Timothy's Quest
Page 9
SCENE VIII.
_The Old Garden._
JABE AND SAMANTHA EXCHANGE HOSTILITIES, AND THE FORMER SAYS A GOOD WORDFOR THE LITTLE WANDERERS.
"God Almighty first planted a garden, and it is indeed the purest of allhuman pleasures," said Lord Bacon, and Miss Vilda would have agreed withhim. Her garden was not simply the purest of all her pleasures, it washer only one; and the love that other people gave to family, friends, orkindred she lavished on her posies.
It was a dear, old-fashioned, odorous garden, where Dame Nature hadnever been forced but only assisted to do her duty. Miss Vilda sowed herseeds in the springtime wherever there chanced to be room, and they cameup and flourished and went to seed just as they liked, those being theonly duties required of them. Two splendid groups of fringed "pinies,"the pride of Miss Avilda's heart, grew just inside the gate, and hardby the handsomest dahlias in the village, quilled beauties like carvedrosettes of gold and coral and ivory. There was plenty of feathery"sparrowgrass," so handy to fill the black and yawning chasms of summerfireplaces and furnish green for "boquets." There was a stray peach orgreengage tree here and there, and if a plain, well-meaning carrotchanced to lift its leaves among the poppies, why, they were all thechildren of the same mother, and Miss Vilda was not the woman to rootout the invader and fling it into the ditch. There was a bed of yellowtomatoes, where, in the season, a hundred tiny golden balls hung amongthe green leaves; and just beside them, in friendly equality, a tangleof pink sweet-williams, fragrant phlox, delicate bride's-tears,canterbury bells blue as the June sky, none-so-pretties, gay cockscombs,and flaunting marigolds, which would insist on coming up all together,summer after summer, regardless of color harmonies. Last, but not least,there was a patch of sweet peas,
"on tiptoe for a flight, With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white."
These dispensed their sweet odors so generously that it was a favoritediversion among the village children to stand in rows outside the fence,and, elevating their bucolic noses, simultaneously "sniff Miss Cummins'peas." The garden was large enough to have little hills and dales of itsown, and its banks sloped gently down to the river. There was a gnarledapple tree hidden by a luxuriant wild grapevine, a fit bower for a"lov'd Celia" or a "fair Rosamond." There was a spring, whose crystalwaters were "cabined, cribbed, confined" within a barrel sunk in theearth; a brook singing its way among the alder bushes, and dripping hereand there into pools, over which the blue harebells leaned to seethemselves. There was a summer-house, too, on the brink of the hill; aweather-stained affair, with a hundred names carved on its venerablelattices,--names of youths and maidens who had stood there in themoonlight and plighted rustic vows.
If you care to feel a warm glow in the region of your heart, imaginelittle Timothy Jessup sent to play in that garden,--sent to play foralmost the first time in his life! Imagine it, I ask, for there are somethings too sweet to prick with a pen-point. Timothy stayed therefifteen minutes, and running back to the house in a state of intoxicateddelight went up to Samantha, and laying an insistent hand on hers saidexcitedly, "Oh, Samanthy, you didn't tell me--there is shining waterdown in the garden; not so big as the ocean, nor so still as the harbor,but a kind of baby river running along by itself with the sweetestnoise. Please, Miss Vilda, may I take Gay to see it, and will it hurt itif I wash Rags in it?"
"Let 'em all go," suggested Samantha; "there's Jabe dawdlin' along theroad, and they might as well be out from under foot."
"Don't be too hard on Jabe this morning, Samanthy,--he's been to see theBaptist minister at Edgewood; you know he's going to be baptized sometime next month."
"Well, he needs it! But land sakes! you couldn't make them Slocums pious'f you kep' on baptizin' of 'em till the crack o' doom. I never hearntell of a Slocum's gittin' baptized in July. They allers take 'em afterthe freshets in the spring o' the year, 'n' then they have to beturrible careful to douse 'em lengthways of the river. Look at him, willye? I b'lieve he's grown sence yesterday! If he'd ever stood stiff onhis feet when he was a boy, he needn't 'a' been so everlastin' tall; buthe was forever roostin' on fences' with his laigs danglin', 'n' the heftof his feet stretched 'em out,--it couldn't do no dif'rent. I ain't gotno patience with him."
"Jabe has considerable many good points," said Miss Cummins loyally;"he's faithful,--you always know where to find him."
"Good reason why," retorted Samantha. "You always know where to find him'cause he gen'ally hain't moved sence you seen him last. Gittin'religion ain't goin' to help him much. If he ever hears tell 'bout thegate of heaven bein' open 't the last day, he won't 'a' begun to beginthinkin' 'bout gittin' in tell he hears the door shet in his face; 'n'then he'll set ri' down's comf'table's if he was inside, 'n' say, 'Wall,better luck next time: slow an' sure 's my motto!' Good-mornin',Jabe,--had your dinner?"
"I ain't even hed my breakfast," responded Mr. Slocum easily.
"Blessed are the lazy folks, for they always git their chores done for'em," remarked Samantha scathingly, as she went to the buttery forprovisions.
"Wall," said Laigs, looking at her with his most irritating smile, as hesat down at the kitchen table, "I don't find I git thru any more work bytumblin' out o' bed 't sun-up 'n I dew 'f I lay a spell 'n' let theunivarse git het up 'n' runnin' a leetle mite. 'Slow 'n' easy goes furin a day' 's my motto. Rhapseny, she used to say she should think I'd beashamed to lay abed so late. 'Wall, I be,' s' I, 'but I'd ruther beashamed 'n git up!' But you're an awful good cook, Samanthy, if ye airallers in a hurry, 'n' if yer hev got a sharp tongue!"
"The less you say 'bout my tongue the better!" snapped Samantha.
"Right you are," answered Jabe with a good-natured grin, as he went onwith his breakfast. He had a huge appetite, another grievance inSamantha's eyes. She always said "there was no need of his being soslab-sided 'n' slack-twisted 'n' knuckle-jointed,--that he eat enough inall conscience, but he wouldn't take the trouble to find the victualsthat would fat him up 'n' fill out his bag o' bones."
Just as Samantha's well-cooked viands began to disappear in Jabe'scapacious mouth (he always ate precisely as if he were stoking anengine) his eye rested upon a strange object by the wood-box, and he putdown his knife and ejaculated, "Well, I swan! Now when 'n' where'd I seethat baby-shay? Why, 't was yesterday. Well, I vow, them young ones wascomin' here, was they?"
"What young ones?" asked Miss Vilda, exchanging astonished glances withSamantha.
"And don't begin at the book o' Genesis 'n' go clean through the Bible,'s you gen'ally do. Start right in on Revelations, where you belong,"put in Samantha; for to see a man unexpectedly loaded to the muzzle withnews, and too lazy to fire it off, was enough to try the patience of asaint; and even David Milliken would hardly have applied that term toSamantha Ann Ripley.
"Give a feller time to think, will yer?" expostulated Jabe, with hismouth full of pie. "Everything comes to him as waits 'd be an awful goodmotto for you! Where'd I see 'em? Why, I fetched 'em as fur as thecross-roads myself."
"Well, I never!" "I want to know!" cried the two women in one breath.
"I picked 'em up out on the road, a little piece this side o' thestation. 'T was at the top o' Marm Berry's hill, that's jest where 'twas. The boy was trudgin' along draggin' the baby 'n' the basket, 'n' Ithought I'd give him a lift, so s' I, 'Goin' t' the Swamp or t' theFalls?' s' I. 'To the Falls,' s' 'e. 'Git in,' s' I, ''n' I'll give yera ride, 'f y' ain't in no hurry,' s' I. So in he got, 'n' the baby tew.When I got putty near home, I happened ter think I'd oughter gone roun'by the tan'ry 'n' picked up the Widder Foss, 'n' so s' I, 'I ain't goin'no nearer to the Falls; but I guess your laigs is good for the balanceo' the way, ain't they?' s' I. 'I guess they be!' s' 'e. Then he thankedme 's perlite's Deacon Sawyer's first wife, 'n' I left him 'n' his folksin the road where I found 'em."
"Didn't you ask where he belonged nor where he was bound?"
"'T ain't my way to waste good breath askin' questions 't ain't none o'my bis'ness," replied Mr. Slocum.
"Yo
u're right, it ain't," responded Samantha, as she slammed themilk-pans in the sink; "'n' it's my hope that some time when you getgood and ready to ask somebody somethin' they'll be in too much of ahurry to answer you!"
"Be they any of your folks, Miss Vildy?" asked Jabe, grinning withdelight at Samantha's ill humor.
"No," she answered briefly.
"What yer cal'latin' ter do with 'em?"
"I haven't decided yet. The boy says they haven't got any folks nor anyhome; and I suppose it's our duty to find a place for 'em. I don't seebut we've got to go to the expense of takin' 'em back to the city andputtin' 'em in some asylum."
"How'd they happen to come here?"
"They ran away from the city yesterday, and they liked the looks of thisplace; that's all the satisfaction we can get out of 'em, and I dare sayit's a pack of lies."
"That boy wouldn't tell a lie no more 'n a seraphim!" said Samanthatersely.
"You can't judge folks by appearances," answered Vilda. "But anyhow,don't talk to the neighbors, Jabe; and if you haven't got anythingspecial on hand to-day, I wish you'd patch the roof of the summer houseand dig us a mess of beet greens. Keep the children with you, and seewhat you make of 'em; they're playin' in the garden now."
"All right. I'll size 'em up the best I ken, tho' mebbe it'll hender mein my work some; but time was made for slaves, as the molasses said whenthey told it to hurry up in winter time."
Two hours later, Miss Vilda looked from the kitchen window and saw JabezSlocum coming across the road from the garden. Timothy trudged besidehim, carrying the basket of greens in one hand, and the other locked inJabe's huge paw; his eyes upturned and shining with pleasure, his lipsmoving as if he were chattering like a magpie. Lady Gay was just whereyou might have expected to find her, mounted on the towering height ofJabe's shoulder, one tiny hand grasping his weather-beaten straw hat,while with the other she whisked her willing steed with an alder switchwhich had evidently been cut for that purpose by the victim himself.
"That's the way he's sizin' of 'em up," said Samantha, leaning overVilda's shoulder with a smile. "I'll bet they've sized him up enoughsight better 'n he has them!"
Jabe left the children outside, and came in with the basket. Putting hishat in the wood-box and hitching up his trousers impressively, he satdown on the settle.
"Them ain't no children to be wanderin' about the earth afoot 'n' alone,'same 's Hitty went to the beach;' nor they ain't any common truck terbe put inter 'sylums 'n' poor-farms. There's some young ones that's soeverlastin' chuckle-headed 'n' hombly 'n' contrairy that they ain'thardly wuth savin'; but these ain't that kind. The baby, now you've gother cleaned up, is han'somer 'n any baby on the river, 'n' a reg'larchunk o' sunshine besides. I'd be willin' ter pay her a little suthin'for livin' alongside. The boy--well, the boy is a extra-ordinary boy. Wegot on tergether's slick as if we was twins. That boy's got idees,that's what he's got; 'n' he's likely to grow up into--well, 'mostanything."
"If you think so highly of 'em, why don't you adopt 'em?" asked MissVilda curtly. "That's what they seem to think folks ought to do."
"I ain't sure but I shall," Mr. Slocum responded unexpectedly. "If youcan't find a better home for 'em somewheres, I ain't sure but I'll take'em myself. Land sakes! if Rhapseny was alive I'd adopt 'em quicker 'nblazes; but marm won't take to the idee very strong, I don't s'pose, 'n'she ain't much on bringin' up children, as I ken testify. Still, she's aheap better 'n a brick asylum with a six-foot stone wall round it, whenyer come to that. But I b'lieve we ken do better for 'em. I can say tofolks, 'See here: here's a couple o' smart, han'some children. You canhave 'em for nothin', 'n' needn't resk the onsartainty o' gittin'married 'n' raisin' yer own; 'n' when yer come ter that, yer wouldn'tstan' no charnce o' gittin' any as likely as these air, if ye did.'"
"That's true as the gospel!" said Samantha. It nearly killed her toagree with him, but the words were fairly wrung from her unwilling lipsby his eloquence and wisdom.
"Well, we'll see what we can do for 'em," said Vilda in a non-committaltone; "and here they'll have to stay, for all I see, tell we can gettime to turn round and look 'em up a place."
"And the way their edjercation has been left be," continued Mr. Slocum,"is a burnin' shame in a Christian country. I don' b'lieve they ever seethe inside of a school-house! I've learned 'em more this mornin' 'nthey ever hearn tell of before, but they're 's ignorant 's Cooper's cowyit. They don' know tansy from sorrel, nor slip'ry ellum frompennyroyal, nor burdock from pigweed; they don' know a dand'lion from ahole in the ground; they don' know where the birds put up when it comeson night; they never see a brook afore, nor a bull-frog; they neverhearn tell o' cat-o'-nine-tails, nor jack-lanterns, nor see-saws. Landsakes! we got ter talkin' 'bout so many things that I clean forgot thesummer-house roof. But there! this won't do for me: I must be goin';there ain't no rest for the workin'-man in this country."
"If there wa'n't no work for him, he'd be wuss off yet," respondedSamantha.
"Right ye are, Samanthy! Look here, when 'd you want that box you giveme to fix?"
"I wanted it before hayin', but I s'pose any time before Thanksgivin''ll do, seein' it's you."
"What's wuth doin' 't all 's wuth takin' time over, 's my motto," saidJabe cheerfully, "but seein' it's you, I'll nail that cover on ter nightor bust!"