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 stiffened her neck. “There ain't no call for you to speak that way, Hannah. They got to talkin' over the 'lection.”
“The 'lection! I'd like to know what business they had talkin' about it Sabbath night anyway? I ain't blamin' Barnabas so much; he's younger an' easier stirred up; but Cephas Barnard is an old man, an' he has been a church-member for forty year, an' he ought to know enough to set a better example. I'd like to know what difference it makes about the 'lection anyway? What odds does it make which one is President if he rules the country well? An' that they can't tell till they've tried him awhile anyway. I guess they don't think much about the country; it's jest to have their own way about it. I'd like to know what mortal difference it's goin' to make to Barney Thayer or Cephas Barnard which man is President? He won't never hear of them, an' they won't neither of them make him rule any different after he's chose. It's jest like two little boys—one wants to play marbles 'cause the other wants to play puss-in-the-corner, an' that's all the reason either one of 'em's got for standin' out. Men ain't got any too much sense anyhow, when you come right down to it. They don't ever get any too much grown up, the best of 'em. I'd like to know what Cephas Barnard has got to say because he's drove a good, likely young man like Barnabas Thayer off an' broke off his daughter's match? It ain't likely she'll ever get anybody now; young men like him, with nice new houses put up to go right to housekeepin' in as soon as they are married, don't grow on every bush. They ain't quite so thick as wild thimbleberries. An' Charlotte ain't got any money herself, an' her father ain't got any to build a house for her. I'd like to know what he's got to say about it?”
Mrs. Barnard put up her apron and began to weep helplessly.
“Don't, mother,” said Charlotte, in an undertone. But her mother began talking in a piteous wailing fashion.
“You hadn't ought to talk so about Cephas,” she moaned. “He's my husband. I guess you wouldn't like it if anybody talked so about your husband. Cephas ain't any worse than anybody else. It's jest his way. He wa'n't any more to blame than Barney; they both got to talkin'. I know Cephas is terrible upset about it this mornin'; he 'ain't really said so in so many words, but I know by the way he acts. He said this mornin' that he didn't know but we were eatin' the wrong kind of food. Lately he's had an idea that mebbe we'd ought to eat more meat; he's thought it was more strengthenin', an' we'd ought to eat things as near like what we wanted to strengthen as could be. I've made a good deal of bone soup. But now he says he thinks mebbe he's been mistaken, an' animal food kind of quickens the animal nature in us, an' that we'd better eat green things an' garden sass.”
“I guess garden sass will strengthen the other kind of sass that Cephas Barnard has got in him full as much as bone soup has,” interrupted Hannah Berry, with a sarcastic sniff.
“I dunno but he's right,” said Mrs. Barnard. “Cephas thinks a good deal an' looks into things. I kind of wish he'd waited till the garden had got started, though, for there ain't much we can eat now but potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion greens.”
“If you want to live on potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion greens, you can,” cried Hannah Berry; “What I want to know is if you're goin' to settle down an' say nothin', an' have Charlotte lose the best chance she'll ever have in her life, if she lives to be a hundred—”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком,
