Friendship Village. Gale Zona
me, I did not mention that I had seen her on the train that morning, and that she was absent from Friendship, but it grieved me that this stranger should be indifferent to anything about her.
I would have passed my own gate, because the basket was heavy and because I knew that the girl was crying. But she remembered how I had shown her my house, and there she detained me and caught at her basket, in haste to be gone. So I, who feel upon me a weak necessity to do a bidding, watched her go down the still road; yet I could not let her go away quite like that, and before I had meant to do so I called to her.
"Delia More!" I said – as familiarly as if she had been some other expression of myself.
I saw her stop, but I did not go forward. I lifted my voice a little, for by the distance between us I was less ill at ease than I am in the usual personalities of comfort.
"I heard that on the train," I said then awkwardly, – and I was the more awkward that I was not persuaded of any reason in my words, – "that about 'the shadow of good things to come.' Maybe it meant something."
Delia More's thin, high-pitched voice came back to me, expressing all my unvoiced doubt.
"Tisn't like," she said. "I never take any stock."
Then I looked at my dark house in a kind of consternation lest it had heard me trying to give comfort, for within those walls I had sometimes spoken almost as this woman spoke. But it occurred to me that even the drowned should throw immaterial ropes to any who struggle in dark waters.
It will not be necessary, I hope, to say that I followed Delia More that night from no faintest wish to know what might happen to her. For I have a weak desire for peace of mind, and I would rather have forgotten her story. I followed because the quiet highroad was so profoundly lonely, and the country silence is ambiguous, and I cannot bear to think of a woman abroad alone in the dark. I cannot bear to think of myself abroad alone in the dark, though I go quite without fear; but certain other women have fear, and this one was crying. I kept well behind her, and as soon as she reached the village, I meant to lose sight of her and return, for a village is guardian enough. But when we had passed the bleak meadow of the slaughter-house and the wide, wet-smelling wood yard and had reached the first cottage on Daphne Street, I was startled to see her unlatch that cottage gate and enter the yard. And I was suddenly sadly apprehensive, for the cottage was the home of Calliope, who that morning had left the village and had asked me to say nothing about it. What if this poor creature had fled to Calliope for sanctuary, only to find locked doors? So I waited in the shadow of a warehouse like a bandit; and I raged at the thought of having possibly to harbour this stranger among the books of my quiet home.
Then suddenly I saw a light shining brightly in Calliope Marsh's cottage, and some one wearing a hat came swiftly and drew down a shade. On the instant the matter was clear to me, who have a genius for certain ways of a busybody. Calliope must have known that this poor girl was coming; Calliope's warning to me to keep silence must have been a way of protection to her. And here to Calliope's cottage Delia More had come creeping, whom all Friendship would hold in righteous distaste. But I alone of all Friendship knew that she was here, "fair body-sick to see the place again."
I turned back to the highroad, pretending great wrath that I should be so keen over the doings of any, and that my walk should have been spoiled because of her. But there are times when wrath is difficult. And do what I would, there came some singing in my blood, and like a busybody, I found myself standing still in the road fashioning a plan.
VI
STOCK
It was as if Time and the Hour were my allies, for at once I was aware of a cutter driven smartly from the village, and I recognized the Topladys' sorrel. At my signal the cutter drew up beside me, and it held Timothy Toplady on his way home from the station. I asked him what o'clock it was, and when he had found a match to light his huge silver watch —
"Blisterin' Benson!" he said ruefully, "it's ha'-past six, an' me late with the chores again. I'm hauled an' sawed if it hain't always ha' past six. They don't seem to be no times in between."
"Mr. Toplady," I said boldly, "let us get up a surprise party on Calliope Marsh – you and Mrs. Toplady and me."
I had learned that he was loath to oppose a suggestion and that he always preferred to agree, but I had not hoped for enthusiasm.
"That's the i-dea," said Timothy, heartily. "I do admire a surprise. But what I think is this," he added, "when'll we hev it?"
"To-night," I proposed boldly.
"Whew!" Timothy whistled. "Sudden for General – eh? Suits me – suits me. Better drive out home with me an' break it to Amanda," he cried.
I smiled as I sat beside him, noting that his enthusiasm was very like relief. For if any one was present, he well knew that his masterful Amanda would say nothing of his tardiness. And so it was, for as we entered the kitchen she entirely overlooked her husband in her amazement at seeing me.
"Forevermore!" that great Amanda said, turning from her stove of savoury skillets; "ain't you the stranger? Timothy says only to-day, speakin' o' you, 'She ain't ben here for a week,' s'e. 'Week!' s'I; 'it's goin' on two.' I'm a great hand to keep track. Throw off your things."
At that I began to feel her influence. Mis' Toplady is so huge and capable that her mere presence will modify my judgments; and instantly I fell wondering if I was not, after all, come on a fool's errand. She is like Athena. For I can think about Athena well enough, but if I were really to stand before her, I am certain that the project in which I implored her help would be sunk in my sudden sense of Olympus.
Not the less, I made my somewhat remarkable proposal with some show of assurance, and I should have counted on Mis' Toplady's sympathy, which ripens at less than a sigh. In Friendship you but mention a possible charity, visit, or new church carpet, and the enthusiasm will react on the possibility, and the thing be done. It is the spirit of the West, the pioneer blood in the veins of her children, expressing itself (since there are of late no forests to conquer) in terms of love of any initiative. We love a project as an older world would approve the civilizing reasons for that project. Mis' Amanda plunged into the processes of the party much as she would have felled a tree. It warmed my heart to hear her.
"We'd ought to hev a hot supper – what victuals'll we take?" she said. "Land, yes, oysters, o' course, an' we'll all chip in an' take plenty-enough crackers. We might as well carry dishes from here, so's to be sure an' hev what we want to use. At Mis' Doctor Helman's su'prise we run 'way short o' spoons, an' Elder Woodruff finally went out in the hall an' drank his broth, an' hid his bowl in the entry. Mis' Helman found it, an' knew it by the nick. That reminds me – who'll we ask?"
"Mrs. Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss," said I, promptly, "and Abigail Arnold, and Doctor June, and Abel Halsey."
"An' the Proudfits," Mis' Amanda went on.
"Suppose," said I, with high courage, "that we do not ask the Proudfits at all?"
Mis' Amanda threw up her giant hands.
"Not ask the Proudfits?" she said. "Why, my land a' livin', the minister hardly has church in the church without the Proudfits get an invite."
"Calliope mends their fine lace for them," I reminded her, feeling guilty. "They wouldn't care to come, Mrs. Amanda, would they?"
But of course I was remembering Delia More's "But now– I know 'em. They worship goodness like a little god." And that night I was not minded to have them about, for it might befall that it would be necessary to understand other things as well.
"Miss Linda would 'a' cared to," said Mis' Amanda, thoughtfully, "but I donno, myself, about Mis' Proudfit an' Miss Clementina – for sure."
So bold an innovation as the Proudfits' omission, however, moved Timothy Toplady to doubt.
"They might not come," he said, frowning and looking sidewise, "but what I think is this, will they like bein' left out?"
His masterful Amanda instantly took the other side.
"Land, Timothy!" she said, "you be one!"
I have heard her