All this time I hadn't heard a word from home, and, for all I knew, Stephen might be dead and buried. I didn't feel so very light-hearted, you may be sure, when one day Miss Talbot brought me a letter. It was from mother, and it seemed Stephen'd only had a bad fever, and had been up and gone home for more than a week. So I wrote back, as soon as I could, all about John, and how he'd gone to sea again, and how Miss Talbot, who set sights by John, was rather lonely, and I thought I'd keep her company a little longer, and try a spell in the mills, seeing that our neighbors didn't think a girl had been properly accomplished till she'd had a term or two in the factory. The fact was, I didn't want to go home just then; I thought, maybe, if I waited a bit, my face would get back to looking as it used to. So I worked in the piece-room, light work and good pay, sent mother and Lurindy part of my wages, and paid my board to Miss Talbot. She'd become quite attached to me, and I to her, for all she was such an old-maidish thing; but I'd got to thinking an old maid wasn't such a very bad thing, after all. Fourth of July came at last, and the mills were closed, and I went with some of the other girls on an excursion down the harbor; and when I got home, Miss Talbot told me my Cousin Stephen had been down to see me, and had been obliged to go home in the last train. I wondered why Stephen didn't stay, and then it flashed upon me that she'd told him all about it, and he didn't want to see me afterwards. I knew mother and Lurindy suspected why I didn't come home, and now, thinks I, they know; but I asked no questions.
When September came, I saw it wasn't any use delaying, and I might as well go back to knitting sale-socks then as any time. However, I didn't go till October. You needn't think I'd stayed away from the farm all that time, while the tender things were opening, the tiny top-heavy beans pushing up, the garden-sarse greening, the little grass-blades two and two,while all the young creatures were coming forward, the chickens breaking the shell, and the gosling-storm brewing and dealing destruction,while the strawberries were growing ripe and red up in the high field, and the hay and clover were getting in,you needn't think I'd stayed away from all that had been pleasant in my life, without many a good heart-ache; and when at last I saw the dear old gray house again, all weather-beaten and homely, standing there with its well-sweep among the elms, I fairly cried. Mother and Lurindy ran out to meet me, when they saw the stage stop, and after we got into the house it seemed if they would never get done kissing me. And mother stirred round and made hot cream-biscuits for tea, and got the best china, and we sat up till nigh midnight, talking, and I had to tell everything John did and said and thought and looked, over and over again.
By-and-by I unpacked my trunk, and there was a little parcel in the bottom of it, and I pulled it up.
"There, Lurindy," says I, "John told me to tell you to have your wedding-dress ready against he came home,he's gone mate,and here it is." And I unrolled the neatest brown silk you ever saw, just fit for Lurindy, she's so pale and genteel, and threw it into her lap. I'd stayed the other month to get enough to buy it.
The first thing Lurindy did, by way of thanks, was to burst into tears and declare she never could take it, that she never should marry now; and the more I urged her, the more she cried. But at last she said she'd accept it conditionally,and the condition was, I should be married when she was.
"Well," says I, "agreed, if you'll provide the necessary article; because I can't very well marry my shadow, and I don't know any one else that would be fool enough to have such a little fright."
At that Lurindy felt all the worse, and it took all the spirits I had to build up hers and mother's. I suppose I was sorry to see they felt so bad, (and they hadn't meant that I should,) because it gave the finishing stroke to my conviction; and after I was in bed, I grew sorrier still; and if I cried, 't wasn't on account of myself, but I saw how Lurindy 'd always feel self-accused, though she hadn't ought to, whenever she looked at me, and how all her life she'd feel my scarred face like a weight on her happiness, and think I owed it to John, and how intolerable such an obligation, though it was only a fancied one, would be; and I saw, too, that it all came from my not going up-stairs that first time when Stephen knocked,because if I had gone, I should have been there when the doctor came, and Lurindy 'd have gone to have taken care of John herself, and it would have been her face that was ruined instead of mine; and though it was a great deal better that it should be mine, still she'd have been easier in her mind;and so thinking and worrying, I fell asleep.
Next day was baking-day, and Stephen was coming in the afternoon, and it was almost five o'clock when we got cleared up, and I went up-stairs to change my dress. I thought 't wasn't any use to trim myself out in bows and ruffles now, so I just put on my brown gingham and a white linen collar; but Lurindy came and tied a pink ribbon at my throat, and fixed my hair herself, and looked down and said,
"Well, I don't see but you're about as pretty as ever you was."
That almost finished me; but I contrived to laugh, and got down-stairs. Mother 'd run over to the village to get some yarn to knit up, for she 'd used all our own wool. It was getting dark, and I had just brought in another log, and hung the kettle on the crane. The log hadn't taken fire yet, and there was only a light glimmer, from the coals, on the ceiling. I heard the back-door-latch click, and thought it was mother, and commenced humming in the middle of a tune, as if I'd been humming the rest and had just reached that part; but the figure standing there was a sight too tall for mother.
"Oh, Stephen," says I,and my heart jumped in my throat, but I just swallowed it down, and thanked Heaven that the evening was so dark,"is that you?"
"Yes," says he, stepping forward, and putting out his hands, and making as if he would kiss me. Just for a minute I hung back, then I went and gave him my hand in a careless way.
"Yes," says he; "and I can't say that you seem so very glad to see me."
"Oh, yes," I answered, "I am glad. Did you drive over?"
"Well," says he, "maybe you are; but I should call it a mighty cool reception, after almost a year's absence. However, I suppose it's the best manners not to show any cordiality; you've had a chance to learn more politeness down at Salem than we have up here in the country."
I was a little struck up by Stephen's running on so,he was generally so quiet, and said so little, and then in such short sentences. But in a minute I reckoned he thought I was nervous, and was trying to put me at my ease,and he knew of old that the best way to do that was to rouse my temper.
"I ha'n't seen anybody at Salem better-mannered 'n mother and Lurindy," said I.
"Come home for Thanksgiving?" asked Stephen, hanging up his coat.
I kept still a minute, for I couldn't for the life of me see what I had to give thanks for. Then it came over me what a cheery, comfortable home this was, and how Stephen would always be my kind, warm-hearted friend, and how thankful I ought to be that my life had been spared, and that I was useful, that I'd made such good friends as I had down to Salem, and that I wasn't soured against all mankind on account of my misfortune.
"Yes, Stephen," says I, "I've come home for Thanksgiving; and I have a great deal to give thanks for."
"So have I," said he.
"Stephen," says I, "I don't exactly know, but I shouldn't wonder if I'd had a change of heart."
"Don't know of anybody that needed it less," says Stephen, warming his hands. "However, if it makes you any more comfortable, I sha'n't object; except the part of it that belongs to me,I sha'n't have that changed."
"So have I," said he.
"Stephen," says I, "I don't exactly know, but I shouldn't wonder if I'd had a change of heart."
"Don't know of anybody that needed it less," says Stephen, warming his hands. "However, if it makes you any more comfortable, I sha'n't object; except the part of it that belongs to me,I sha'n't have that changed."
The fire'd begun to brighten now, and the room was red and pleasant-looking; still I knew he couldn't see me plainly, and I waited a minute, and lingered round, pretending I was doing something, which I wasn't; I hated to break the old way of things; and then I took the tongs and blew a coal and lighted the dip and held it up, as if I was looking for something. Pretty soon I found it; it was a skein of linen thread I was going to wind for Lurindy. Then I got the swifts and came and sat down in front of the candle.
"There," says I, "the swifts is broken. What shall I do?"
"I'll hold the thread, if that's your trouble," says Stephen, and came and sat opposite to me while I wound.
I wondered whether he was looking at me, but I didn't durst look up,and then I couldn't, if my life had depended upon it. At last we came to the end; then I managed to get a glance edgeways. He hadn't been looking at all, I don't believe, till that very moment, when he raised his eyes.
"Are folks always so sober, when they've had a change of heart?" he asked, with his pleasant smile.
"They are, when they've had a change of face," I was going to say; but just then mother came in with her bundle of yarn, and Lurindy came down, and there was such a deal of welcoming and talking, that I slipped round and laid the table and had the tea made before they thought of it. I'd about made up my mind now that Stephen would act as if nothing had happened, and pretend to like me just the same, because he was so tender-hearted and couldn't bear to hurt my feelings nor anybody's; and I'd made up my mind, too, that, as soon as he gave me a chance, I'd tell him I was set against marriage: leastwise, I wouldn't have him, because I wouldn't have any man marry me out of pity; and the more I cared for him, the more I couldn't hamper an ugly face on him forever. So, you see, I had quite resolved, that, cost me what it would, I'd say 'No,' if Stephen asked me. Well, it's a very good thing to make resolutions; but it's a great deal better to break them, sometimes.
Having come to my conclusions, I grew as merry as any of them; and when mother put two spoons into Stephen's cup, I told him he was going to have a present. And he said he guessed he knew what it was; and I said it must be a mitten, I'd heard that Martha Smith had taken to knitting lately; and he confounded Martha Smith. Mother and Lurindy were very busy talking about the yarn, and how Mr. Fisher wanted the next socks knit; and Stephen asked me what that dish was beside me. I said, it was lemon-pie, and the top-crust was made of kisses, and would he have some? And he said, he didn't care for anybody's kisses but mine, and he believed he wouldn't. And I told him the receipt of this came from the Queen's own kitchen. And he said, he didn't know that the Queen of England was any better than the Queen of Hearts. Then I said, I supposed he remembered how the latter lady was served by the Knave of Hearts in 'Mother Goose'? And he replied, that he wasn't going to be Jack-at-a-pinch for anybody. And so on, till mother finished tea.
After tea, I sat up to the table and ended some barley-trimming that I'd just learned how to make; and as the little kernels came tumbling out from under my fingers, Stephen sat beside and watched them as if it was a field of barley, growing, reaped, and threshed under his eyes. By-and-by I finished it; and then, rummaging round in the table-drawer, I found the sock that I was knitting, waiting at the very stitch where I left it, 'most a year ago.
"Well, if that isn't lucky!" said I. And I sat down on a stool by the fireside, determined to finish that sock that night; and no sooner had I set the needles to dancing, like those in the fairy-story, than open came the kitchen-door again, and in, out of the dark, stepped Aunt Mimy.
"Good-evenin', Miss Ruggles!" says she. "Heow d' ye du, Emerline? hope yer gwine ter stay ter hum a spell. Why, Stephen, 's this you? Quite a femily-party, I declare fur't! Wai, Miss Ruggles, I got kind o' tired settin' in the dark, an', ez I looked out an' see the dips blazin' in yer winder, thinks I, I'll jest run up an' see w'at's ter pay."
"Why, there's only one dip," says Lurindy.
"Wal, thet's better 'n none," answered Miss Mimy.
I had enough of the old Adam left in me to be riled at her way of begging as much as ever I was; but I saw that Stephen was amused; he hadn't ever happened to be round, when Aunt Mimy was at her tricks.
"No, Miss Ruggles," continued she, "I thank the Lord I ha'n't got a complainin' sperrit, an' hed jest ez lieves see by my neighbor's dip ez my own, an', mebbe ye 'll say, a sight lieveser."
And then Miss Mimy pulled out a stocking without beginning or end, and began to knit as fast as she could rattle, after she 'd fixed one needle in a chicken-bone, and pinned the chicken-bone to her side.
"Wal, Emerline," says she, "I s'pose ye've got so grand down ter the mills, thet, w'at 'ith yer looms an' machines an' tic-doloreux, ye won't hev nothin' ter say ter the old way uv knittin' socks."
"Does this look like it, Aunt Mimy?" says I, shaking my needles by way of answer. "I'm going to finish this pair to-night."
"Oh," says she, "you be, be you? Wal, ef I don't e'en a'most vum it's the same one! ef ye ha'n't been nigh abeout a hull year a-knittin' one pair uv socks!"
"How do you know they're the same pair?" asked I.
"By a mark I see you sot in 'em ter the top, ef ye want ter know, afore I thought it would be hangin' by the eyelids the rest uv yer days. Wal, I never 'xpected ye'd be much help ter yer mother; ye're tew fond uv hikin' reound the village."
"Indeed, Miss Mimy," said Lurindy, kind of indignant, "she's always been the greatest help to mother."
"I don't know how I should have made both ends meet this year, if it hadn't been for her wages," said mother.
Stephen was whittling Miss Mimy's portrait on the end of a stick, and laughing. I was provoked with mother and Lurindy for answering the thing, and was just going to speak up, when I caught Stephen's eye, and thought better of it. Pretty soon Aunt Mimy produced a bundle of herbs from her pocket, and laid them on the table.
"Oh, thank you, Aunt Jemimy," says mother. "Pennyroyal and catnip's always acceptable."
"Yes," said Aunt Mimy. "An' I'll take my pay in some uv yer dried apples. Heow much does Fisher give fur socks, Miss Ruggles?" she asked, directly.
"Fifty cents and I find,fifteen and he finds."
"An' ye take yer pay out uv the store? Varry reasonable. I wuz thinkin' uv tryin' my han' myself;business's ruther dull, folks onkimmon well this fall. Heow many strings yer gwine ter give me fur the yarbs?"
Then mother went up garret to get the apples and spread the herbs to dry, and Lurindy wanted some different needles, and went after her. Stephen'd just heaped the fire, and the great blaze was tumbling up the chimney, and Miss Mimy lowered her head and looked over her great horn-bowed spectacles at me.
"Wal, Emerline Ruggles," says she, after a while, going back to her work, "you've lost all your pink cheeks!"
I suppose it took me rather sudden, for all at once a tear sprung and fell right down my work. I saw it glistening on the bright needles a minute, and then my eyes filmed so that I felt there was more coming, and I bent down to the fire and made believe count my narrowings. After all, Aunt Mimy was kind of privileged by everybody to say what she pleased. But Stephen didn't do as every one did, always.