Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/66

60 They were silent for a few minutes, and then Lizzie Graham said: "Does he feel bad at bein' a pauper'? The Mays was always respectable. Old Mis' May was real proud."

Mrs. Butterfield ruminated: "Well, he don't like it, course. But he said (you know he's crazy)—'I am nothin',' he says, 'and my pride is less than nothin'. But for the sake of the poor Dead, grant me time,' he says. Ain't it pitiful? Almost makes you feel like lettin' him wait. But what's the use? There ain't nothin' to it."

Lizzie Graham nodded. "But there's people would pay money for one of them machines—if it worked."

"That's what he said; he said he'd make a pile of money. But he didn't care about that, except then he could pay board to Dyer, if Dyer'd let him stay."

"An' won't he?"

"No; and I don't see as he has any call to, any more 'an you or me."

Lizzie Graham plucked at the dry grass at her side. "That's so. 'Tain't one person's chore more 'an another's. But—there! If this wa'n't Jonesville, I believe I'd let him stay with me till he finishes up his machine,"

"Why, Lizzie Graham!" cried Mrs. Butterfield, "what you talkin' about? You couldn't do it—you. You ain't got to spare, in the first place. And any-way, him an unmarried man, and you a widow woman! Besides, he'll never finish it."

Lizzie's face reddened angrily. "Guess I could have a visitor as well as anybody."

"Oh, I didn't mean you wouldn't be a good provider," Mrs. Butterfield said, turning red herself. "I meant folks would talk."

"Folks could find something better to talk about," Lizzie said; "Jonesville is just nothin' but a nest o' real mean, lyin' gossip!"

"Well, that's so," Mrs. Butterfield agreed, placidly.

Lizzie Graham put on her sunbonnet. "Better be gettin' along," she said.

Mrs. Butterfield rose ponderously. "And they'd say you was a spiritualist, too; they'd say you took him to get his ghost-machine made."

"That's just what I would do," the other answered, sharply. " I ain't a mite of a spiritualist, and I don't believe in ghosts; but I believe in bein' kind to a poor man."

"I believe in keepin' a good name," Mrs. Butterfield said, dryly.

They went on down the windy pasture slope in silence; the mullein candles blossomed shoulder-high, and from under-foot came the warm, aromatic scent of sweet-fern. Once they stopped for some more blueberries, with a desultory word about the heat; then they picked their way around juniper-bushes, and over great knees of granite, hot and slippery, and through low, sweet thickets of bay. At the foot of the hill the shadows were stretching across the road, and the wind was flagging.

"My, ain't the shade good?" Lizzie said, when they stopped under her great elm; "I couldn't bear to live where there wa'n't trees,"

"There's always shade on one side or another of the Poor Farm, anyway," Mrs. Butterfield said, cept at noon. And then he could set indoors. It won't be anything so bad, Lizzie. Now don't you get to worryin' 'bout him;—I know you, Lizzie Graham!" she ended, her eyes twinkling.

Lizzie took off her sunbonnet again and fanned herself; she looked at her old neighbor anxiously.

"Say, now, Mis' Butterfield, honest: do you think folks would talk?"

"If you took Nat in and kep' him? Course they would! You know they would; you know this here town. And no wonder they'd talk. You're a nice-appearin' woman, Lizzie, yet. No; I ain't one to flatter; you are. And ain't he a man? and a likely man, too, for all he's crazy. Course they'd talk! Now, Lizzie, don't you get to figgerin' on this. It's just like you! How many cats have you got on your hands now? I bet you're feedin' that lame dog yet."

Mrs. Graham laughed, but would not say.

"Nat will get along at the Farm real good, after he gets used to it." Mrs. Butterfield went on, coaxingly; "Dean ain't hard. And Mis' Dean's many a time told me what a good table they set the paupers."

Tain't the victuals that would trouble Nat May."