Pembroke. Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
of bloom.
“I guess there wasn't any frost last night, after all,” she remarked.
“I dunno,” responded Sylvia, in a voice which made her niece look around at her. There was a curious impatient ring in it which was utterly foreign to it. There was a frown between Sylvia's gentle eyes, and she moved with nervous jerks, setting down dishes hard, as if they were refractory children, and lashing out with spoons as if they were whips. The long, steady strain upon her patience had not affected her temper, but this last had seemed to bring out a certain vicious and waspish element which nobody had suspected her to possess, and she herself least of all. She felt this morning disposed to go out of her way to sting, and as if some primal and evil instinct had taken possession of her. She felt shocked at herself, but all the more defiant and disposed to keep on.
“Breakfast is ready,” she announced, finally; “if you don't set right up an' eat it, it will be gettin' cold. I wouldn't give a cent for cold Injun cake.”
Charlotte arose promptly and brought a chair to the table, which Sylvia always set punctiliously in the centre of the kitchen as if for a large family.
“Don't scrape your chair on the floor that way; it wears 'em all out,” cried Sylvia, sharply.
Charlotte stared at her again, but she said nothing; she sat down and began to eat absently. Sylvia watched her angrily between her own mouthfuls, which she swallowed down defiantly like medicine.
“It ain't much use cookin' things if folks don't eat 'em,” said she.
“I am eating,” returned Charlotte.
“Eatin'? Swallowin' down Injun cake as if it was sawdust! I don't call that eatin'. You don't act as if you tasted a mite of it!”
“Aunt Sylvy, what has got into you?” said Charlotte.
“Got into me? I should think you'd talk about anything gettin' into me, when you set there like a stick. I guess you 'ain't got all there is to bear.”
“I never thought I had,” said Charlotte.
“Well, I guess you 'ain't.”
They went on swallowing their food silently; the great clock ticked slowly, and the spring birds called outside; but they heard neither. The shadows of the young elm leaves played over the floor and the white table-cloth. It was much warmer that morning, and the shadows were softer.
Before they had finished breakfast, Charlotte's mother came, advancing ponderously, with soft thuds, across the yard to the side door. She opened it and peered in.
“Here you be,” said she, scanning both their faces with anxious and deprecating inquiry.
“Can't you come in, an' not stand there holdin' the door open?” inquired Sylvia. “I feel the wind on my back, and I've got a bad pain enough in it now.”
Mrs. Barnard stepped in, and shut the door quickly, in an alarmed way.
“Ain't you feelin' well this mornin', Sylvy?” said she.
“Oh yes, I'm feelin' well enough. It ain't any matter how I feel, but it's a good deal how some other folks do.”
Sarah Barnard sank into the rocking-chair, and sat there looking at them hesitatingly, as if she did not dare to open the conversation.
Suddenly Sylvia arose and went out of the kitchen with a rush, carrying a plate of Indian cake to feed the hens. “I can't set here all day; I've got to do something,” she announced as she went.
When the door had closed after her, Mrs. Barnard turned to Charlotte.
“What's the matter with her?” she asked, nodding towards the door.
“I don't know.”
“She ain't sick, is she? I never see her act so. Sylvy's generally just like a lamb. You don't s'pose she's goin' to have a fever, do you?”
“I don't know.”
Suddenly Charlotte, who was still sitting at the table, put up her two hands with a despairing gesture, and bent her head forward upon them.
“Now don't, you poor child,” said her mother, her eyes growing suddenly red. “Didn't he even turn round when you called him back last night?”
Charlotte shook her bowed head dumbly.
“Don't you s'pose he'll ever come again?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“Mebbe he will. I know he's terrible set.”
“Who's set?” demanded Sylvia, coming in with her empty plate.
“Oh, I was jest sayin' that I thought Barney was kinder set,” replied her sister, mildly.
“He ain't no more set than Cephas,” returned Sylvia.
“Cephas ain't set. It's jest his way.”
Sylvia sniffed. She looked scornfully at Charlotte, who had raised her head when she came in, but whose eyes were red. “Folks had better been created without ways, then,” she retorted. “They'd better have been created slaves; they'd been enough sight happier an' better off, an' so would other folks that they have to do with, than to have so many ways, an' not sense enough to manage 'em. I don't believe in free-will, for my part.”
“Sylvy Crane, you ain't goin' to deny one of the doctrines of the Church at your time of life?” demanded a new voice. Sylvia's other sister, Hannah Berry, stood in the doorway.
Sylvia ordinarily was meek before her, but now she faced her. “Yes, I be,” said she; “I don't approve of free-will, and I ain't afraid to say it.”
Sylvia had always been considered very unlike Mrs. Hannah Berry in face and character. Now, as she stood before her, a curious similarity appeared; even her voice sounded like her sister's.
“What on earth ails you, Sylvy?” asked Mrs. Berry, ignoring suddenly the matter in hand.
“Nothin' ails me that I know of. I don't think much of free-will, an' I ain't goin' to say I do when I don't.”
“Then all I've got to say is you'd ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why, I should think you was crazy, Sylvy Crane, settin' up yourself agin' the doctrines of the Word. I'd like to know what you know about them.”
“I know enough to see how they work,” returned Sylvia, undauntedly, “an' I ain't goin' to pretend I'm blind when I can see.”
Sylvia's serene arc of white forehead was shortened by a distressed frown, her mild mouth dropped sourly at the corners, and the lips were compressed. Her white cap was awry, and one of yesterday's curls hung lankly over her left cheek.
“You look an' act like a crazy creature,” said Hannah Berry, eying her with indignant amazement. She walked across the room to another rocking-chair, moving with unexpected heaviness. She was in reality as stout as her sister Sarah Barnard, but she had a long, thin, and rasped face, which misled people.
“Now,” said she, looking around conclusively, “I ain't come over here to argue about free-will. I want to know what all this is about?”
“All what?” returned Mrs. Barnard, feebly. She was distinctly afraid of her imperious sister, yet she was conscious of a quiver of resentment.
“All this fuss about Barney Thayer,” said Hannah Berry.
“How did you hear about it?” Mrs. Barnard asked with a glance at Charlotte, who was sitting erect with her cheeks very red and her mouth tightly closed.
“Never mind how I heard,” replied Hannah. “I did hear, an' that's enough. Now I want to know if you're really goin' to set down like an old hen an' give up, an' let this match between Charlotte an' a good, smart, likely young man like Barnabas Thayer be broken off on account of Cephas Barnard's crazy freaks?”
Sarah