly down the cellar door and plumped into the snow, – "so long as it's one of 'em. They ought to have a woman belongin' to them, Mr. Parks, as would take an interest in things because they was hers, you understand, and care for whichever one she'd marry and the other one too. They'd never ought to have been let act so foolish. You see, they'd always had a woman to do for 'em, and think for 'em, and live for 'em; and the minute she was gone they fell to pieces, kind of; 'tis often so with men folks," she said simply. "They ain't calc'lated to be alone. But even now, if there was a woman belongin' to 'em, that had the right to say how things should be, I believe she could bring 'em together in no time."
There was a long silence, Mary turning tomatoes, Calvin staring straight ahead of him with the same wooden countenance. At length he cleared his throat and spoke slowly and laboriously.
"There's something in what you say, Miss Hands, and I'm bound to confess that – that I've had thoughts of something of the kind before you spoke. But – well, we'll put it this way. Which of them two old – of them two individuals, we'll call 'em for this once – would a woman be likely to fancy? I – I should be pleased to have your opinion on that p'int."
Mary considered, turning the Crimson Cushions meanwhile with a careful hand. Calvin, misunderstanding her silence, went on.
"What I mean is – if a woman was thinkin' of matrimony – " he winced again, seeming to hear Mr. Sam's voice squeaking out the word, – "if a woman was thinkin' of matrimony, and one of them two should take her fancy more than the other – why – a person as was friendly to all concerned might try his hand in the way of helpin' to bring it about."
Mary glanced up quickly at him, but no friendly twinkle responded to her glance. Calvin's brown eyes were still dark with trouble, and he still stared moodily away from her.
"'Tis hard to say!" she replied after a pause. "Cousin Sim needs the most care."
"He does so!" said Calvin Parks. "Sim certinly needs care. And – he's a home-lovin' man, Simeon is, and sober, and honest. There's things you could find in Sim that's no worse than what you'd find in some others, I make no doubt; and – and any one would have a first-rate home, and every comfort."
"Oh! Mr. Parks, but do you think any woman could make up her mind to marry Cousin Sim?" said Mary.
Calvin gave her a bewildered look, and went on, still slowly and laboriously.
"Not bein' a woman myself, ma'am, nor had any special dealin's with the sex since I growed up, it ain't easy for me to form an opinion. But since you ask me honest – well – maybe not! This brings us to Sam'l. Now Sam'l is a man that has his faculties, such as they are. He has his health, and he's smart and capable. A good farmer Sam has always been, and a good manager. Careful and savin'; and there'd be the house, same as in Simeon's case. Anybody would have them a good home, and – "
"Oh! my goodness!" cried Mary Sands. Calvin looked up with a start, and saw her face on fire.
"What is it?" he asked, helplessly.
"Oh! don't you see?" she cried. "I was thinkin' about them, poor old things, and wishin' they might find some one; but you've shown me the other side. Mr. Parks, they never, never, never could find any woman to marry them!"
Calvin Parks's face was a study of bewilderment.
"I – I don't understand!" he faltered. "Do you mean that you wouldn't – couldn't – fancy either one of the boys, Miss Hands?"
"Me!" cried Mary Sands; "me fancy one of them!"
Involuntarily she rose to her feet; Calvin rose too, looking anxiously down at her. There was a moment of tense silence. "Do – do you want me to marry one of them, Mr. Parks?" asked Mary, in a small shaking voice.
"Want you to?" cried Calvin Parks. "Want you to?"
At this moment Mr. Sam came round the corner. Mary Sands fled, and as she ran into the house there floated back from the closing door – was it a sound of laughter – or of tears?
"What in the name of hemlock is goin' on here?" asked Mr. Sam. "Calvin Parks, what are you about, treadin' of them tomaytoes under foot? You've creshed as much as a dozen of 'em under them great hoofs of your'n."
"That you, Sam?" said Calvin Parks. "How are you? I'd shut my mouth if I was you. You look handsomer that way than what you do with it open."