Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

"My dear Doctor Strong:—The deed is done! The selectmen met last night, and voted to memorialize the Legislature in regard to changing the name of the village; and, as the rest is a mere matter of business routine, I think we may regard the thing as settled. So, as dear Mrs. Tree said, 'Hooray for Quahaug!' The vote was not unanimous; that was hardly to be expected. John Peavey was opposed to the change, so was George Goby; but the general sentiment was strong in favor of carrying out Mrs. Tree's wishes. That, of course, is the real issue, and it is beautiful to see the spirit of affection and loyalty that animates the majority of our people. Surely, our beloved old friend has built herself a monument Ære perennio in the hearts of her neighbors.

"I write this hasty line, feeling sure that you and Mrs. Strong will be anxious to hear the outcome of the meeting.

"With kindest regards to both, and affectionate greeting to the little flock, believe me always

"Faithfully yours,
"John Bliss."

The little minister sealed and addressed his note, then took his hat and stick and started for the post-office.

"You won't forget my pink worsted, John!" and Mrs. Bliss popped her pretty head out of the window.

"Certainly not, my dear! certainly not!" said Mr. Bliss, with an air of collecting his wits hurriedly. "Pink worsted; to be sure! At Miss Pardon's, I presume?"

"Of course! Saxony; you have the sample in your pocket, pinned into an envelope. Two skeins, John dear. Now do you think you can get that right? It is a shame to make you do such things, but I cannot leave Baby, and he really needs the jacket."

"Of course, Marietta; of course, my dear! You know I am only too glad to help in little ways; I wish I could do more!"

"It is so little a man can do!" he reflected, as he paced along the village street; "and Marietta's care is incessant. Motherhood is a blessed but a most laborious state."

Arrived at the post-office, he found Seth Weaver perched on a ladder, inspecting the weather-beaten sign-board, which bore the legend, "Elmerton Post-office."

"Good morning, Seth!" said the little minister.

"'GOOD MORNING, SETH!' SAID THE LITTLE MINISTER"

"Same to you, Elder!" replied Seth, taking his pipe from his mouth. "Nice day! I was lookin' to see whether we'd need us a new sign, but I guess this board'll do, come to scrape and plane it. It's a good pine board; stood a lot o' weather, this board has. My father painted this."

"Did he so, Seth?" said Mr. Bliss. "I was not aware that your father was a painter."

"Painter, carpenter, odd-job man, same's me! He learned me all his trades, and too many of 'em. It would be money in my pocket to-day if I didn't know the half of 'em."

Seth sat down on the top round of the ladder—it was a short one—and took out his knife and a bit of soft wood. The minister sighed, thinking of his sermon at home half-written, but accepted the unspoken invitation.

"How is that, Seth?" he asked, cheerfully.

Seth settled himself comfortably—it is not every man who can sit comfortably on a ladder—and, squaring his shoulders, began to whittle complacently.

"Wal, Elder, it stands to reason," he said. "A man can be one thing, or he can be two things; but when he starts out to be the hull string of fish, he ends by not bein' nary one of 'em. It takes all of a thing to make the hull of it; yes, sir. I don't mean that Father was that way; Father was a smart man; and I've tried to make a shift to keep up with the tail of the procession myself; but I tell ye there's ben times when I've wished I didn't know how to handle a livin' thing except my paint-brush. Come spring, I tell ye I lose weight, projeckin' round this village. One wants his blinds painted right off day before yesterday, and another'll get his everlastin' if his roof isn't mended before sundown. It's 'Oh, Seth, when be you comin' to hang that bell-wire?' and 'Seth, where was you yesterday when you wasn't mendin' that gate-post?' and—I dono! sometimes I get so worked up I think I'll do the way Father did. Father never bothered with 'em. He just laid out his week to suit himself. Two days he'd paint, and two days he'd odd-job, and two days he'd fish. Further and moreover, whatever he was doin', he'd do it his own way. Paintin' days, he'd use the paint he had till he used it up. Didn't make no difference what folks said to him; he was just that deef he only heard what he wanted to, and he didn't care. Gorry! I can see him now, layin' on the blue paint on old Mis' Snow's door, and she screechin' at him, 'Green! green, I tell ye! I want it green!' Old Father, he never took no notice, and that door stayed blue till it wore off. Yes, sir! that was the way to handle 'em; but I can't seem to fetch it. Guess I was whittled out of a softer stick, kind o' popple stuff, without no spunk to it. A woman tells me she must have a new spout to her pump or she'll die, and I'm that kind of fool I think she will, and leave all else to whittle out that pump-spout. Wal, it takes all kinds. That was quite a meetin' last night, Elder."

"It was indeed," Mr. Bliss assented. "A notable meeting, Seth. As I have just been writing to Doctor Strong, it was a great pleasure to find the feeling so nearly unanimous in regard to carrying out the wishes of our revered friend."

Seth grinned.

"Yes!" he said. "Me and Salem saw to that."

"Saw to it?" repeated Mr. Bliss.

"We went round and sized folks up, kind of; you know the way, Elder; same as you do come parish-meetin' time. No offence! There don't everybody know which way they're goin' to jump till you tell 'em. Most of 'em was all right enough, and saw reason good, same as we did, for doin' as Mis' Tree wished done; but there's some poor sticks in every wood-pile; John Peavey's one of 'em. Gorry! I guess likely he'll be some further down the ro'd before he gets his shack painted, unless he doos it himself. That'll be somethin' tangible for him, as Old Man Butters said."

He paused, and a twinkle came into his eyes; but the minister did not twinkle back.

"You've heerd of Uncle Ithe's last prayer-meetin'?" said Seth. "No? now ain't that a sight!"

He came down a round or two, and settled himself afresh, the twinkle deepening. "Uncle Ithe—Old Man Butters, Buffy Landin' Ro'd—you remember him, Elder?"

"Surely! surely! I remember Mr. Butters well, but I cannot recall his having attended a prayer-meeting during my incumbency in Elm—I would say Quahaug."

Seth chuckled. "No more you would," he said. "No more he did. 'Twas before you come, in Mr. Peake's time. Elder Peake, he was a good man; I've nothin' to say against him; he meant well, every time. But he was one of those kind o' men, he had his two-foot rule in his pants pocket, and, if you squared with that, you was all right, and, if you didn't, you was all wrong. Now some folks is like a two-foot rule, and some is like a kedge-anchor, and the Lord made 'em both, I expect; but Elder Peake, he couldn't see it that way, and he took it into his head that Uncle Ithe warn't doin' as he should. Old Uncle Ithe—I dono! he had a kind o' large way with him, as you might say; swore some, and made too free with Scripture, some thought; did pretty much as he was a mind to, but cal'lated to live square, and so did—'cordin' to his idees, and mine. You might say Uncle Ithe was like—wal, like this hammer. He couldn't rule a straight line, mebbe, but he'd hit the nail every time. Wal, Elder Peake met up with him one day, and spoke to him about his way of life. 'I'd like to see things a trifle different with you, Mr. Butters,' he says; 'man of your age and standin',' he says, 'ought to be an example,' he says. You know the way they talk—excuse me, Elder. Some of 'em, I would say. Nothin' personal, you understand."

"I understand, Seth; pray go on."

"'What do ye mean?' says Uncle Ithe. 'What have I been a-doin' of, Elder?'

"'Oh, nothin' tangible,' says Mr. Peake, 'nothin' tangible, Mr. Butters. I hear things now and again that don't seem just what they should be in regards to your spiritual condition,—man of your age and standin', you understand,—but nothin' tangible, nothin' tangible!' And he waved himself off, a way he had, as if he was tryin' to fly before his time.

"Old Uncle Ithe, he never said a word, only grunted, and worked his eyebrows up and down, the way he had; but come next prayer-meetin', there he was, settin' up in his pew, stiff as a bobstay, with his eye on the elder. Elder Peake was tickled to death to think he'd got the old man out, and when he'd had his own say, he sings out: 'Brother Butters, we should be pleased to hear a few remarks from you.'

"Old Uncle Ithe, he riz up kind o' slow, a j'int at a time, till he stood his full hei'th. Gorry! I can see him now; he seemed to fill the place. He looks square at Elder Peake, and he says: 'Darn your old prayer-meetin'!' he says. 'There's somethin' tangible for ye!' he says; and off he stumped out the room, and never set foot in it ag'in. I tell ye, he was a case, old Uncle Ithe."

"I think he was, Seth!" said Mr. Bliss, laughing. "I am rather glad, do you know, that I only knew him later, when age had—in a degree—mellowed his disposition."

At this moment Will Jaquith put his head out of the post-office window.

"Good morning, Mr. Bliss!" he said. "There's another story about Old Man Butters that Seth must tell you, if you have not already heard it,— about the trouble with his second wife."

Seth twinkled more than ever. "Sho!" he said. "That's last year's p'tetters. I make no doubt Elder Bliss has heard that a dozen times."

"Not once, I assure you, Seth," said Mr. Bliss. "I shall be glad to hear it, and then I really must—" he checked himself. Was not this an opportunity, come to him unsought? Seth Weaver was not as regular at church as could be wished.

"Pray let me hear the anecdote!" he said, heartily. "And yet," he added to himself, "I caution my people against listening to gossip,—life is a tangled skein."

"That was before I was born or thought of," said Seth. "Uncle Ithe's second wife was Drusilly Sharp (his fust was a Purrington), and she was a Tartar. Gra'm'ther Weaver told me this; she was own sister to Uncle Ithe. Gra'm'ther used to say there warn't another man under the canopy could have lived with Drusilly Sharp only her brother Ithuriel. As I was sayin' a spell back, he had a kind o' large way of lookin' at things. Gra'm'ther says to him once: 'I don't see how you stand it, Ithuriel,' she says. 'I don't stand it,' says Uncle Ithe. 'I git out from under foot, and wait till the clouds roll by,' he says. 'Spells she gets out of breath, and them's the times I come into the kitchen. There's where a farmer has the pull,' he says. 'Take a city man, and when he's in the house he's in it, and obleeged to stay there. But take a farmer, and, if it's hot in the kitchen, he's got the wood-shed, and, when you're choppin', you can't hear what she's sayin',' he says. 'Somebody's got to put up with Drusilly,' he says, 'and I'm used to it, same as I am red pepper on my hash.'

"Wal, one day Uncle Ithe come home, and she warn't there. He found a note on the dresser, sayin' she warn't comin' back, she couldn't stand it no longer. Land knows what she had to stand! She had baked bread and pies, she said (she was a master good cook), and the beans was in the oven, and that was all there was to it, from his truly Drusilly Butters.

"Wal, Uncle Ithe studied over it a spell, and then he sot down and he wrote a note, and this was the way it read:

"'Whereas my wife Drusilly has left my bed and board while I was down to Tupham diggin' clams, and whereas I never give her reason good for so doin', resolved that all persons is warned to pay no bills of her contractin' from now on; but the cars will run just the same.'

"Signed his name out in full, and sent it to the paper. I got it now to home, in Gra'm'ther's scrap-book. Yes, sir, that was Uncle Ithe all over."

"And what was the outcome of it, Seth?" asked Mr. Bliss.

"Oh, she come back! He knew she would. She stayed with her folks a spell, and they reasoned with her; and then she saw the notice in the paper, and that made her so mad she run all the way home. Uncle Ithe was settin' in the kitchen smokin' his pipe, at peace with all mankind, when she run in, all out of breath, and mad as hops. 'You take that notice out the paper, Ithuriel Butters!' she hollers. 'You're the meanest actin' man ever I see in my life, and the ugliest, and so I've come to tell you.' And then she couldn't say another word, she'd run that fast and was that mad.

"Uncle Ithe took his pipe out of his mouth, and turned round and give her a look, and then put it back.

"'How do, Drusilly?' he says. 'I was lookin' for you,' he says. 'I'm on the last pie now.' And that was every word he said about it, or she, either."