Ben Stone at Oakdale. Scott Morgan
his feet, and the dull light from a single window showed him the old-fashioned, low-posted, corded bedstead – with its straw tick, coarse sheets and patchwork quilt – pushed back beneath the sloping rafters of the roof.
Besides the bed, there was in the room for furniture a broken-backed rocking-chair; a small table with a split top, on which stood a common kerosene hand-lamp; a dingy white earthen water pitcher and bowl – the former with a circular piece broken out of its nose – sitting on a washstand, made of a long box stood on one end, with a muslin curtain hanging in front of it. His trunk was pushed into a corner of the room opposite the bed.
Another part of the room, which served as a wardrobe, or was intended for that purpose, was set off by a calico curtain. The kitchen chimney ran up through one end of the room and served to heat it a little – a very little.
Such a room as this was the best Ben Stone could afford to pay for from his meager savings. He had been satisfied, and had thought it would do him very well; for Mrs. Jones had genially assured him that on evenings when the weather became colder he would be welcome to sit and study by the open fire in the sitting-room, a concession for which he had been duly grateful.
But now he would need it no more; his hopes, his plans, his dreams were ended. He sat down dumbly on the broken chair, his hard, square hands lying helpless in his lap. The shadows of the dingy little chamber crept upon him from the corners; and the shadows of his life hovered thick about him.
Finally he became aware of the smell of cooking, which came to him from below, and slowly the consciousness that he was hungry grew upon him. It did not matter; he told himself so. There was in his heart a greater hunger that might never be satisfied.
It had grown quite dark and he struck a light, after which he pulled out his small battered trunk and lifted the lid. Then, in a mechanical manner, he began packing it with his few belongings.
At last the craving of his stomach became so insistent that he took down a square tin box from a shelf behind the calico curtain and opened it on the little table. It had been full when he came on Monday, but now there was left only the end of a stale loaf of bread and a few crumbs of cheese. These, however, were better than nothing, and he was about to make the best use of them, when there sounded a step outside his door, followed by a knock that gave him a start.
Had it come so soon? Would they give him no more time? Well, then, he must meet them; and, with his face gray and set, he opened the door.
With a long, nicked, blue platter, that served as a tray, Mrs. Jones stood outside and beamed upon him. On the tray were a knife, a fork, pewter spoons, and dishes of food, from one of which – a steaming bowl – came a most delightful odor.
“Land sakes!” said the widow. “Them stairs is awful in the dark, an’ I didn’t darst bring a lamp; I hed my han’s full. I brought y’u somethin’ hot to eat; I hope y’u don’t mind. It ain’t right for a big, growin’ youngster like you to be alwus a-eatin’ cold vittles, ’specially when he’s studyin’ hard. It’s bad f’r the dejesshun; an’ Joel – my late departed – he alwus had somethin’ the matter with his dejesshun. It kep’ him from workin’ reg’ler an’ kinder sp’iled his prospects, poor man! an’ left me in straightened circumstances when he passed away. But I ain’t a-repinin’ or complainin’; there is lots in this world a heap wuss off’n I be, an’ I’m satisfied that I’ve got a great deal to be thankful f’r. If I’d thought, I’d a-brought up somethin’ f’r a tablecloth, but mebbe you can git along.”
She had entered while talking, bringing with her, besides the odor of food, another odor of soapsuds, which clung to her from her constant labor at the washtubs, where, with hard, backaching toil, she uncomplainingly scrubbed out a subsistence. For Mrs. Jones took in washings, and in Oakdale there was not another whose clothes were so white and spotless, and whose work was done so faithfully.
Ben was so taken aback that he stood speechless in the middle of the floor, watching her as she arranged the dishes on the table.
“There’s some beef stew,” she said, depositing the steaming bowl. “An’ here’s hot bread an’ butter, an’ some doughnuts I fried to-day. Joel alwus uster say my doughnuts was the best he ever tasted, an’ he did eat a monst’rus pile of ’em. I don’t think they was the best thing in the world f’r his dejesshun, either. Mis’ Collins give me some apples this mornin’, an’ I made a new apple pie. I thought y’u might like to try it, though it ain’t very good, an’ I brought y’u up a piece. An’ here’s a glass of milk. Jimmy he likes milk, an’ I hev to keep it in the house f’r him. He don’t eat much, nohow. I saw you with Jimmy when you come in, an’ I noticed you looked kinder tired an’ pale, an’ I says to myself, ‘What that boy needs is a good hot supper.’ Jimmy he’s bin talkin’ about you all day, an’ how y’u fixed his squirrel trap. Now, you jest set right up here, an’ fall to.”
She had arranged the dishes and placed the old chair at the table, after which, as had become habitual with her on rising from the wash-tub, she wiped her hands on her apron and rested them on her hips, her arms akimbo. She was smiling at him in such a healthy, motherly manner, that her whole face seemed to glow like the genial face of the sun when it appears after a dark and cloudy day.
To say that Ben was touched, would be to fail utterly in expressing the smallest degree of his feelings, yet he was a silent, undemonstrative fellow, and now he groped in vain for satisfactory words with which to thank the widow. Unattractive and uncomely he was, beyond question, but now his unspeakable gratitude to this kind woman so softened and transformed his face that, could they have seen him, those who fancied they knew him well would have been astonished at the change.
“Mrs. Jones,” he faltered, “I – I – how can I – ”
“Now you set right down, an’ let the victuals stop y’ur mouth,” she laughed. “You’ve bin good to my Jimmy, an’ I don’t forgit nobody who’s good to him. I’d asked y’u down to supper with us, but you’re so kinder backward an’ diffident, that I thought p’raps y’u wouldn’t come, an’ Mamie said she knowed y’u wouldn’t.”
Ben felt certain that back of this was Mamie’s dislike for him, which something told him had developed in her the moment she first saw him. She was the older daughter, a strong, healthy girl of seventeen, who never helped her mother about the work, who dressed in such cheap finery as she could obtain by hook or crook, who took music lessons on a rented melodeon paid for out of her mother’s hard earnings, who felt herself to be a lady unfortunately born out of her sphere, and who was unquestionably ashamed of her surviving parent and her brother and sister.
“Set right down,” persisted Mrs. Jones, as she took hold of him and pushed him into the chair. “I want to see y’u eatin’. That’s Mamie!” she exclaimed, her face lighting with pride, as the sound of the melodeon came from a distant part of the house. “She’s gittin’ so she can play real fine. She don’t seem to keer much f’r books an’ study, but I’m sartin she’ll become a great musician if she keeps on. If Sadie was only more like her; but Sadie she keeps havin’ them chills. I think she took ’em of her father, f’r when he warn’t ailin’ with his dejesshun he was shakin’ with a chill, an’ between one thing an’ t’other, he had a hard time of it. It ain’t to be wondered at that he died with debt piled up and a mortgage on the place; but I don’t want you to think I’m complainin’, an’ if the good Lord lets me keep my health an’ strength, I’ll pay up ev’ry dollar somehow. How is the stew?”
“It – it’s splendid!” declared Ben, who had begun to eat; and truly nothing had ever before seemed to taste so good.
As he ate, the widow continued to talk in the same strain, strong-hearted, hopeful, cheerful, for all of the ill-fortune that had attended her, and for all of the mighty load on her shoulders. He began to perceive that there was something heroic in this woman, and his admiration for her grew, while in his heart her thoughtful kindness had planted the seed of affection.
The warm bread was white and light and delicious, and somehow the smell of the melting butter upon it made him think vaguely of green fields and wild flowers and strawberries. Then the doughnuts – such