Once every three months "the Jersey girls," dressed in black broadcloth, with black, fluted ruffles around their necks, and black-flowered bonnets covering their scanty hair, turned the corner at Chase's Lane, walked three blocks to the foot of Tilson Street, and rang Abbie Snover's door-bell.
As Old Chris grew older and less able, Abbie was compelled to close off first one room and then another; but Old Chris still occupied the back chamber near the upstairs woodroom, and Abbie still slept in the South bedroom.
Early one October afternoon, Jim East, Almont's express agent and keeper of the general store, drove his hooded delivery cart up to the front steps of the big house. He trembled with excitement as he climbed down from the seat.
"Abbie Snover! Abbie!" he called. "I got somethin' for you! A package all the way from China! Just you come an' look!"
Jim East lifted the package out of the delivery cart, carried it up the steps, and set it down at Abbie's feet.
"Just you look, Abbie! That there crate's made of little fishin' poles, an' what's inside's all wrapped up in Chinee mats!"
Old Chris came around from the back of the house. Jim East grabbed his arm and pointed at the bamboo crate:
"Just you put your nose down, Chris, an' smell. Ain't that foreign?"
Abbie brought her scissors. Carefully she removed the red and yellow labels.
"There's American writin' on 'em, too," Jim East hastened to explain, "'cause otherwise how'd I know who it was for, hey?"
Abbie carried the labels into the parlor and looked for a safe place for them. She saw the picture-album and put them in it. Then she hurried back to the porch. Old Chris opened one end of the crate.
"It's a plant," Jim East whispered; "a Chinee plant."
"It's a dwarf orange-tree," Old Chris announced. "See, it says so on that there card."
Abbie carried the little orange-tree into the parlor. Who could have sent it to her? There was no one she knew, away off there in China!
"You be careful of that bamboo and the wrappings," she warned Old Chris. "I'll make something decorative-like out of them."
Abbie waited until Jim East drove away in his delivery cart. Then she sat down at the table in the parlor and opened the album. She found her name on one of the labelsAbbie Snover, Almont, Michigan, U. S. A. It seemed queer to her that her name had come all the way from China. On the card that said that the plant was a dwarf orange-tree she found the nameThomas J. Thorington. Thomas? Tom? Tom Thorington! Why, the last she had heard of Tom had been fifteen years back. He had gone out West. She had received a picture of him in a uniform, with a gun on his shoulder. She dimly recollected that he had been a guard at some penitentiary. How long ago it seemed! He must have become a missionary or something, to be away off in China. And he had remembered her! She sat for a long time looking at the labels. She wondered if the queer Chinese letters spelled Abbie Snover, Almont, Michigan. She opened the album again and hunted until she found the picture of Tom Thorington in his guard's uniform. Then she placed the labels next to the picture, closed the album, and carefully fastened the adjustable clasp.
Under Abbie's constant attention, the little orange-tree thrived. A tiny green orange appeared. Day by day she watched it grow, looking forward to the time when it would become large and yellow. The days grew shorter and colder, but she did not mind; every week the orange grew larger. After the first snow, she moved the tree into the down-stairs bedroom. She placed it on a little stand in the South window. The inside blinds, which she had always kept as her mother liked them bestthe lower blinds closed, the top blinds opened a little to let in the morning lightshe now threw wide open so that the tree would get all of the sun. And she kept a fire in the small sheet-iron stove, for fear that the old, drafty wood furnace might not send up a steady enough heat through the register. When the nights became severe, she crept down the narrow, winding stairs, and through the cold, bare halls, to put an extra chunk of hardwood into the stove. Every morning she swept and dusted the room; the ashes and wood dirt around the stove gave her something extra to do near the orange-tree. She removed the red and white coverlet from the bed, and put in its place the fancy patch-quilt with the green birds and the yellow flowers, to make the room look brighter.
"Abbie Snover loves that orange-tree more'n anything in the world," Old Chris cautioned the children when they came after cookies, "an' don't you dare touch it, even with your little finger."
The growing orange was as wonderful to the children as it was to Abbie. Instead of taking the cookies and hurrying home, they stood in front of the tree, their eyes round and big. And one day, when Abbie went to the clothes-press to get the cookie-pail, Bruce Sanders snipped the orange from the tree.
The children were unnaturally still when Abbie came out of the clothes-press. They did not rush forward to get the cookies. Abbie looked quickly at the tree; the pail of cookies dropped from her hands. She grabbed the two children nearest and shook them until their heads bumped together. Then she drove them all in front of her to the door and down the path to the gate, which she slammed shut behind them.
Once outside the gate the children ran, yelling: "Ab-bie Sno-ver, naaaah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, naaaah!"
Abbie, her hands trembling, her eyes hot, went back into the house. That was what came of letting them take fruit from the trees and vines in the yard; of giving them cookies every time they rang her door-bell. Well, there would be no more cookies, and Old Chris should be told never to let them come into the yard again.
That evening, when the metallic hiccough of the well pump on the kitchen porch told her that Old Chris was drawing up fresh water for the night, Abbie went out into the kitchen to make sure that he placed one end of the prop under the knob of the kitchen door and the other end against the leg of the kitchen table.
"It'll freeze afore mornin'," said Old Chris.
"Yes," Abbie answered.
But she did not get up in the night to put an extra chunk of wood in the stove of the down-stairs bedroom.
"Ab-bie Sno-ver, naaaah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, naaaah!"
Old Chris stopped shoveling snow to shake his fist at the yelling children.
"Your Mas'll fix you, if you don't stop that screechin'!"
And they answered: "Ab-bie Sno-ver, an' old Chris! Ab-bie Sno-ver, an' old Chris!"
Every day they yelled the two names as they passed the big house. They yelled them on their way to and from school, and on their way to Giddings's Hill to slide. The older boys took it up, and yelled it when they saw Abbie and Old Chris on Main Street Saturday mornings. And finally they rimed it into a couplet,
"Ab-bie Sno-ver, an' Old Chris
We saw Chris an' Ab-bie kiss!"
It was too much. Abbie went to Hugh Perry's mother.
Mrs. Perry defended her young son. "He couldn't have done it," she told Abbie. "He ain't that kind of a boy, and you can just tell that Old Chris I said so. I guess it must be true, the way you're fussin' round!"
Mrs. Perry slammed the door in Abbie's face. Then she whipped her young son, and hated Abbie and Old Chris because they were responsible for it.
"That Abbie Snover came to my house," Mrs. Perry told Mrs. Rowles, "an' said my Hugh had been a-couplin' her name with Old Chris's in a nasty way. An' I told her"
"The idea! the idea!" Mrs. Rowles interrupted.
"An' I told her it must be so, an' I guess it is," Mrs. Perry concluded.
Mrs. Rowles called upon Pastor Lucus's wife.
Mrs. Perry slammed the door in Abbie's face. Then she whipped her young son, and hated Abbie and Old Chris because they were responsible for it.
"That Abbie Snover came to my house," Mrs. Perry told Mrs. Rowles, "an' said my Hugh had been a-couplin' her name with Old Chris's in a nasty way. An' I told her"
"The idea! the idea!" Mrs. Rowles interrupted.
"An' I told her it must be so, an' I guess it is," Mrs. Perry concluded.
Mrs. Rowles called upon Pastor Lucus's wife.
"Abbie Snover an' Old Chris was seen kissin'."
"It's scandalous," Mrs. Lucas told the pastor. "The town shouldn't put up with it a minute longer. That's what comes of Abbie Snover not coming to church since her Ma died."
On Saturday mornings when Abbie went down-town followed by Old Chris, the women eyed her coldly, and the faces of the men took on quizzical, humorous expressions. Abbie could not help but notice it; she was disturbed. The time for "the Jersey girls" to call came around. Every afternoon Abbie sat in the window and watched for them to turn the corner at Chase's Lane. She brought out the polished apples which she kept in the clothes-press all ready for some one, but "the Jersey girls" did not come.
"You haven't heard of anybody being sick at the Jersey house, have you, Chris?"
"Um? Nope!"
"Haven't seen Josie or Em Jersey anywhere lately?"
"Seen 'em at the post-office night afore last."
"H'mp!"
Abbie pushed the kettle to the front of the kitchen stove, poked up the fire, and put in fresh sticks of wood. When the water boiled she poured it into a blue-lacquered pail with yellow bands around the rim, carried it up the steep back stairs, and got out fresh stockings.
An hour later Old Chris saw her climbing up Tillson street. He scratched his head and frowned.
Abbie turned the corner at Chase's Lane. The snow, driven by the wind, blinded her. She almost bumped into Viny Freeman.
"My, Viny! What you doing out on such a day?"
Viny Freeman passed her without answering.
"Seems she didn't see me," Abbie muttered. "What can she be doing away down here on such a day? Must be something special to bring her out of her lonely old house with her lame side. My! I almost bumped that hand she's always holding up her pain with. My!"
Abbie turned into the Jersey gate and climbed the icy steps, hanging onto the railing with both hands. She saw Em Jersey rise from her chair in the parlor and go into the back sitting-room. Abbie pulled the bell-knob and waited. No one answered. She pulled it again. No answer. She rapped on the door with her knuckles. Big Mary, the Jersey hired girl, opened the door part way.
"They ain't to home."
"Ain't to home?" exclaimed Abbie. "My land! Didn't I just see Em Jersey through the parlor window?"
"No'm, you never did. They ain't to home."
"Well, I never! And their Ma and mine was cousins! They ain't sick or nothing? Well!"
The snow melted; the streets ran with water and then froze. Old Chris no longer came into the parlor in the evening to sit, his hands clasped over his thin stomach, his bald head bent until his chin rested upon the starched neckband of his shirt.
They ate in silence the meals which Abbie prepared: Old Chris at one end of the long table, and Abbie at the other end.
In silence they went about their accustomed tasks.
Abbie, tired with a new weariness, sat in her chair beside the marble-topped table. The village was talking about her; she knew it; she felt it all around her. Well, let them talk!
But one day Almont sent a committee to her. It was composed of one man and three women. Abbie saw them when they turned in at her gatePastor Lucus Lorina Inman, Antha Ewell, and Aunt Alphie Newberry.
Abbie walked to the center of the parlor and stood there, her hands clenched, her face set. The door-bell rang; for a moment her body swayed. Then she went into the bay window and drew the blinds aside. Antha Ewell saw her and jerked Pastor Lucus's arm. Pastor Lucus turned and caught sight of Abbie; he thought that she had not heard the bell, so he tapped the door panel with his fingers and nodded his head at her invitingly, as if to say:
"See, we're waiting for you to let us in." Abbie's expression did not change. Pastor Lucus tapped at the door again, this time hesitantly, and still she looked at them with unseeing eyes. He tapped a third time, then turned and looked at the three women. Aunt Alphie Newberry tugged, at his arm, and the committee of four turned about without looking at Abbie, and walked down the steps.
A few minutes later Abbie heard the door between the parlor and dining-room open. Old Chris came in. For a moment or two neither spoke. Old Chris fingered his cap.
"Abbie, I lived here forty-two years. I was here when you was born. I carried you around in my arms a little bit of thing an' made you laugh."
Abbie did not turn away from the window.
"I know what they came for," Old Chris continued. "Your Mayour Ma, she'd never thought I'd have to go away from here."
Abbie could not answer him.
"I don't know who'll keep the furnace a-goin' when I'm gone, nor fill the up-stairs woodroom."
Still no answer.
"I'm old nowI'll go to Owen Frazer's farmdown to Mile Corners. He'll have some work I can do."
Old Chris stroked his baggy cheeks with trembling hands. Abbie still looked out of the window.
"I'm a-goin' down to the post-office now," said Old Chris, as he turned and went to the door. "Be there anything you want?"
Abbie shook her head; she could not find words. As Old Chris went down the hall she heard him mumble, "I don't know what she'll do when I'm gone."
That night Abbie sat in the parlor window longer than usual. It was a white night; wet snow had been falling heavily all day. Some time between eight and nine o'clock she arose from her chair and went into the long, narrow dining-room. The pat-pat of her slippered feet aroused Old Chris from his nodding over the Farm Herald. Finding that the hot air was not coming up strong through the register over which he sat, the old man slowly pushed his wool-socked feet into felt-lined overshoes and tramped down into the cellar, picking up the kitchen lamp as he went. Abbie followed as far as the kitchen. The pungent dry-wood smell that came up the stairs when Old Chris swung open the door of the wood cellar made her sniff. She heard the sounds as he loaded the wheelbarrow with the sticks of quartered hardwood; the noise of the wheel bumping over the loose boards as he pushed his load into the furnace-room. She went back into the parlor and stood over the register. Hollow sounds came up through the pipe as Old Chris leveled the ashes in the fire-box and threw in the fresh sticks.
When Old Chris came up from the cellar and went out onto the porch to draw up fresh water for the night, Abbie went back into the kitchen.
"It's snowin' hard out," said Old Chris.
"Yes," Abbie answered.
She led the way back into the dining-room. Old Chris placed the kitchen lamp on the stand under the fruit picture and waited. For a few moments they stood in the blast of hot air rising from the register. Then Abbie took up the larger of the two lamps. Through the bare, high-ceilinged rooms she went, opening and closing the heavy doors; on through the cold, empty hall, up the stairs, into the South bedroom. While she was closing the blinds she heard Old Chris stumble up the back stairs and into the chamber he had occupied ever since she could remember.
The night after Old Chris had gone, Abbie took the brass dinner-bell from the pantry shelf and set it on the chair beside her bed. Over the back of the chair she placed her heavy, rabbit-lined coat; it would be handy if any one disturbed her. Once or twice when she heard sounds, she put out her hand and touched the bell; but the sounds did not recur. The next night she tried sleeping in the down-stairs bedroom. The blue-and-gray carpet, the blue fixings on the bureau and commode, the blue bands around the wash-bowl and pitcherall faded and old-lookingreminded her of her mother and father, and would not let her sleep. On the wall in front of her was a picture in a black frame of a rowboat filled with people. It was called "From Shore to Shore." Trying not to see it, her eyes were caught by a black-and-white print in a gilt frame, called "The First Steps." How she had loved the picture when she was a little girl; her mother had explained it to her many timesthe bird teaching its little ones to fly; the big, shaggy dog encouraging its waddling puppies; the mother coaxing her baby to walk alone.