Part 9

Peter's long story concluded, Miss Paulina kindly assured him that he should not yet be sent far away from his pretty nursling. Already, she had determined where to bestow him for the night. In the rambling old garden stood a small, nondescript erection, supposed to have served, in remote times, as a summer-house, and though now appropriated to the safe-keeping of garden tools, still weather-tight and easily convertible into a sleeping-place, for an unambitious guest. With this energetic lady, to will was to do. And, with the help of Reuben's strong arm, and the half-reluctant aid of Mandy Ann, who had consented to leave for a time the sheltering four walls of her attic bedroom, the tool-house was cleared up and made clean. A light cot-bed was conveyed hither, and duly furnished for Peter's occupancy, and, with his last lingering look devouring May-blossom, he was escorted by Reuben to his new quarters. There, a cup of hot coffee, a generous plate of biscuits, and a clean nightcap awaited him. And, installed in these comparatively elegant lodgings, we leave him to sound sleep, and happy dreams.

Harmy's pet bantam had long since crowed in a new day, and Harmy herself had been two full hours astir, when Peter Floome, rubbing his old eyes, awoke from untroubled slumber. Essaying to rise, and with one foot already planted on the floor, he becomes painfully aware of his inability to do so. A small, round table, the summer-house settee, and chairs reel tipsily in their places. The diamond-paned window wavers before his eyes, the very walls of the apartment seem like--

"The ancient House of Usher, Tottering to their fall,"

and, catching the general impulse, he, too, lets go his centre of gravity, and falls fainting across the bed. Half an hour later, Peter awakes to conscious life, and an overwhelming smell of camphor. Harmy Patterson, not without evidence of strong repulsion, bends desperately over him. Her expression, in the main, is that of solemn determination. She is "bringing him to." This accomplished, she stiffly beckons to Reuben (who stands "watching afar off"), and, signifying her desire to wash her hands of this disreputable patient, commits Peter to his care, and grimly retires.

Miss Paulina is hastily interviewed, and informed of the convict's "faint spell," and his subsequent "bringin' to." And Harmy, forthwith, expresses her decided conviction that "it's ketchin', an' she shouldn't a bit wonder if the hull family was took down with it," and, furtively suggesting the "poorhouse," she withdraws to the more momentous concerns of her kitchen. There she sends cold shivers down Mandy Ann's back, by a recountal of the late occurrence. "I hain't," she declares, "had a wink of sleep the whole blessed night, a thinkin' of that horrid convict, an' not knowin' what might happen, with sich creeturs 'round. At four o'clock I come down and went into the garden to settle my mind, an' pull a few cherry reddishes for breakfast. I jest stepped down to the summer-house a minute, to take a good look 'round, and there was the door wide open!"

Feelin' (as she averred) in her bones that the creetur might ha' gone off in the night with the pillow-case and towels in his trowsers' pocket, she had (to make assurance doubly sure) stepped over the threshold, with them cherry reddishes in her apron, an' her heart a beatin' like a mill-clapper. And, raisin' her two hands, she had let go her apron, an' them reddishes had gone rollin' every which way, while she gin such a screech that Reuben heered it, way off in the cow-yard, and nigh about jumped out of his skin. The hired man arriving on the scene, she had said, "Reuben, is he gone?" and, loosing his shirt collar, Reuben had made answer, "Gone? no, he's alive an' kickin', you bet. Run git the camfire, Harmy, an' don't disturb the folks. _You'll_ fetch him 'round ef ennybody kin." How her camfire, strong enough to bear up an egg, had at length brung the miser'ble creetur round, to give 'em all some dretful sickness he'd ketched, etc., etc.

Mandy Ann's fascinated attention, and her lively alternations of horror and surprise during the above recital, this feeble pen may not describe. Miss Paulina, meantime, visiting the summer-house, detects no evidence of fever in Peter's system, and is convinced that the poor body's ailment is not, as Harmy opines, "ketchin'." Kindly looking after his comfort, she relieves Reuben's watch, and forthwith despatches him for Doctor Foster, who in due time looks in upon the strange patient, and pronounces his sudden illness an attack of heart disease. "Twenty-two years of hopeless toil," declares the good doctor, "short commons, and vitiated air, have damaged the poor human machine beyond repair; and, though it may run a while longer, don't be surprised if it stops any day, and without notice." The doctor rides away on his morning round; Miss Paulina gives May-blossom her late breakfast, and, with many careful admonitions, allows her to go to Peter, who now--tolerably recovered--"is receiving" in an old Boston rocker, hunted up for his special use; and in which, sitting bolt upright, he rocks with indescribable relish, assuring May-blossom that "it's the very spawn o' mother's own rockin'-cheer, an' makes him feel as ef he was right in the old chimbly corner, to hum."

While Peter rocks and chats with his little visitor, the good lady of the house, turning over his affairs in her mind, thus soliloquises: "Poor creature, as Doctor Foster says, he'll not trouble any one long. He loves my precious child. Why should I part the two?--both, alas! going the same sad road. The summer-house could easily be made habitable. He could live there, quite by himself--at least till cold weather sets in. The cost of his maintenance I can well spare from my abundance. The neighbours, to be sure, will object; and there's Harmy to be reconciled; but what is to become of the forlorn, shelterless creature, if I turn my back on him? What indeed (with a resolute nod, and thinking aloud)! My mind is made up. He shall stay. Right is right. One is sure of that; and Providence takes care of the rest."

In accordance with this resolve, Peter Floome, that very day, goes to housekeeping. A Lilliputian laundry-stove, with an improvised flue, is set up in the summer-house by the tinman. An old cupboard, _vis-à-vis_ with the stove, is scoured, and well stocked with provisions and cooking utensils, and a sufficiency of homely table and other furniture is placed at his disposal; and Peter literally groans under "an embarrassment of riches." A box of coal is also appropriated to his use, and, when he receives permission to chop for himself unlimited kindlings from Miss Paulina's teeming woodpile, tears of grateful joy trickle down the worn old cheeks of Peter Floome. From the luxurious depths of his Boston rocker, he watches dazedly these munificent preparations for his housekeeping, declaring over and over to May-blossom (who is in an equal state of delight), that "this does beat the Dutch, an' he never, an' it's jest like bein' took up by one o' them fairy godmothers in the story-book!" But when actually _measured_ by the Saganock tailor, he is subsequently arrayed in a pair of trousers, cut with especial reference to his own clumsy legs, and a coat which, though coarse and homely, has not been fashioned without some slight reference to the dimensions of its wearer; a bran-new necktie, and a decent straw hat, not to mention a clean print shirt (of the latter, there is a magnificent reserve of five others, equally new and clean), his admiration and wonderment, and May-blossom's pride in him, are absolutely indescribable. Even Harmy herself, softened by this metamorphosis of the fairy godmother, becomes distantly amicable, scarcely recognising in this decent old body the objectionable being of her sometime suspicion and aversion. After the lapse of an entire week, she grimly remarks to Reuben that "she hain't missed nothin' yit, tho', to be sure, its awful resky havin' sich creeturs 'round."

Peter Floome, though he takes a whole bottle of Doctor Foster's drops, never quite rallies from that first grave attack of his fatal disease. May-blossom, too, is more ailing. Peter's advent at the homestead, with its attendant excitement, has been too much for the delicate little frame. Already those deceitful tokens of convalescence, so cheering to Miss Paulina's heart, have disappeared. Before the summer roses go, it is plain to all, that, ere long, death will claim for his own this bud that "never will become a rose."

Miss Paulina hears the graveyard pines wailing in weary monotone, while, gliding serenely beneath the sapphire heaven of June, the river repeats the mournful undersong. Alas, and alas, that ever life, and death, and true love should dwell side by side in this goodly world! Faithful old Peter, never wearying in his love-labour, bears hither and thither, in careful arms, the wasted young form, now too feeble to bear its own light weight. On pleasant days he conveys it tenderly from couch to garden. For it is still May-blossom's delight to swing dreamily in a low hammock, hung from the stout boughs of two gigantic elms, sometimes thinking to herself, oftener confiding her innocent dreams to Peter, or Miss Paulina. Often her thought goes back to the gray old prison. Loving memories of her child-life, and tender reminiscences of shabby old friends in that dreary abode, are still with her. To this young, gladsome creature, not yet replete with its sweet new wine, existence is still infinitely dear; and, though Death is coming, she does not hasten to meet him, but, turning her face lifeward, lives (as in God's mercy it befalls many a dying one to live) in the sweet, brief to-day. And well it is, for the coffin and the tomb, even to the "life undone," are not things to brood upon.

While Peter Floome, armed and equipped with a splint fly-brush of his own clumsy manufacture, presides, dragon-like, over the out-door siestas of his enchanted princess, the summer grows old, and it behooves us to look after the ex-convict's housekeeping. Harmy Patterson, has, to be sure, anticipated us, and, as a result of her observations, has long since averred that "it's awful to see that man mess 'round, an' spill grease on the summer-house floor!" And, indeed, even to the unprejudiced eye, it is painfully apparent that Nature, in fashioning Peter Floome, had not in her "mind's eye" a cook, or a housewife, or even a scullion. Although no one could be more willingly helpful, he is so clumsy of touch at all indoor employment, save the gentle tendance of May-blossom, that one half inclines to the fantastic supposition that this exceptional aptness may be the result of some preexistent experience of Peter as child's-nurse.

Peter's gentle inoffensiveness, his ever-respectful deference to Harmy's wishes, and Harmy's judgment, and, above all, his idolatrous devotion to "that blessed lamb, May-blossom," bid fair, at last, to overcome even Harmy's social prejudices. One morning, when the poor man is ailing, and for a day or two has been "sloppy, poky, and messy," beyond his wont, the good woman is encountered by Miss Parker on her way to the summer-house, bearing a breakfast-tray, fit to serve a king. Colouring, as if detected in some covert derogatory act, Harmy apologetically observes that, "when folks is sick, you can't stan' by an' see 'em suffer, an what_ever_ they air, dropped eggs, an' muffins, an' broma'll do 'em no harm. As for men-folks," asserts she, "they never _be_ fit to cook an' do for theirselves, an' p'r'aps, arter all, 'twould be a savin' to the family ef she was to see to his vittels right along."

In these frugal and humane sentiments her mistress hastily concurs; and, henceforth, Harmy _does_ "see to his vittels;" thereby vastly bettering the sanitary condition of poor Peter, whose "messes," whatever other excellence they may boast, are _not_ anti-dyspeptic. Peter, like most of his sex, especially open to the seductions of the cuisine, is deeply impressed with the domestic worth of his caterer, and, in confidential discourse with Reuben, admiringly observes that "Miss Patterson's cookin' does beat the Dutch; an' for scourin' a floor he never see her ekal; an' ef she'd 'a' got hitched in her younger days, what a wife she'd 'a' made!"

Having thus put Peter's kitchen to rights, Harmy suggests to herself the practicability of correcting a certain irregularity in his conduct, "which has (as she expresses it) ben a weighin' on her mind quite a spell."

As this is a reform not to be undertaken lightly or single-handed, she determines to make an alliance with Reuben; and to this effect, one moonlight evening when the two are quite alone, she takes the hired man into her confidence. "For," says the good woman, "I put it to you, now, an' bein' old enough to be your mother, sich things is no harm between us, Reuben. I put it to you, ef it don't seem scand'lus for a man to ondress, an' git into bed with his door wide open, an' a decent woman overlookin' on him from her bedroom winder? To be sure, I never once turn my eyes his way, but I can't help sensin' on it, an' 's true's you're alive, Reuben, ef he don't sleep there night arter night, with his door stretched, right afore my face!"

"P'r'aps he wants air," pleads Reuben, in excuse.

"Then why on airth," returns Harmy, "don't he open his winder! Now, Reuben, to please me, do go this very night an' shet that door. Ef folks don't know what manners is, it's best to give 'em a hint, _I_ say, an', ten to one, he won't be the wiser fur it till mornin', fur, to my knowledge, he's been abed a hull hour by the kitchen clock."

Thus urgently besought, and willing to oblige, Reuben steps gingerly down the garden path, and, reassured by the heavy snores within, softly closes the summer-house door. He is about to retrace his steps when, bounce upon the floor, comes Peter Floome! Open goes the door with a bang, and a voice, so energetically fierce that Reuben turns upon his heel to assure himself that the speaker is really Peter, angrily exclaims, "No, you _don't_, now! Hain't I ben shet up like a dog in a kennel night arter night fur twenty-two year, say? An' what the d--l's the use o' pardonin' a man out, ef you can't give him the swing o' his own bedroom door?"

Reuben, who relishes a bit of humour, details to his mistress, on the morrow, this unsuccessful attempt of Harmy to compel Peter's respect to the proprieties. Miss Paulina, kindly wise, decides in favour of the open door, and thereafter, Peter, like "him that hath the key of David, openeth, and no man shutteth." The intense satisfaction of this cell-worn creature in his open door is, indeed, a thing to contemplate, and, touched, no doubt, by the homely pathos of the bowed, motionless figure sitting (often far into the night) in his low doorway, bathed in the tender beauty of the summer moonlight, or sharply projected on the darkness in momentary silhouette, by lurid flashes of summer lightning, Harmy herself is at length modified, and tacitly condones Peter's bold breach of decorum.

Through long disuse of the power of speech, Peter Floome has become habitually taciturn. His protracted fits of almost dogged silence are, however, relieved by equally abnormal attacks of garrulousness. In these moods he holds long and confidential discourse with Reuben. On a summer evening, seated in his humble doorway, he will recount for his entertainment such bits of prison gossip, or such incidents of prison life, as have retained their hold on his failing memory. Often on these occasions a dash of the old cynicism gives pungency to his speech, but, ordinarily, he is amiably at one with destiny, and at peace with himself and his neighbour. Behold him to-night, already in his talking-cap. Harmy and Mandy Ann are seated upon the summer-house steps; Reuben, wearied by a long day's haying, is reclining lazily upon the grass; Peter, meantime, is graciously intent in serving up for the three his most relishing prison tidbits. Harmy, being rheumatic, does not often grace these out-door assemblages with her august presence; "but to-night," as she herself explains, "havin' a longin' for a breath of fresh air, she jest strolled into the garden, an' thought she might as well set down with 'em and rest a spell." Peter's audience secured, he opens his budget of prison reminiscence and rehearses a long, heart-breaking drama, at which Harmy pulls out her handkerchief, and complains of a cold in her head, while Mandy Ann sobs outright, and Reuben himself is detected in an audible sniff.

"'Tain't a lively yarn, I'll 'low," apologizes the narrator, "an', p'r'aps, I hadn't oughter told it to you wimmin folks. Well, we've all got to go when our time comes; an' death ain't the wust thing in the world, no, not by a jug full! An', whenever the Almighty summons us, I hope we'll all face the music, an' go off with flyin' colours."

Harmy, who considers Peter's similes objectionably secular, here suggests, as an appropriate lesson, the parable of the ten virgins, and advises Reuben and Mandy Ann to "jine the church, an' have their lamps trimmed an' burnin' when the bridegroom cometh."

Peter, ignoring the parable, irreverently observes that "all the Ballous had ben handsomely buried;" an', when his turn comes, all he asks is to hev a marble gravestone, with verses cut on to it, same as the rest o' his folks. As to what's comin' after death (he philosophically avers), "'tain't no use to worry 'bout that; fur it stan's to reason that the Lord ain't goin' to hang on to His creeturs, through thick an' thin, in _this_ world, an' then go back on 'em in _t'other_."

Reuben, who is not reflective, here yawns audibly, and, expressing his intention to "turn in," bids them a drowsy good-night. The "wimmin folks" follow his lead, and Peter is left alone in his moonlit doorway.

"There never was," as Harmy repeatedly asserts to Mandy Ann, who is about retiring, "such a night; light enough to pick up a pin by the moon, an' too pleasant fur any mortal to think o' sleepin'!"

Leisurely setting her sponge for the morrow's baking, gathering up her silver, bolting the doors, and looking after the window-fastenings, the good woman reluctantly retires to her chamber.

Having no disposition for sleep, Harmy, half undressed, sits looking out upon the moonlit garden. Her mind is ill at ease. "We live in a dyin' world," she drearily soliloquises. "Here's our May-blossom, now, poor blessed lamb! a growin' that weaker every day that it stan's to reason she can't last but a spell longer; an' Miss Paulina that bound up in the child, that how _she's_ goin' to stan' the partin' the Lord only knows! An' there's Peter, goin' round with that pesky onsartin' heart, liable to stop beatin', without a minnit's notice, eny day.

"To be sure, now," she retrospectively muses, "it _was_ a cross las' spring to hev a convict brung right into the family; an' to see that child a hangin' on to him, an' a huggin' an' kissen on him, same's ef he was her own flesh and blood; but there (judicially and emphatically), I _will_ say _that_ fur him, though he's no end mussy an' sloppy about housework, and does hev scand'lous notions about his bedroom door, there ain't a grain o' real harm in Peter Floome; an' it's lots o' company to see him a settin' there nights in that summer-house doorway. Well, _he's_ gone an' turned in, I see; an' it's 'bout time I follered suit, I guess."

The night wind is rising. It soughs rhythmically through the great pine, beside the west door, and sends a miniature snow-storm of syringa petals upon the garden walks.

It winnows spice-like odors from ancient clumps of clove-pink. Tall summer lilies, nodding drowsily upon their stems, breathe, incense-like, upon the dewy air. Brooding birds twitter sleepily among the green Linden boughs; and, over it all, lies, like God's benediction, the wonderful glamour of the still white moonlight.

"Well," declares Harmy, giving voice to her thought, as she ties her nightcap strings, and takes one more good look at the garden; "I mus' say that the Lord's put His creeturs into a han'some world; an' no mistake! I s'pose now," she adds, compunctiously, "that I'm turrible wicked to _say_ it, but, somehow, I can't jest see my way to believin' that things is fixed the way they'd orter be. To _my_ mind, it would 'er ben more to the pint to 'a' made all on us Methusalehs. It's dretful upsettin' to hev to live in a _dyin' world_, no matter _how_ pooty it is."

Still heavy with anxious foreboding, Harmy puts out her candle, and, presently, "dropping off," forgets in sleep the unsatisfactory arrangement of mundane affairs.

At early dawn she is aroused by the ringing of Miss Paulina's chamber bell; and, before she has got well into her gown, Mandy Ann comes to summons her to the bedside of May-blossom. The child is fast sinking. Doctor Foster is already here; but human help is of no avail. A hard coughing spell has been followed by a cruel hemorrhage, which has already drained her thin blue veins. Exhausted and unconscious she waits upon the border-line, betwixt life and death; and there, wringing Miss Parker's trembling hand, and pressing a last kiss upon the brow of the dying child, the good doctor leaves her to Him in whose hand are the issues of life and death.

All day long, with wide unseeing eyes "looking," as Harmy quaintly expresses it, "right straight up into heaven," May-blossom lies senseless upon her couch of white.

No priceless "last word" breaks the silence of her sweet folded lips. There is nothing more for hope to hang upon, not even the sad anticipation of a dying smile; and so the slow day wears on to night.

Miss Paulina--heart-broken--hangs over the dear unconscious form; and, in yonder corner ("how in the world Miss Paulina come to give her consent to his stayin' here sence mornin', without a mou'ful o' victuals an' drink, an' not so much as a word of notice for his best friends," Harmy Patterson cannot opine; "but there! folks _will_ do curos things sometimes; an' to see a man settin' that way, hour after hour, all doubled up, an' the tears a tricklin' down his shirt-front, _is_ turrible tryin'!") sits Peter Floome. At midnight, Harmy persuades Miss Parker to "lop down a minnit; you'll be all beat out afore the fun'al," she urges. "Do now hear to _me_! I'm the oldest, Miss Pauly, an' hev seen lots o' sickness an' death in my day." Thus persuaded, the poor worn lady seeks her chamber, and is soon in a troubled, but heavy sleep. Harmy in a flowered "loose gown," wonderful in color and design, watches the death-bed of May-blossom. Peter Floome, silent, motionless, with bowed gray head, still holds his place--rejecting every advance of his comforter, who says irritably to herself, "Land sakes, I'd 'bout as soon be stark alone!"