AN INTERLUDE

New Zealand Tablet, 7 April 1910, Page 525

AN INTERLUDE

Aunt Abbie bad one of her headaches, and the household was demoralised, if the word can be applied to anything so staid and simple. The sufferer, provided by her niece with a hot soapstone for her feet and various concoctions of herbs to drink, had withdrawn to the chamber above the living room. Meanwhile a hush settled over the house. Miss Fanny checked the exultant spring song that rose to her lips, and the chickens seemed to tread more softly, ‘I do hope nobody’ll come in,’ said Miss Fanny; ‘f or it’s too cold to sit out doors, and Aunt Abbie could never stand to hear talking. But Mrs. Currier, her nearest neighbor, was at that moment lifting the latch. There were two grades of callers in Hilltop. If you went in without knocking, you were on terms of intimacy; a warning rap indicated more formal relations. Miss Fanny held up a warning finger. ‘ Aunt Abbie’s dreadful bad with one of her headaches,’ she said, ‘ and maybe she’s asleep.’ And so they conversed in whispers. But presently the alluring themes of house-cleaning and garden-planting tempted them. They raised their voices, and Aiint Abbie awoke. She was better; the headache was in full flight. She even felt equal to taking a silent part in the conversation going on downstairs, and stepped softly to the aperture through which in winter the stovepipe came from below to supply her bedchamber with warmth. . ‘ She must be an awful sight of trouble,’ were the first words she heard. ‘ She is,’ said Miss Fanny’s well-known voice. ‘ I’ve planned every way in the world to get rid of. her. I declare it seems sometimes as if I . couldn’t stand to have her around another minute.’ Aunt Abbie had heard enough. , She crawled into bed again, and shook with sobs that racked her old frame. Her own niece planning to get rid of her! Tired of her ! Thinking her trouble ! Why had she never suspected this before? Fanny had always seemed so kind. Her own sister’s daughter, and such a hypocrite! ‘Oh oh!’ wept the injured woman. ‘Are you worse, Aunt Abbie?’ whispered Miss Fanny, putting her head in at the door. ‘ I thought I heard you groaning.’ ‘No, I ain’t,’ answered Aunt Abbie. ‘The headache’s just about gone, but there’s worse things than headaches,’ ‘I know that,’ responded Miss Fanny, cheerfully; but I’m awful glad you’re better. Don’t you think you could drink some tea? You didn’t eat a swaller of dinner.’ ‘I don’t want any tea or anything else. I’ve just been eating you out of house and home this long while.’ ‘Why, Aunt Abbie! ’ ‘Yes, I have, and I’m an awful lot of trouble and expense, and you’d like to get rid of me.’ ‘ I don’t know what you mean,’ said her niece. ‘l’m sure I’m just as glad as can be to have you here. # You. ain’t hardly a mite of expense, either, and if you was I wouldn’t care.’ ‘ That’ll do to talk,’ said Aunt Abbie, getting out of bed and planting her feet on the floor with decision but I know you’re sick and tired having me round.’ Gentle Miss Fanny was perplexed. Had those awful headaches ended by affecting her aunt’s brain? She tried a diverting theme. . ‘ You’ll feel different after you get downstairs. Mrs. Currier just left; she brought me some tomato plants. No answer. • _• • , _ , And, Aunt Abbie, I’ve concluded not to,go and help Cousin Hannah with the house-cleaning. I don’t believe you’re a bit well,’

‘ I’m well enough for a tiresome old critter that’s in folks way, answered Aunt Abbie; ‘and I won’t have you staying at home for me.’ . . iX The mystery grew darker. What had clouded and embittered that old mind? Miss Fanny, puzzled and apprehensive, left for her cousin’s the next morning. ‘lf I hadn’t promised, I wouldn’t go a step,’ she said as she went away. ‘ Those headaches are surely wearing on you.’ ■ • v They ain’t,’ said Aunt Abbie. ‘ I’m just as well as ever 1 was. ‘ Well, be sure and take that liver medicine — teaspoonful before each meal; and take things easy. You can pile up the dishes and leave them for me to wash, and I’ll be home in a couple of days. And, Aunt Abbie,’ she came back to say, ‘ you get that notion out of your mind that you’re a trouble to me. Why, I wouldn’t know what to do without you!’ Then she hurried on, fearing, like a true New Englander, to betray unwonted emotion, ‘ I heard her with my own ears,’ said Aunt Abbie to herself. “ I’ve planned every way to get rid of her. It seems as if I couldn’t stand it.” Those were her very words, and I’m going right straight away.’ , She had thought it all out in the night. She would go and work in the cotton mill again, just as she did when she was a girl. ‘ There wasn’t a hand that could beat me,’ she reasoned. ‘ I could do twice what most of them could, and I guess I can yet.' When they see me run a loom, they’ll think I am pretty spry.’ She put the house in order, leaving several days’ supply of water for the chickens, and trusting them to forage for food. Then she made her travelling toilet, putting on her black alpaca gown and adorning the waist with a large pink bow, as a supposed concession to fashion. She wore her Sunday bonnet; but in her excitement forgot to pin it securely to her little knot of hair, and it settled down on one side of her head in a rakish and jaunty manner. In her old carpet-bag she packed such articles as she deemed would be required, and tied a white apron about her waist. ‘ Folks is always eating in the cars, I’ve been told,' she said. ‘ Some children might sit near me and get grease on my front breadth.’ After she had fairly started, she went back twice, to put the cat out and to hide the spoons. She left a note on her niece’s pincushion. ‘ I ain’t going to be any more trouble to you,’ so it ran. ‘ You’ll find the spoons in the green-sprigged teapot, and be sure and cover the tomato plants if it gets frosty.’ It was something of a walk through the woods to the station; but she met no one, and bought her ticket with mingled joy and apprehension. A strange youth stamped it and pushed it through a little grating, and the train whizzed in. A man in uniform helped her to get aboard, and she sat on the edge of the seat, her carpet-bag grasped tightly, her bonnet still perched insecurely over one ear. The brisk walk in the wind had disarranged her thin grey hair, and it was a very unkempt and dishevelled old lady who arrived at early in the afternoon and asked the way to the mill.’ • There was not a familiar building in sight; the faces in the street were strange, and her unaccustomed fast had weakened her. ‘ The mill asked a kindly woman whom she addressed. ‘Which one?’ Are there two?’ ‘Bless your heart, grandma, there’s a dozen or more!’ was the reply. : And right across the street is the office of the biggest one, if you want to find out anything.’ Aunt Abbie passed through the open portal. ‘What is it, grandma asked a man behind a railing. Aunt Abbie was vexed. ‘I ain’t your grandma,’ she said; ‘and I ain’t that woman’s grandma, either, I want a place to work.’ The man, being busy, attempted to dismiss her, saying that no scrub women were needed. i ‘I don’t want to scrub,’ she answered. ‘I want to run a loom. I was the spryest girl in the mill once. You just let me try, and you’ll see.’ . ‘Move along!’ he said. ‘There are others waiting to see me.’ He thought her demented; and, from his point of view, had reason to do so. She went out of the door, tears in her dim old eyes. Two boys shied pebbles at her and called her Mrs. Hayseed. No longer able to stand, she sat down on the curb, and a crowd gathered. A policeman, to the urchins’ delight, sent in a call for a patrol waggon, and took her kindly but forcibly by the arm. ‘lf you’ll let me, I’ll take care of her,’ said a clear voice, as a young woman made her way through the crowd and put her arm about the bewildered Aunt Abbie, Come right along with me, dear!’ And she smoothed the straggling hair and put the bonnet straight with deft touches. Aunt Abbie’s grandfather fought at Bunker Hill, and at a friendly word she was her brave self again. Then the cry of ‘ A fight! ’ from the next corner attracted the boys as well as the guardian of the peace, and the women —one so old, and one so young— left to themselves. ‘What I want is a cup of tea,’ said Aunt Abbie, ‘and then I’m going straight home. I’m afraid I’m going to have one of my headaches. I’m subject to them, I never saw such an awful place as this is,’

Do you live here , . ‘My goodness, no! I live in Hilltop, up in New Hampsture, with my niece. She got tired of having me round, and I came here to work in the mill as I did when I was a girl. I used to run two looms,’ she added, with pardonable pride. ‘Was it long ago?’ ‘ Well, 'it was—why, I declare it must have been nigh on to sixty years !’ 1 They have machinery now that does most everything,’ explained the girl as they walked along. 1 It’s you that are to have a fine cup of tea with me, then I’ll see you safe to your train.’ - ‘I can pay for it,’ said the independent Aunt Abbie. ‘ We’ll see about that,’ answered the girl, seeing instinctively that her charge was not a suitable object of charity. ‘I can walk faster,’ said Aunt Abbie. ‘lt’s clearing off, and I’m afraid there will be a frost, and I must cover up the tomato plants.’ Poor old soul!’ The disease we call nostalgia had gripped her with iron bands. She thought of all her simple joys—of the sun going behind the mountains, of her headache medicine, of her niece’s kindness in her days and nights of pain. The strangely assorted pair had a confidential talk in Norah Daly’s little hall-room over the hot cup of tea. The next train north would leave, they had ascertained, at 4 o’clock, and there was no need of haste. Each told her story and Aunt Abbie forgot her own troubles as she listened to the young Irish girl, who was so sad and lonely and far from home. She and her young brother, she said, had come to America the autumn before he had gone farther in search of work, and had never come back. ‘My poor little Tim!’ she said. It’s dead he is, or he would have written to ease my heart.’ ‘There now!’ repeated Aunt Abbie. ‘Don’t give up. Maybe his letters are lost or he don’t know how to send them, being a furriner. Furrijiers are pretty queer, though maybe I ain’t polite in saying it.’ , , ‘I don’t mind at all,’ said Norah, at the cheerful words. ' ‘ Yes, they’re queer. There’s a furriner at the Poor Farm who doesn’t know who he is. They call him Curly on account of his hair. He’s smart enough most ways, though, and is a master-hand with horses. They found him in the road last fall with a hurt on his head.’ ‘Poor old man!’ said the sympathetic listener, putting on her hat, for train time was approaching. . ‘ Oh, he isn’t old! He’s only about sixteen, and a little feller at that.’ Norah turned white. * Curly hair, and little, and liking horses! Thanks be to God, I believe it’s my • own brother Tim!’ Aunt Abbie rose to the occasion. It may be,’ she said; ‘ but don’t be sure. Come home with me and find out; and if it isn’t Tim, you won’t be any worse off than you are now, and you can see the green hills, and get out of this awful place where boys and men have stones for hearts. And speaking of hills reminds me that they say the boy is forever singing about the Green Hills of old Ireland.’ _ ", And why?’ asked the joyous Norah. ‘Because it’s the only song he ever knew, and it’s Tim!’ The sun had set when the travellers reached Hilltop; and in a waggon at the station, holding the fat Poor Farm horses, sat Curly himself, the Irish waif who couldn’t remember. ‘Tim!’ said Norah softly, and he looked at her and smiled. ‘ Tim ! ’ she said again. ‘I don’t know you,’ he replied, after a moment’s pause; ‘ but you make me think of my mother.’ Leaving brother and sister together, Aunt Abbie trudged on. Mrs. Currier was standing at her gate. ‘Been travelling?’ she asked. A little,’ answered Aunt Abbie, hastening to change the subject. ‘Do you think there’ll be frost?’ _ Mrs. Currier was persistent. ‘ I couldn’t think where you’d gone,’ she continued. ‘ Your speckled hen’s been here all day. I couldn’t shoo .her home. It beats all how much store Fanny sets by that hen. Just yesterday she was a-saying she’d planned every way to get rid of her and it didn’t seem as if she could have her round another minute. ‘When I said, Why don’t you kill her ? she was mad, and said she’d as soon eat one of the neighbors. She’s got a spiteful tongue.’ Suddenly light flashed on Aunt Abbie. It was old Speckle that Fanny was tired of having round and wanted to get rid of. She said good-night and hurried on. How fair the world had grown! How bright the stars! The cat came to meet her and rubbed against her feet. She opened the door of the house, took the note from the pincushion and burned it, folded away her Sabbath gown, and covered the tomato plants.< Everything was the same again. ‘God’s been awful good to a cantankerous old critter,’ she murmured then said her prayers and went to bed in the safe shelter of the dear green hills. She went over the whole story the next day when Miss Fanny came home.

, j* I . couldn’t stay longer with any comfort,’ the niece had said upon her appearance, and she laughed until she cried when the confession was made. - ‘But you did have an awful time, Aunt Abbie! ’ she said. ( . ‘ I don’t care a mite about that,’ answered Aunt Abbie tor if you hadn’t said what you did, and I hadn’t got mad and gone off, that nice girl might not have found her brother. She was here this morning, and says he’s beginning to know her. A doctor over at the Beach thinks he can fax his head and wants to try. They’re up on the mountain now. Hear them sing!’ the listening ears there floated the song: Oh, the green hills of old Ireland, far away! ’ - —Ave Maria.