IV HOME-MAKING

Previous

"I WISH the Doctor would stop in," said Caleb, in a manner as casual as if his first call that morning had not been on Doctor and Mrs. Taggess, whom he told of the new arrivals, declaring that Philip and Grace were "about as nice as the best, 'specially her, an' powerful in need of a cheerin' up," and begging Mrs. Taggess to invite Grace to midday dinner at once, so that Philip might be free to prepare his surprise for Grace.

"The Doctor?" Grace echoed. "Why, Mr. Wright, which of us looks ill?"

"Neither one nor t'other, at present," Caleb replied; "but this country's full of malary, an' forewarned is forearmed. Besides, our doctor's the kind to do your heart good, an' his wife's just like him. They're good an' clever, an' hearty, an' sociable, an' up to snuff in gen'ral. Fact is, they're the salt of the earth, or to as much of it as knows 'em. Sometimes I think that Claybanks an' the round-about country would kind o' decay an' disappear if it wasn't for Doc Taggess an' his wife. Doc's had good chances to go to the city, for he's done some great cures that's got in the medical papers, but here he stays. He don't charge high, an' a good deal of the time it don't do him no good to charge, but here he sticks—says he knows all the people an' their constitutions, an' so on, an' a new doctor might let some folks die while he was learnin' the ropes, so to speak. How's that for a genuine man?"

"First-rate," said Philip, and Grace assented. Caleb continued to tell of the Doctor's good qualities, and suddenly said:—

"Speak of angels, an' you hear their buggy-wheels, an' the driver hollerin' 'Whoa!' I think I just heard the Doctor say it, out in front."

A middle-aged couple bustled into the store; Grace hastily consulted a small mirror in the back room, and Caleb whispered to Philip:—

"If they ask you folks to ride or do anythin', let your wife go, an' you make an excuse to stay. There's a powerful lot of your New York stuff to be fixed, if you expect to do it to-day. Come along! Doctor an' Mrs. Taggess, this is my new boss, an' here comes his wife."

"Glad to meet you," said the Doctor, a man of large, rugged, earnest face, extending a hand to each.

Mrs. Taggess, who was a motherly-looking woman, exclaimed to Grace:—

"You poor child, how lonesome you must feel! So far from your home!"

"Oh, no,—only the length of the store-yard," Grace replied.

"Eh? Brave girl!" said the Doctor. "That's the sort of spirit to have in a new country, if you want to be happy. Well, I can't stop more than a minute,—I've a patient to see in the back street. I understand you're stopping at the hotel, and as, for the reputation of the town, we shouldn't like you to get a violent attack of indigestion the first day, we came down to ask you to dine with us at twelve. Mrs. Somerton can ride up now and visit with my wife, and her husband can come up when he will. Caleb can give him the direction."

"So kind of you!" murmured Grace, and Philip said:—

"I shall be under everlasting obligations to you for giving my wife a view of some better interior than that of a store or that dismal hotel, but I daren't leave to-day. Caleb has arranged for several men to see me."

"Well, well, I'll catch you some other day," said the Doctor. "I must be going; hope you'll find business as brisk as I do. You may be sure that Mrs. Taggess will take good care of your wife, and see that she gets safely back. Good day. I'll drop in once in a while. Hope to know you better. I make no charge for social calls."

So it came to pass that within ten minutes Philip was furnishing his new home with the contents of the old. The possible contents of a New York flat for two are small, at best; yet as each bit of furniture, upholstery, and bric-À-brac was placed in position in the Jethro Somerton house, the plain rooms looked less bare, so Philip was correspondingly elated. True, he had to use ordinary iron nails to hang his pictures, and was in desperation for some moments for lack of rods for portiÈres and curtains, but he supplied their places with rake-handles from the store and rested them in meat-hooks. He worked so long, and hurried so often into the store for one makeshift after another, that Caleb became excited and peered through the windows of the store's back room at his first opportunity, just in time to see the upright piano moved in. Unable to endure the strain of curiosity any longer, he quickly devised an excuse, in the shape of a cup of coffee and some buttered toast, all made at the stove in the back room of the store. Coaxing a trustworthy but lounging customer to "mind store" for him a minute or two, Caleb put the refreshments in a covered box and timed himself to meet Philip as the latter emerged from the warehouse with an armful of books.

"Didn't want to disturb you, but seein' that you let the hotel dinner-hour pass an' was workin' hard, I thought mebbe a little snack" (here Caleb lifted the lid of the box) "'d find its way to the right place."

"Mr. Wright, you're a trump! Would you mind bringing it into the house for me, my hands being full?"

"Don't want to intrude."

"Nonsense! Aren't we friends? If not, we're going to be. Besides, I really want some one to rejoice with me over the surprise I'm going to give my wife. Come right in. Drop the box on this table."

"Well!" exclaimed Caleb, after a long suspiration, "I reckon I done that just in time! A second more, an' I'd ha' dropped the hull thing on this carpet—or is it a shawl? Why, 'taint the same place at all! Je-ru-salem! What would your Uncle Jethro say if he could look in a minute? Reckon he'd want to come back an' stay. I dunno's I ought to have said that, though, for I've always b'lieved he was among the saved, an' of course your house ain't better'n heaven, but—"

"But 'twill be heaven to my wife and me," said Philip.

"Well, I reckon homes was invented 'specially to prepare folks for heaven,—or t'other place, 'cordin' to the folks."

"Come into the parlor," said Philip, toast and coffee in hand. For a moment or two Caleb stood speechless in the doorway; then he said:—

"Je-ru-salem! This reminds me to take off my hat. Why, I s'posed you folks wasn't over-an'-above well fixed in the city, but this is a palace!"

"Not quite," said Philip, although delighted by Caleb's comments. "Thousands of quiet young couples in New York have prettier parlors than this."

"I want to know!" Then Caleb sighed. "I reckon that's why young people that go there from the country never come home again. I've knowed a lot of 'em that I'd like to see once more. Hello! I reckon that's a pianner; I've seen pictures of 'em in advertisements. A firm in the city once wanted your uncle to take the county agency for pianners." Caleb laughed almost convulsively as he continued, "Ye ort to have seen Jethro's face when he read that letter!"

"Do you mean to say that there are no pianos in this county?" asked Philip.

"I just do. But there once was an organ. Squire Pease, out in Hick'ry Township, bought one two or three years ago for his gals. He was runnin' for sheriff then, an' thought somethin' so new an' startlin' might look like a sign of public spirit, an' draw him some votes. But somehow his gals didn't get the hang of it, an' the noises it made always set visitors' dogs to howlin', an' to tryin' to get into the house an' kill the varmint, whatever it was, an' Pease's dogs tried to down the visitors' dogs, an' that made bad feelin'; so Pease traded the organ to a pedler for a patent corn-planter, an' he didn't get 'lected sheriff, either. I allers reckoned that ef anybody'd knowed how to play on it, that organ might ha' been a means of grace in these parts, for I've knowed a nigger's fiddle to stop a drunken fight that was too much for the sheriff an' his posse." Caleb looked the piano over as if it were a horse on sale, and continued:—

"Don't seem to work with a crank."

"Oh, no," replied Philip, placing a chair in front of the instrument and seating himself. "This is the method." He indulged in two or three "runs," and then, with his heart on Grace, he dashed into the music dearest to him and his wife—perhaps because it was not played at their own very quiet marriage,—the Mendelssohn Wedding March.

"Je-ru-salem!" exclaimed Caleb. "That's a hair-lifter! What a blessin' such a machine must be to a man that knows the tunes!"

Rightly construing this remark as an indication that Caleb longed to hear music with which he was acquainted, Philip searched his memory for familiar music of the days when he was a country boy, and which would therefore be recognized by Caleb. Suddenly he recalled an air very dear to several religious denominations, although it has been dropped from almost all modern hymnals, probably because its vivacity, repetitions, and its inevitable suggestion of runs and variations had made it seem absolutely indecorous to ears that were fastidious as well as religious. Philip had heard it played (by request) as a quick march, by a famous brass band, at the return of troops from a soldier's funeral in New York; so, after playing a few bars of it softly, he tried to recall and imitate the march effect. He succeeded so well that soon he was surprised to see Caleb himself, an ex-soldier, striding to and fro, singing the hymn beginning:—

"Am I a soldier of the Cross?"
When Philip stopped, Caleb shouted:—

"Three cheers for the gospel! Say! I wish—"

"Well?"

"Never mind," replied Caleb. "I was only thinkin' that if our church could hear that, there'd be an almighty revival of religion. Reckon I'd better git back to the store. Say, you've been so full of palace-makin' that you've let the fires go out. I'll just load 'em up again for you; afterwards, if you chance to think of 'em, there's lots of good dry hick'ry in the woodshed, right behind the kitchen."

Philip continued to make hurried dashes into the store for necessities and makeshifts. When finally he entered for candles, Caleb remarked:—

"I'll call you in when your wife comes; but if you don't want her to smell a rat, you'd better shut the front shutters. There's already been people hangin' on the fence, lookin' at them lace fixin's in the winders, an' women are powerful observin'. An' say, here's a new tea-kettle, full of water; better set it on the kitchen stove. Pianners are splendid,—I never would have believed there could be anythin' like 'em,—but the singin' of a tea-kettle's got a powerful grip on most women's ears. I didn't see no ev'ryday dishes among your things. Don't you want some?"

Philip thought he did not, and he hurried to the house. He was soon summoned to the store, and through the coming darkness of the sunset hour he saw at the back door his wife, who said:—

"Oh, Phil! Mrs. Taggess is the dearest woman! We were of the same age before I'd been with her an hour."

"Eh? You don't look a moment older."

"But she looked twenty years younger. When she's animated, she—oh, I never saw such a complexion."

"Not even in your mirror?"

"No, you silly dear! And her home is real cosey. There's nothing showy or expensive in it; but if ever I get homesick, I'm going to hurry up there, even if the mud is a foot deep."

"Good! Perhaps you got some ideas of how to fix up our own dismal barn of a house. Come down and look about it once more."

Together they started. As they reached the front door, and Philip threw it open, Caleb, with his eye at the back window of the store, saw Grace stop and toss up her hands. As the door closed, Caleb jumped up and down, and afterward said to himself:—

"There are times when I wish, church or no church, that I'd learned how to dance."

"Phil! Phil! Phil!" exclaimed Grace, dashing from one room to another, all of which were as well lighted as candles could make them. "How did you?—how could you? No woman could have done better! Oh! home!—home!—home! And a few hours ago, right here, I was the most disheartened, rebellious, wicked woman in the world! Come here to me—this instant!"

There are times when manly obedience is a natural virtue. For a few moments a single easy chair was large enough for the couple, who laughed, and cried, and otherwise comported themselves very much as any other healthy and affectionate couple might have done in similar circumstances. A knock at the door recalled them to the world.

"Don't like to disturb you," said Caleb, "but Doc Taggess has dropped in again an' asked for Mr. Somerton, an' as his time's not all his own, mebbe you'd—"

"Do tell him how I enjoyed my day with his wife," said Grace. "I tried to, when he brought me down, but I don't feel that I said half enough."

Philip hurried to the store; Caleb lingered and said to Grace:—

"Reckon you've had a little s'prise, hain't you? Your husband showed me 'round a little."

"Little surprise? Oh, Mr. Wright! 'Twas the greatest, dearest surprise of my life. But 'twas just like Phil; he's the thoughtfullest, smartest man in the world."

"Is, eh? Well, stick to that, an' you'll always be happy, even if you should chance to be mistaken. But say,—'what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,' as I reckon you've heard. Don't you want to give your husband a pleasant s'prise?"

"Oh, don't I!"

"Well, I'm kind o' feared to ask you, after seein' all these fine things; but you said you was brought up in the country. Can you cook?"

"Indeed I can! I've cooked all our meals at home since we were married—except those that Phil prepared."

"Good! Well, there's self-raisin' flour an' all sorts o' groceries in the store, an' eggs an' butter in the store cellar, an' alongside of the warehouse there's an ice-house, with three or four kinds o' meat. We have to take all sorts o' things in trade from country customers, an' some of 'em won't keep without ice. Now, if you was to s'prise your husband with a home-made supper, he wouldn't have to go down to the hotel, an' mebbe your own heart wouldn't break not to have to eat down there again."

"Oh, Mr. Wright! You're a genius! I wonder whether I could manage the kitchen stove."

"Best way to find out's to take a look at it."

Grace followed the suggestion. Caleb explained the draught and dampers, and took Grace's orders, saying, as he departed:—

"Doc'll keep him in the store till I get back,—that's what he's there for,—an' I'll keep him afterwards. When you want him, pull this rope: it starts an alarm in my room, over the store, an' I'll hear it."

Doctor Taggess gave Philip some health counsel, at great length. Claybanks and the surrounding country was very malarious, he said, and newcomers, especially healthy young people from the East, could not be too careful about diet, dress, and general habits until entirely acclimatized. Then he got upon some of his hobbies, and Philip thought the conversation might be very entertaining if Grace and the new home were not within a moment's walk. No sooner had the Doctor departed than Caleb insisted on a decision regarding an account that was in dispute, because the debtor was likely to come in at any moment, and the matter was very important. He talked details until Philip was almost crazed with impatience, but suddenly a muffled whir caused Caleb to say abruptly:—

"But it's better for him to suffer than for your wife to do it; an' if you don't be ready to start her for supper the minute the hotel bell rings, you won't get the best pickin's."

Philip escaped with great joy, and a minute later was in his new sitting room and staring in amazement at a neatly set table, with Grace at the head of it, and upon it an omelette, a filet of beef, some crisp fried potatoes, tea-biscuits, cake, and a pot of coffee. After seating himself and bowing his head a moment, he succeeded in saying:—

"'How did you?—how could you?' as you said to me."

"How could I help it," Grace replied, "after the delicate hint you left behind you,—the kettle boiling on the stove?"

"My dear girl, like little George Washington, I cannot tell a lie. Caleb was responsible for that tea-kettle; he brought it from the store, and said something poetical about the singing of a kettle being music to a woman's ear."

"Caleb did that?" exclaimed Grace, springing from her chair. "Set another place, please!" Then she dashed through the darkness, into the store, and exclaimed:—

"Mr. Wright, I shan't eat a single mouthful until you come down and join us. Lock the store—quick—before things get cold."

"Your word's law, I s'pose," said Caleb, locking the front door, "but—"

"'But me no buts,'" Grace said, taking his hand and making a true "home run." Caleb seated himself awkwardly, looked around him, and said:—

"Hope you asked a blessin' on all this?"

"I never ate a meal without one," Philip replied.

"Reckon you'll get along, then," said Caleb, looking relieved and engulfing half of a tea-biscuit.

leaves

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Clyx.com


Top of Page
Top of Page