Laura Richards
Mrs. Tree

CHAPTER IX.
A GARDEN PARTY

It was a golden morning in mid-October; one of those mornings when Summer seems to turn in her footsteps, and come back to search for something she had left behind. Wherever one looked was gold: gold of maple and elm leaves, gold of late-lingering flowers, gold of close-shorn fields. Over and in and through it all, airy gold of quivering, dancing sunbeams.

No spot in all Elmerton was brighter than Mrs. Tree's garden, which took the morning sun full in the face. Here were plenty of flowers still, marigolds, coreopsis, and chrysanthemums, all drinking in the sun-gold and giving it out again, till the whole place quivered with light and warmth.

Mrs. Tree, clad in an antique fur-trimmed pelisse, with an amazing garden hat surmounting her cap, sat in a hooded wicker chair on the porch talking to William Jaquith, who was tying up roses and covering them with straw.

"Yes; such things mostly go crisscross," she was saying. "Careful with that Bride Blush, Willy; that young scamp of a Geoffrey Strong gave it to me, and I suppose I shall have to tend it the rest of my days. Humph! pity you didn't know him; he might have done something for that cough. He got the girl he wanted, but more often they don't. Look at James Stedman! and there's Homer Hollopeter has been in love with Mary Ashton ever since he was in petticoats."

"With Mary – do you mean my mother?" said Jaquith, looking up.

"She wasn't your mother when he began!" said the old lady, tartly. "He couldn't foresee that she was going to be, could he? If he had he might have asked your permission. She preferred George Jaquith, naturally. Women mostly prefer a handsome scamp. Not that Homer ever looked like anything but a sheep. Then there was Lily Bent – "

She broke off suddenly. "You're tying that all crooked, Will Jaquith. I'll come and do it myself if you can't do better than that."

"I'll have it right in a moment, Mrs. Tree. You were saying – something about Lily Bent?"

"There are half a dozen lilies bent almost double!" Mrs. Tree declared, peevishly. "Careless! I paid five dollars for that Golden Lily, young man, and you handle it as if it were a yellow turnip."

"Mrs. Tree!"

"Well, what is it? It's time for me to have my nap, I expect."

"Mrs. Tree," – the young man's voice was earnest and pleading, – "I brought you a letter from Lily Bent this morning. I have been waiting – I want to hear something about her. I know she has been an angel of tenderness and goodness to my mother ever since – why does she stay away so long?"

"Because she's having a good time, I suppose," said Mrs. Tree, dryly. "She's been tied close enough these last three years, what with her grandmother and – one thing and another. The old woman's dead now, and small loss. Everybody's dead, I believe, except me and a parcel of silly children. I forget what you said became of that – of your wife after she left you."

"She died," said Jaquith, abstractedly. "Didn't I tell you? They went South, and she took yellow fever. It was only a month after – "

"No, you did not!" cried Mrs. Tree, sitting bolt upright. "You never told me a word, Willy Jaquith. What Providence was thinking of when it made this generation, passes me to conceive. If I couldn't make a better one out of fish-glue and calico, I'd give up. Bah! I've no patience with you."

She struck her stick sharply on the floor, and her little hands trembled.

"I am sorry we don't amount to more," said Jaquith, smiling, "But – I think my glue is hardening, Mrs. Tree. Tell me where Lily Bent is, that's a dear good soul, and why she stays away so long."

"I can't!" cried the old woman, and she wrung her hands. "I cannot, Willy."

"You cannot, and my mother will not," repeated William Jaquith, slowly. "And there is no one else I can or will ask. Why can you not tell me, Mrs. Tree? I think you have no right to refuse me so much information."

"Because I promised not to tell you!" cried Mrs. Tree. "There! don't speak to me, or I shall go into a caniption! If I had known, I never would have promised. I never made a promise yet that I wasn't sorry for. Dear me, Sirs! I wonder if ever anybody was so pestered as I am.

"There! there's James Stedman. Call him over here! and don't you speak a word to me, Willy Jaquith, but finish those plants, if you are ever going to."

Obeying Jaquith's hail, Doctor Stedman, who had been for passing with a bow and a wave of the hand, turned and came up the garden walk.

"Good morning, James Stedman," said Mrs. Tree. "You haven't been near me for a month. I might be dead and buried twenty times over for all you know or care about me. A pretty kind of doctor you are!"

"What do you want of me, Mrs. Tree?" asked Doctor Stedman, laughing, and shaking the little brown hand held out to him. "I'll come once a week, if you don't take care, and then what would you say? What do you want of me, my lady?"

"I don't want my bones crushed, just for the sake of giving you the job of mending them," said the old lady. "I'd as lief shake paws with a grizzly bear. You are getting to look rather like one, my poor James. I've always told you that if you would only shave, you might have a better chance – but never mind about that now. You were wanting to know where Lily Bent was."

"Was I?" said Doctor Stedman, wondering. "Lily Bent! why, I haven't – "

"Yes, you have," said Mrs. Tree, sharply. "Or if you haven't, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. She is staying with George Greenwell's folks, over at Parsonsbridge; his wife was her father's sister, a wall-eyed woman with crockery teeth. George Greenwell, Parsonsbridge, do you hear? There! now I must go and take my nap, and plague take everybody, I say. Good morning to you!"

Rising from her seat with amazing celerity, she whisked into the house before Doctor Stedman's astonished eyes, and closed the door smartly after her.

With a low whistle, Doctor Stedman turned to William Jaquith.

"Our old friend seems agitated," he said. "What has happened to distress her?"

Jaquith made no reply. He was tying up a rosebush with shaking fingers, and his usually pale face was flushed, perhaps with exertion.

Doctor Stedman's bushy eyebrows came together.

"Hum!" he said, half aloud. "Lily Bent! why, – ha! yes. How is your mother, Will? I have not seen her for some time."

"She's very well, thank you, sir!" said Will Jaquith, hurrying on his coat, and gathering up his gardening tools. "If you will excuse me, Doctor Stedman, I must get back to the office; Mr. Homer will be looking for me; he gave me this hour off, to see to Mrs. Tree's roses. Good day."

"Now, what is going on here?" said James Stedman to himself, as, still standing on the porch, he watched the young man going off down the street with long strides. "The air is full of mystery – and prickles. And why is Lily Bent – pretty creature! Why, I haven't seen her since I came back, haven't laid eyes on her! Why is she brought into it? H'm! let me see! Wasn't there a boy and girl attachment between her and Willy Jaquith? To be sure there was! I can see them now going to school together, he carrying her satchel. Then – she had a long bout of slow fever, I remember. Pottle attended her, and it's a wonder – h'm! But wasn't that about the time when that little witch, Ada Vere, came here, and turned both the boys' heads, and carried off poor Willy, and half broke Arthur's heart? H'm! Well, I don't know what I can do about it. Hum! pretty it all looks here! If there isn't the strawberry bush, grown out of all knowledge! We were big children, Vesta and I, before we gave up hoping that it would bear strawberries. How we used to play here!"

His eyes wandered about the pleasant place, resting with friendly recognition on every knotty shrub and ancient vine.

"The snowball is grown a great tree. How long is it since I have really been in this garden? Passing through in a hurry, one doesn't see things. That must be the rose-flowered hawthorn. My dear little Vesta! I can see her now with the wreath I made for her one day. She was a little pink rose then under the rosy wreath; now she is a white one, but more a rose than ever. Whom have we here?"

A wagon had drawn up by the garden gate with two sleepy white horses. A brown, white-bearded face was turned toward the doctor.

"Hello, doc'," said a cheery voice. "I want to know if that's you!"

"Nobody else, Mr. Butters! What is the good word with you? Are you coming in, or shall I – "

But Mr. Ithuriel Butters was already clambering down from his seat, and now came up the garden walk carrying a parcel in his hand. An old man of patriarchal height and build, with hair and beard to match. Dress him in flowing robes or in armor of brass and you would have had Abraham or a chief of the Maccabees, "'cordin' to," as he would have said. As it was, he was Old Man Butters of the Butterses Lane Ro'd, Shellback.

He gave Doctor Stedman a mighty grip, and surveyed him with friendly eyes.

"Wal, you've been in furrin parts sence I see ye. I expected you'd come back some kind of outlandishman, but I don't see but you look as nat'ral as nails in a door. Ben all over, hey? Seen the hull consarn?"

"Pretty near, Mr. Butters; I saw all I could hold, anyhow."

"See anything to beat the State of Maine?"

"I think not. No, certainly not."

"Take fall weather in the State of Maine," said Mr. Butters, slowly, his eyes roving about the sunlit garden; "take it when it's good – when it is good – it's good, sometimes! Not but what I've thought myself I should like to see furrin parts before I go. Don't want to appear ignorant where I'm goin', you understand. Mis' Tree to home, I presume likely?"

"Yes, she is at home, Mr. Butters, but I have an idea she is lying down just now. Perhaps in half an hour – "

"Nothing of the sort!" said a voice like the click of castanets; and here was Mrs. Tree again, pelisse, hat, stick, and all. Doctor Stedman stared.

"How do you do, Ithuriel?" said Mrs. Tree, in a friendly tone, "I am glad to see you. Sit down on the bench! You may sit down too, James, if you like. What brings you in to-day, Ithuriel?"

"I brought some apples in for Blyths's folks," said Mr. Butters. "And I brought you a present, Mis' Tree."

He untied his parcel, and produced a pair of large snowy wings.

"I ben killin' some gooses lately," he explained. "The woman allers meant to send you in a pair o' wings for dusters, but she never got round to it, so I thought I'd fetch 'em in now. They're kind o' handy round a fireplace."

The wings were graciously accepted and praised.

"I was sorry to hear of your wife's death, Ithuriel," said Mrs. Tree. "I am told she was a most excellent woman."

"Yes'm, she was!" said Mr. Butters, soberly. "She was a good woman and a smart one. Pleasant to live with, too, which they ain't all. Yes, I met with a loss surely in Loviny."

"Was it sudden?"

"P'ralsis! She only lived two days after she was called, and I was glad, for she'd lost her speech, and no woman can stand that. She knowed things, you understand, she knowed things, but she couldn't free her mind. 'Loviny,' I says, 'if you know me,' I says, 'jam my hand!' She jammed it, but she never spoke. Yes'm, 'twas a visitation. I dono as I shall git me another now."

"Well, I should hope not, Ithuriel Butters!" said Mrs. Tree, with some asperity. "Why, you are nearly as old as I am, you ridiculous creature, and you have had three wives already. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Wal, I dono as I be, Mis' Tree," said Mr. Butters, sturdily. "Age goes by feelin's, 'pears to me, more'n by Family Bibles. Take the Bible, and you'd think mebbe I warn't so young as some; but take the way I feel – why, I'm as spry as any man of sixty I know, and spryer than most of 'em. I like the merried state, and it suits me. Men-folks is like pickles, some; women-folks is the brine they're pickled in; they don't keep sweet without 'em. Besides, it's terrible lon'some on a farm, now I tell ye, with none but hired help, and them so poor you can't tell 'em from the broomstick hardly, except for their eatin'."

"Where is your stepdaughter? I thought she lived with you."

"Alviry? She's merried!" Mr. Butters threw his head back with a huge laugh. "Ain't you heerd about Alviry's gittin' merried, Mis' Tree? Wal, wal!"

He settled back in his seat, and the light of the story-teller came into his eyes.

"I expect I'll have to tell you about that. 'Bout six weeks ago – two months maybe it was – a man come to the door – back door – and knocked. Alviry peeked through the kitchen winder, – she's terrible skeert of tramps, – and she see 'twas a decent-appearin' man, so she went to the door.

"'Miss Alviry Wilcox to home?' says he.

"'You see her before ye!' says Alviry, speakin' kind o' short.

"'I want to know!' says he. 'I was lookin' for a housekeeper, and you was named,' he says, 'so I thought I'd come out and see ye.'

"She questioned him, – Alviry's a master hand at questionin', – and he said he was a farmer livin' down East Parsonsbridge way; a hundred acres, and a wood-lot, and six cows, and I dono what all. Wal, Alviry's ben kind o' uneasy, and lookin' for a change, for quite a spell back. I suspicioned she'd be movin' on, fust chance she got. I s'pose she thought mebbe Parsonsbridge butter would churn easier than Shellback; I dono. Anyhow, she said mebbe she'd try it for a spell, and he might expect her next week. Wal, sir, – ma'am, I ask your pardon, – he'd got his answer, and yet he didn't seem ready to go. He kind o' shuffled his feet, Alviry said, and stood round, and passed remarks on the weather and sich; and she was jest goin' to say she must git back to her ironin', when he hums and haws, and says he: 'I dono but 'twould be full as easy if we was to git merried. I'm a single man, and a good character. If you've no objections, we might fix it up that way,' he says.

"Wal! Alviry was took aback some at that, and she said she'd have to consider of it, and ask my advice and all. 'Why, land sake!' she says, 'I don't know what your name is,' she says, 'let alone marryin' of ye.'

"So he told her his name, – Job Weezer it was; I know his folks; he has got a wood-lot, I guess he's all right, – and she said if he'd come back next day she'd give him his answer. Wal, sir, – ma'am, I should say, – when I come in from milkin' she told me. I laughed till I surely thought I'd shake to pieces; and Alviry sittin' there, as sober as a jedge, not able to see what in time I was laughin' at.

"Wal, all about it was, he come back next day, and she said yes; and they was merried in a week's time by Elder Tyson, and off they went. I believe they're doin' well, and both parties satisfied; but if it ain't the beat of anything ever I see!"

"It is quite scandalous, if that is what you mean!" said Mrs. Tree. "I never heard of such heathen doings."

"That ain't the p'int!" said Mr. Butters, chuckling. "They ain't no spring goslin's, neither one on 'em; old enough to know their own minds. What gits me is, what he see in Alviry!"

CHAPTER X.
MR. BUTTERS DISCOURSES

After leaving Mrs. Tree's house, Mr. Ithuriel Butters drove slowly along the village street toward the post-office. He jerked the reins loosely once or twice, but for the most part let the horses take their own way; he seemed absorbed in thought, and now and then he shook his head and muttered to himself, his bright blue eyes twinkling, the humorous lines of his strong old face deepening into smiling furrows. Passing the Temple of Vesta, he looked up sharply at the windows, seemed half inclined to check his horses; but no one was to be seen, and he let them take their sleepy way onward.

"I d'no as 'twould be best," he said to himself. "Diplomy's a fine woman, I wouldn't ask to see a finer; but there, I d'no how 'tis. When you've had pie you don't hanker after puddin', even when it's good puddin'; and Loviny was pie; yes, sir! she was, no mistake; mince, and no temperance mince neither. Guess I'll get along someways the rest of the time. Seems as if some of Alviry's talk must have got lodged in the cracks or somewhere; there's ben enough of it these three months. Mebbe that'll last me through. Git ap, you!"

Arrived at the post-office, Mr. Butters quitted his perch once more, and with a word to the old horses (which they did not hear, being already asleep) made his way into the outer room. Seth Weaver, who was leaning on the ledge of the delivery window, turned and greeted the old man cordially.

"Well, Uncle Ithe, how goes it?"

"H'are ye, Seth?" replied Mr. Butters, "How's the folks? Mornin', Homer! anything for out our way? How's Mother gettin' on, Seth?"

"She's slim," replied his nephew, "real slim, Mother is. She's ben doctorin' right along, too, but it don't seem to help her any. I'm goin' to get her some new stuff this mornin' that she heard of somewhere."

"Help her? No, nor it ain't goin' to help her," said Mr. Butters, with some heat; "it's goin' to hender her. Parcel o' fools! She's taken enough physic now to pison a four-year-old gander. Don't you get her no more!"

"Wal," said Weaver, easily, "I dono as it really henders her any, Uncle Ithe; and it takes up her mind, gives her something to think about. She doctored Father so long, you know, and she's used to messin' with roots and herbs; and now her sight's failin', I tell ye, come medicine time, she brightens up and goes for it same as if it was new cider. I don't know as I feel like denyin' her a portion o' physic, seein' she appears to crave it. She thought this sounded like good searchin' medicine, too. Them as told her about it said you feel it all through you."

"I should think you would!" retorted Mr. Butters. "So you would a quart of turpentine if you took and swallered it."

"Wal, I don't know what else to do, that's the fact!" Weaver admitted. "Mother's slim, I tell ye. I do gredge seein' her grouchin' round, smart a woman as she's ben."

"You make me think of Sile Stover, out our way," said Mr. Butters. "He sets up to be a hoss doctor, ye know; hosses and stock gen'lly. Last week he called me in to see a hog that was failin' up. Said he'd done all he could do, and the critter didn't seem to be gettin' no better, and what did I advise?

"'What have ye done?' says I.

"'Wal,' says he, 'I've cut his tail, and drawed two of his teeth, and I dono what else to do,' he says. Hoss doctor! A clo'es-hoss is the only kind he knows much about, I calc'late."

"Wasn't he the man that tried to cure Peckham's cow of the horn ail, bored a hole in her horn and put in salt and pepper, – or was it oil and vinegar?"

Mr. Butters nodded. "Same man! Now that kind of a man will always find folks enough to listen to him and take up his dum notions. I tell ye what it is! You can have drought, and you can have caterpillars, and you can have frost. You can lose your hay crop, and your apple crop, and your potato crop; but there's one crop there can't nothin' touch, and that's the fool crop. You can count on that, sartin as sin. I tell ye, Seth, don't you fill your mother up with none of that pison stuff. She's a good woman, if she did marry a Weaver."

Seth's eyes twinkled. "Well, Uncle Ithe, seein' you take it so hard," he said, "I don't mind tellin' you that I'd kind o' thought the matter out for myself; and it 'peared to me that a half a pint o' molasses stirred up with a gre't spoonful o' mustard and a small one of red pepper would look about the same, and taste jest as bad, and wouldn't do her a mite of harm. I ain't all Weaver now, be I?"

Uncle and nephew exchanged a sympathetic chuckle. At this moment Mr. Homer's meek head appeared at the window.

"There are no letters for you to-day, Mr. Butters," he said, deprecatingly; "but here is one for Miss Leora Pitcher; she is in your neighborhood, I believe?"

"Wal, depends upon what you call neighborhood," Mr. Butters replied. "It's two miles by the medders, and four by the ro'd."

"Oh!" said Mr. Homer, still more deprecatingly; "I was not aware that the distance was so considerable, Mr. Butters. I conceived that Miss Pitcher's estate and yours were – adjacent; – a – contiguous; – a – in point of fact, near together."

"Wal, they ain't," said Mr. Butters; "but if it's anyways important, mebbe I could fetch a compass round that way."

"I should be truly grateful if you could do so, Mr. Butters!" said Mr. Homer, eagerly. "I – I feel as if this letter might be of importance, I confess. Miss Pitcher has sent in several times by various neighbors, and I have felt an underlying anxiety in her inquiries. I was rejoiced this morning when the expected letter came. It is – a – in a masculine hand, you will perceive, Mr. Butters, and the postmark is that of the town to which Miss Pitcher's own letters were sent. I do not wish to seem indelicately intrusive, but I confess it has occurred to me that this might be a case of possible misunderstanding; of – a – alienation; of – a – wounding of the tendrils of the heart, gentlemen. To see a young person, especially a young lady, suffer the pangs of hope deferred – "

Ithuriel Butters looked at him.

"Have you ever seen Leory Pitcher, Homer?" he asked, abruptly.

"No, sir, I have not had that pleasure. But from the character of her handwriting (she has the praiseworthy habit of putting her own name on the envelope), I have inferred her youth, and a certain timidity of – "

"Wal, she's sixty-five, if she's a day, and she's got a hare-lip and a cock-eye. She's uglier than sin, and snugger than eel-skin; one o' them kind that when you prick 'em they bleed sour milk; and what she wants is for her brother-in-law to send her his wife's clo'es, 'cause he's goin' to marry again. All Shellback's ben talkin' about it these three months."

Mr. Homer colored painfully.

"Is it so?" he said, dejectedly. "I regret that – that my misconception was so complete. I ask your pardon, Mr. Butters."

"Nothin' at all, nothin' at all," said Mr. Butters, briskly, seeing that he had given pain. "You mustn't think I want to say anything against a neighbor, Homer, but there's no paintin' Leory Pitcher pooty, 'cause she ain't.

"I ben visitin' with Mis' Tree this mornin'," he added, benevolently; "she's aunt to you, I believe, ain't she?"

"Cousin, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer, still depressed. "Mrs. Tree and my father were first cousins. A most interesting character, my cousin Marcia, Mr. Butters."

"Wal, she is so," responded Mr. Butters, heartily. "She certinly is; ben so all her life. Why, sir, I knew Mis' Tree when she was a gal."

"Sho!" said Seth Weaver, incredulously.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Homer, with interest.

"Yes, sir, I knew her well. She was older than me, some. When I was a boy, say twelve year old, Miss Marshy Darracott was a young lady. The pick of the country she was, now I tell ye! Some thought Miss Timothy was handsomer, – she was tall, and a fine figger; her and Mis' Blyth favored each other, – but little Miss Marshy was the one for my money. She used to make me think of a hummin'-bird; quick as a flash, here, and there, gone in a minute, and back again before you could wink. She had a little black mare she used to ride, Firefly, she called her. Eigh, sirs, to see them two kitin' round the country was a sight, now I tell ye. I recall one day I was out in the medder behind Darracott House – you know that gully that runs the len'th of the ten-acre lot? Well, there used to be a bridge over that gully, just a footbridge it was, little light thing, push it over with your hand, seemed as if you could. Wal, sir, I was pokin' about the way boys do, huntin' for box-plums, or woodchucks, or nothin' at all, when all of a suddin I heard hoofs and voices, and I slunk in behind a tree, bein' diffident, and scairt of bein' so near the big house.

"Next minute they come out into the ro'd, two on 'em, Miss Marshy Darracott and George Tennaker, Squire Tennaker's son, over to Bascom. He was a big, red-faced feller, none too well thought of, for all his folks had ben in the country as long as the Darracotts, or the Butterses either, for that matter, and he'd ben hangin' round Miss Marshy quite a spell, though she wouldn't have nothin' to say to him. I was in her Sabbath-school class, and thought the hull world of her, this one and a piece of the next; and I gredged George Tennaker so much as lookin' at her. Wal, they come along, and he was sayin' something, and she answered him short and sharp; I can see her now, her eyes like black di'monds, and the red comin' and goin' in her cheeks: she was a pictur if ever I seed one. Pooty soon he reached out and co't holt of her bridle. Gre't Isrel, sir! she brought down her whip like a stroke of lightning on his fingers, and he dropped the rein as if it burnt him. Then she whisked round, and across that bridge quicker'n any swaller ever you see. It shook like a poplar-tree, but it hadn't no time to fall if it wanted to; she was acrost, and away out of sight before you could say 'Simon Peter;' and he set there in the ro'd cussin', and swearin', and suckin' his fingers. I tell ye, I didn't need no dinner that day; I was full up, and good victuals, too."

"This is extremely interesting, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer. "You – a – you present my venerable relative in a wholly new light. She is so – a – so extremely venerable, if I may so express myself, that I confess I have never before had an accurate conception of her youth."

"You thought old folks was born old," said Mr. Butters, with a chuckle. "Wal, they warn't. They was jest as young as young folks, and oftentimes younger. Miss Marshy warn't no more than a slip of a girl when she merried. Come along young Cap'n Tree, jest got his first ship, and the world in his pants pocket, and said 'Snip!' and she warn't backward with her 'Snap!' I tell ye. Gorry! they were a handsome pair. See 'em come along the street, you knowed how 'twas meant man and woman should look. For all she was small, Mis' Tree would ha' spread out over a dozen other women, the sperit she had in her; and he was tall enough for both, the cap'n would say. And proud of each other! He'd have laid down gold bricks for her to walk on if he'd had his way. Yes, sir, 'twas a sight to see 'em.

"There ain't no such young folks nowadays; not but what that young Strong fellow was well enough; he got a nice gal, too. Wal, sir, this won't thresh the oats. I must be gettin' along. Think mebbe there ain't no sech hurry about that letter for Leory Pitcher, do ye, Homer? I'll kerry it if you say so."

"I thank you, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer, sadly, "it is immaterial, I am obliged to you."