Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/428



I guess mother felt quite as bad as ever Miss Perrit did, for everybody knew old Perrit treated his wife like a dumb brute while he was alive, and died drunk; but she didn't say nothin'. I see her give a kind of a swaller, and then she spoke up bright and strong.

"I don't think it is a hard world, Miss Perrit. I find folks kind and helpful, beyond what I'd any right to look for. I try not to think about my husband, any more than I can help, because I couldn't work, if I did, and I've got to work. It's most helpful to think the Lord made special promises to widows, and when I remember Him I a'n't afeard."

Miss Perrit stopped rockin' a minute, and then she begun to creak the chair and blow her nose again, and she said,--

"Well, I'm sure it's a great mercy to see anybody rise above their trouble the way you do; but, law me! Miss Langdon, you a'n't got through the fust pair o' bars on't yet. Folks is allers kinder neighborly at the fust; they feel to help you right off, every way they can,--but it don't stay put, they get tired on't; they blaze right up like a white-birch-stick, an' then they go out all of a heap; there's other folks die, and they don't remember you, and you're just as bad off as though you wa'n't a widder."

Mother kind of smiled,--she couldn't help it; but she spoke up again just as steady.

"I don't expect to depend on people, Miss Perrit, so long as I have my health. I a'n't above takin' friendly help when I need to, but I mean mostly to help myself. I can get work to take in, and when the girls have got their schoolin' they will be big enough to help me. I am not afraid but what I shall live and prosper, if I only keep my health."

"Hem, well!" whined out Miss Perrit. "I allers thought you was a pretty mighty woman, Miss Langdon, and I'm glad to see you're so high-minded; but you a'n't sure of your health, never. I used to be real smart to what I am now, when Perrit was alive; but I took on so, when he was brought home friz to death that it sp'iled my nerves; and then I had to do so many chores out in the shed, I got cold and had the dreadfullest rheumatiz! and when I'd got past the worst spell of that and was quite folksy again, I slipped down on our door-step and kinder wrenched my ankle, and ef't hadn't 'a' been for the neighbors, I don't know but what Nancy and I should 'a' starved."

Mother did laugh this time. Miss Perrit had overshot the mark.

"So the neighbors were helpful, after all!" said she. "And if ever I get sick, I shall be willin' to have help, Miss Perrit. I'm sure I would take what I would give; I think givin' works two ways. I don't feel afraid yet."

Miss Perrit groaned a little, and wiped her eyes, and got up to go away. She hadn't never offered to help mother, and she went off to the sewing-circle and told that Miss Langdon hadn't got no feelings at all, and she b'lieved she'd just as soon beg for a livin' as not. Polly Mariner, the tailoress, come and told mother all she said next day, but mother only smiled, and set Polly to talkin' about the best way to make over her old cloak. When she was gone, I begun to talk about Miss Perrit, and I was real mad; but mother hushed me right up.

"It a'n't any matter, Ann," said she. "Her sayin' so don't make it so. Miss Perrit's got a miserable disposition, and I'm sorry for her; a mint of money wouldn't make her happy; she's a doleful Christian, she don't take any comfort in anything, and I really do pity her."

And that was just the way mother took everything.

At first we couldn't sell the farm. It was down at the foot of Torringford Hill, two good miles from meetin', and a mile from the school-house; most of it was woodsy, and there wa'n't no great market for wood about there. So for the first year Squire Potter took it on shares, and, as he principally seeded it down to rye, why, we sold the rye and got a little money, but 'twa'n't a great deal,--no more than we wanted for clothes the next winter. Aunt Langdon sent us d