Part 11

They fussed a little, but that was the way we arranged it. I went off to my meeting before I saw which they did get to go in. But that didn't make any difference. All the way to the meeting I kept thinking about lilacs and hollyhocks and horses and cars. And I saw what had happened to those two: they loved each other so much that they'd kind of lost track of the little things that they thought had mattered so much, and neither could very well remember which they had really had a leaning towards of all the things.

"It's a kind of _each-otherness_!" I says to myself. "It's a new thing. That ain't giving-upness. Giving-upness is when you still want what you give up. This is something else. It's each-otherness. And you can't get it till you _care_."

But then I thought of something else. It wasn't only them--it was me! It was like I had caught something from them. For of course I'd rather have gone driving with those two than to have gone to any committee meeting, necessary or not. But I knew now that I'd been feeling inside me that of course they didn't want an old thing like me along, and that of course they'd rather have their drive alone, horse _or_ automobile. And so I'd kind of backed out according. Being with them had made me feel a sort of each-otherness too. It was wonderful. I thought about it a good deal.

And when I came home and see that they'd got back first, and were sitting on the porch with no lights in the house yet, except the one burning dim in the hall, I sat upstairs by my window quite a while. And I says to myself:

"If only there was a bride and groom in every single house all up and down the streets of the village--"

And I could almost think how it would be with everybody being decent to each other and to the rest, just sheer because they were all happy.

Picture how I felt, then, when not six weeks later, on a morning all yellow and blue and green, and tied onto itself with flowers, little Mrs. Bride came standing at my side door, knocking on the screen, and her face all tear-stained.

"Gracious, now," I says, "did breakfast burn?"

She came in. She always wore white dresses and little doll caps in the morning, and she sit down at the end of my dining-room table, looking like a rosebud in trouble.

"Oh, Miss Marsh," she says, "it isn't any laughing matter. Something's happened between us. We've spoke cross to each other."

"Well, well," I says, "what was that for?"

I s'posed maybe he'd criticized the popovers, or something equally universal had occurred.

"_That_ was it," she says. "We've spoke cross to each other, Miss Marsh."

And then it came to me that it didn't seem to be bothering her at all what it was about. The only thing that stuck out for her was that they'd spoke cross to each other.

"So!" I says. "And you've got to wait all day long before you can patch it up. Why don't you call him up?" I ask her. "It's only twenty cents for the three minutes--and you can get it all in that."

She shook her head. "That's the worst of it," she says. "I can't do it. Neither can he. I'm not that sort--to be able to give in after I've been mad and spoke harsh. I'm--I'm afraid neither of us will, even when he gets home."

Then I sat up straight. This, I see, was serious--most as serious as she thought.

"What's the reason?" says I.

"I dunno," she says. "We're like that--both of us. We're awful proud--no matter how much we want to give in, we can't."

I sat looking at her.

"Call him up," I says.

She shook her head again and made her pretty mouth all tight.

"I couldn't," she says. "I couldn't."

She seemed to like to sit and talk it over, kind of luxurious. She told me how it began--some twopenny thing about screens in the parlor window. She told me how one thing led to another. I let her talk and I sat there thinking. Pretty soon she went home and she never sung once all day. It didn't seem as if anybody's screens were worth that.

I'm not one that's ashamed of looking at anything I'm interested in. When it came time for the folks from the afternoon local, I sat down in my parlor behind the Nottinghams. I saw she never came out to the gate. And when he came home I could see her white dress out in the back garden where she was pretending to work.

He sat down on the front porch and smoked, and seemed to read the paper. She came in the house after a while, and finally she appeared in the front door for three-fourths of a second.

"Your supper's ready for you," I heard her say. And then I knew, certain sure, how they were both sitting there at their table not speaking a word.

I ate my own supper, and I felt like a funeral was going on. It kills something in me to have young folks, or any folks, act like that. And when I went back in the parlor I saw him on the front porch again, smoking, and her on the side porch playing with the kitten.

"It's the first death," I says. "It's their first kind of death. And I can't stand it a minute longer."

So when I saw him start out pretty soon to go downtown alone--I went to my front gate and I called to him to come over. He came--a fine, close-knit chap he was, with the young not rubbed out of his face yet, and his eyes window-clear.

"The catch on my closet-door don't act right," I says. "I wonder if you'll fix it for me?"

He went up and done it, and I ran for the tools for him and tried to get my courage up. When he got through and came down I was sitting on my hall-tree.

"Mr. Groom," I says--that was my name for him--"I hope you won't think I'm interfering _too_ much, but I want to speak to you serious about your wife."

"Yes," he says, short.

I went on, never noticing: "I dunno whether you've took it in, but there seems to be something wrong with her."

"Wrong with her?" he says.

"Yes, sir," I says. "And I dunno but awfully wrong. I've been noticing lately." (I didn't say _how_ lately.)

"What do you mean?" says he, and sat down on the bottom step.

"Don't you see," I says, "that she don't look well? She don't act no more like herself than I do. She hasn't," says I, truthful, "half the spirit to her to-day that she had when you first came here to the village."

"Why--no," he says, "I hadn't noticed--"

"You wouldn't," says I. "You wouldn't be likely to. But it seems to me that you ought to be warned--and be on your guard."

"_Warned!_" he says, and I saw him get pale--I tell you I saw him get pale.

"I'm not easy alarmed," I told him. "And when I see anything serious, it ain't in my power to stand aside and not say anything."

"Serious," he says over. "Serious? But, Miss Marsh, can you give me any idea--"

"I've give you a hint," says I, "that it's something you'd ought to be mighty careful about. I dunno's I can do much more; I dunno's I ought to do that. But if anything should happen--"

"Good heavens!" he says. "You don't think she's that bad off?"

"--if anything should happen," I went on, calm, "I didn't want to have myself to blame for not having spoke up in time. Now," says I, brisk, "you were just going downtown. And I've got a taste of jell I want to take over to her. So I won't keep you."

He got up, looking so near like a tree that's had its roots hacked at that I 'most could have told him that I didn't mean the kind of death he was thinking of at all. But I didn't say anything more. And he thanked me, humble and grateful and scared, and went off downtown. He looked over to the cottage, though, when he shut my gate--I noticed that. She wasn't anywhere in sight. Nor she wasn't when I stepped up onto her porch in a minute or two with a cup-plate of my new quince jell that I wanted her to try.

"Hello," I says in the passage. "Anybody home?"

There was a little shuffle and she came out of the dining-room. There was a mark all acrost her cheek, and I judged she'd been lying on the couch out there crying.

"Get a teaspoon," says I, "and come taste my new receipt."

She came, lack-luster, and like jell didn't make much more difference than anything else. We sat down, cozy, in the hammock, me acting like I'd forgot everything in the world about what had gone before. I rattled on about the new way to make my jell and then I set the sample on the sill behind the shutter and I says:

"I just had Mr. Groom come over to fix the latch on my closet-door. I dunno what was wrong with it--when I shut it tight it went off like a gun in the middle of the night. Mr. Groom fixed it in just a minute."

"Oh, he did," says she, about like that.

"He's awful handy with tools," I says. And she didn't say anything. And then says I:

"Mrs. Bride, we're old friends by now, ain't we?"

"Why, yes," says she, "and good friends, I hope."

"That's what I hope," I says. "And now," I went on, "I hope you won't think I'm interfering too much, but I want to speak to you serious about your husband."

"My husband?" says she, short.

I went on, never noticing. "I don't know whether you've took it in, but there seems to be something wrong with him."

"What do you mean?" she says, looking at me.

"Well, sir," I says, "I ain't sure. I can't tell just how wrong it is. But something is ailing him."

"Why, I haven't noticed anything," she says, and come over to a chair nearer to me.

"You don't mean," I says, "that you don't notice the change there's been in him?"--I didn't say in how long--"the lines in his face and how different he acts?"

"Oh, no," she says. "Why, surely not!"

"Surely _yes_," says I. "It strikes me--it struck me over there to-night--that something is the matter--_serious_."

"Oh, don't say that," she says. "You frighten me."

"I'm sorry for that," says I. "But it's better to be frightened too soon than too late. And if anything should happen I wouldn't want to think--"

"Oh!" she says, sharp, "what do you think could happen?"

"--I wouldn't want to think," I went on, "that I had suspicioned and hadn't warned you."

"But what can I do--" she began.

"You can watch out," I says, "now that you know. Folks get careless about their near and dear--that's all. They don't notice that anything's the matter till it's too late."

"Oh, dear!" she says. "Oh, if anything should happen to Harry, why, Miss Marsh--"

"Exactly," says I.

We talked on a little while till I heard what I was waiting for--him coming up the street. I noticed that he hadn't been gone downtown long enough to buy a match.

"I'm going over to Miss Matey's for some pie-plant," I says. "Her second crop is on. Can I go through your back gate? Maybe I'll come back this way."

When I went around their house I saw that she was still standing on the porch and he was coming in the gate. And I never looked back at all--bad as I wanted to.

It was deep dusk when I came back. The air was as gentle as somebody that likes you when they're liking you most.

When I came by the end of the porch I heard voices, so I knew that they were talking. And then I caught just one sentence. You'd think I could have been contented to slip through the front yard and leave them to work it out. But I wasn't. In fact I'd only just got the stage set ready for what I meant to do.

I walked up the steps and laid my pie-plant on the stoop.

"I'm coming in," I says.

They got up and said the different things usual. And I went and sat down.

"You'll think in a minute," says I, "that I owe you both an apology. But I don't."

"What for, dear?" Mrs. Bride says, and took my hand.

I'm an old woman and I felt like their mother and their grandmother. But I felt a little frightened too.

"Is either of you sick?" I says.

Both of them says: "No, _I_ ain't." And both of them looked furtive and quick at the other.

"Well," I says, "mebbe you don't know it. But to-day both of you has had the symptoms of coming down with something. Something serious."

They looked at me, puzzled.

"I noticed it in Mrs. Bride this morning," I says, "when she came over to my house. She looked white, and like all the life had gone out of her. And she didn't sing once all day, nor do any work. Then I noticed it in you to-night," I says to him, "when you walked looking down, and came acrost the street lack-luster, and like nothing mattered so much as it might have if it had mattered more. And so I done the natural thing. I told each of you about something being the matter with the other one. Something serious."

I stood up in front of them, and I dunno but I felt like a fairy godmother that had something to give them--something priceless.

"When two folks," I says, "speak cross to each other and can't give in, it's just as sure a disease as--as quinsy. And it'll be fatal, same as a fever can be. You can hate the sight of me if you want to, but that's why I spoke out like I done."

I didn't dare look at them. I began just there to see what an awful thing I _had_ done, and how they were perfectly bound to take it. But I thought I'd get in as much as I could before they ordered me off the porch.

"I've loved seeing you over here," I says. "It's made me young again. I've loved watching you say good-by in the mornings, and meet again evenings. I've loved looking out over here to the light when you sat reading, and I could see your shadows go acrost the curtains sometimes, when I sat rocking in my house by myself. It's all been something I've liked to know was happening. It seemed as if a beautiful, new thing was beginning in the world--and you were it."

All at once I got kind of mad at the two of them.

"And here for a little tinkering matter about screens for the parlor, you go and spoil all my fun by not speaking to each other!" I scolded, sharp.

It was that, I think, that turned the tide and made them laugh. They both did laugh, hearty--and they looked at each other and laughed--I noticed that. For two folks can _not_ look at each other and laugh and stay mad same time. They can _not_ do it.

I went right on: "So," I says, "I told you each the truth, that the other one was sick. So you were, both of you. Sick at heart. And you know it."

He put out his hand to her.

"I know it," he says.

"I know too," says she.

"Land!" says I, "you done that awful pretty. If I could give in that graceful about anything I'd go round giving in whether I'd said anything to be sorry for or not. I'd do it for a parlor trick."

"Was it hard, dear?" he says to her. And she put up her face to him just as if I hadn't been there. I liked that. And it made me feel as much at home as the clock.

He looked hard at me.

"Truly," he says, "didn't you mean she looked bad?"

"I meant just what I said," says I. "She did look bad. But she don't now."

"And you made it all up," she says, "about something serious being the matter with him--"

"Made it up!" says I. "No! But what ailed him this morning doesn't ail him now. That's all. I s'pose you're both mad at me," I says, mournful.

He took a deep breath. "Not when I'm as thankful as this," he says.

"And me," she says. "And me."

I looked around the little garden of the Henslows' cottage, with the moon behaving as if everything was going as smooth as glass--don't you always notice that about the moon? What grand manners it's got? It never lets on that anything is the matter.

He threw his arm across her shoulder in that gesture of comradeship that is most the sweetest thing they do.

They got up and came over to me quick.

"We can't thank you--" she says.

"Shucks," I says. "I been wishing I had something to give you. I couldn't think of anything but vegetables. Now mebbe I've give you something after all--providing you don't go and forget it the very next time," I says, wanting to scold them again.

They walked to the gate with me. The night was black and pale gold, like a great soft drowsy bee.

"You know," I says, when I left them, "peace that we talk so much about--that isn't going to come just by governments getting it. If people like you and me can't keep it--and be it--what hope is there for the nations? We _are_ 'em!"

I'd never thought of it before. I went home saying it over. When I'd put my pie-plant down cellar I went in my dark little parlor and sat down by the window and rocked. I could see their light for a little while. Then it went out. The cottage lay in that hush of peace of a hot summer night. I could feel the peacefulness of the village.

"If only we can get enough of it," I says. "If only we can get enough of it--"

FOOTNOTE:

[8] Copyright, 1917, _Woman's Home Companion_.

DREAM

When a house in the neighborhood has been vacant for two years, and all of a sudden the neighborhood sees furniture being moved into that house, excitement, as Silas Sykes says, reigns supreme and more than supreme.

And so it did in Friendship Village when the Oldmoxon House got a new tenant, unbeknownst. The excitement was specially strained because the reason Oldmoxon House had stood vacant so long was the rent. And whoever had agreed to the Twenty Dollars was going to be, we all felt, and as Mis' Sykes herself put it, "a distinct addition to Friendship Village society."

It was she gave me the news, being the Sykeses are the Oldmoxon House's nearest neighbors. I hurried right over to her house--it was summer-warm and you just ached for an excuse to be out in it, anyway. We drew some rockers onto her front porch where we could get a good view. The Oldmoxon double front doors stood open, and the things were being set inside.

"Serves me right not to know who it is," says Mis' Sykes. "I see men working there yesterday, and I never went over to inquire what they were doing."

"A body can't do everything that's expected of them," says I, soothing.

"Won't it be nice," says Mis' Sykes, dreamy, "to have that house open again, and folks going and coming, and maybe parties?" It was then the piano came out of the van, and she gave her ultimatum. "Whoever it is," she says, pointing eloquent, "will be a distinct addition to Friendship Village society."

There wasn't a soul in sight that seemed to be doing the directing, so pretty soon Mis' Sykes says, uneasy:

"I don't know--would it seem--how would it be--well, wouldn't it be taking a neighborly interest to step over and question the vans a little?"

And we both of us thought it would be in order, so we did step right over to inquire.

Being the vans had come out from the City, we didn't find out much except our new neighbor's name: Burton Fernandez.

"The Burton Fernandezes," says Mis' Sykes, as we picked our way back. "I guess when we write that name to our friends in our letters, they won't think we live in the woods any more. Calliope," she says, "it come to me this: Don't you think it would be real nice to get them up a reception-surprise, and all go there some night as soon as they get settled, and take our own refreshments, and get acquainted all at once, instead of using up time to call, individual?"

"Land, yes," I says, "I'd like to do that to every neighbor that comes into town. But you--" says I, hesitating, to her that was usually so exclusive she counted folks's grand-folks on her fingers before she would go to call on them, "what makes you--"

"Oh," says Mis' Sykes, "you can't tell me. Folks's individualities is expressed in folks's furniture. You can't tell me that, with those belongings, we can go wrong in our judgment."

"Well," I says, "_I_ can't go wrong, because I can't think of anything that'd make me give them the cold shoulder. That's another comfort about being friends to everybody--you don't have to decide which ones you want to know."

"You're so queer, Calliope," says Mis' Sykes, tolerant. "You miss all the satisfaction of being exclusive. And you can't _afford_ not to be."

"Mebbe not," says I, "mebbe not. But I'm willing to try it. Hang the expense!" says I.

Mis' Sykes didn't waste a day on her reception-surprise. I heard of it right off from Mis' Holcomb and Mis' Toplady and two-three more. They were all willing enough, not only because any excitement in the village is like a personal present to all of us, but because Mis' Sykes was interested. She's got a real gift for making folks think her way is the way. She's a real leader. Everybody wears a straw hat contented till, somewheres near November, Mis' Sykes flams out in felt, and then you begin right off to feel shabby in your straw, though new from the store that Spring.

"It does seem like rushing things a little, though," says Mis' Holcomb to me, very confidential, the next day.

"Not for me," I says. "I been vaccinated."

"What do you mean?" says she.

"Not even the small-pox can make me snub them," I explains.

"Yes, but Calliope," says Mis' Toplady in a whisper, "suppose it should turn out to be one of them awful places we read about. They have good furniture."

"Well," says I, "in that case, if thirty to forty of us went in with our baskets, real friendly, and done it often enough, I bet we'd either drive them out or turn them into better neighbors. Where's the harm?"

"Calliope," says Mame Holcomb, "don't you draw the line _nowheres_?"

"Yes," I says, mournful. "Them on Mars won't speak to me--yet. But short of Mars--no. I have no lines up."

We heard from the servant that came down on Tuesday and began cleaning and settling, that the family would arrive on Friday. We didn't get much out of him--a respectable-seeming colored man but reticent, very. The fact that the family servant was a man finished Mis' Sykes. She had had a strong leaning, but now she was bent, visible. And with an item that appeared Thursday night in the Friendship Village _Evening Daily_, she toppled complete.

"Professor and Mrs. Burton Fernandez," the _Supper Table Jottings_ said, "are expected Friday to take possession of Oldmoxon House, 506 Daphne street. Professor Fernandez is to be engaged for some time in some academic and scholastic work in the City. Welcome, Neighbors."

"Let's have our reception-surprise for them Saturday night," says Mis' Sykes, as soon as she had read the item. "Then we can make them right at home, first thing, and they won't need to tramp into church, feeling strange, Next-day morning."

"Go on--do it," says I, affable.

Mis' Sykes ain't one to initiate civic, but she's the one to initiate festive, every time.

Mis' Holcomb and Mis' Toplady and me agreed to bake the cakes, and Mis' Sykes was to furnish the lemonade, being her husband keeps the Post-office store, and what she gets, she gets wholesale. And Mis' Sykes let it be known around that on Saturday night we were all to drop into her house, and go across the street together, with our baskets, to put in a couple of hours at our new neighbors', and make them feel at home. And everybody was looking forward to it.

I've got some hyacinth bulbs along by my side fence that get up and come out, late April and early May, and all but speak to you. And it happened when I woke up Friday morning they looked so lovely, I couldn't resist them. I had to take some of them up, and set them out in pots and carry them around to a few. About noon I was going along the street with one to take to an old colored washerwoman I know, that never does see much that's beautiful but the sky; but when I got in front of Oldmoxon House, a thought met me.

"To-day's the day they come," I said to myself. "Be kind of nice to have a sprig of something there to welcome them."

So my feet turned me right in, like your feet do sometimes, and I rang the front bell.

"Here," says I, to that colored servant that opened the door, "is a posy I thought your folks might like to see waiting for them."

He started to speak, but somebody else spoke first.

"How friendly!" said a nice-soft voice--I noticed the voice particular. "Let me thank her."

There came out from the shadow of the hall, a woman--the one with the lovely voice.

"I am Mrs. Fernandez--this is good of you," she said, and put out her hands for the plant.