Part 16

Susan unrolled her patchwork and, giving a flip to the cat with her thimble finger, settled herself comfortably in the kitchen rocker.

The cat leaped down and stalked into the next room with an air of offended majesty, as much as to say: "Of all the manners I ever saw, that woman has the worst! She contrives to pass by three empty chairs and choose the one I chance to be occupying!"

"You wouldn't be so lonesome if you could see a bit of life from your house, Mandy," said Mrs. Benson. "William an' I were sayin' last night you'd ought to move into the village winters, though nothin' could be handsomer than the view from your sink window this minute. Daisies, daisies everywhere! How do you manage to keep 'em out o' your place, Mandy, when they're so thick on Caleb Kimball's?"

"I just root an' root, an' keep on rootin'," Amanda responded cheerfully, "though I don't take a mite o' pride out of it, for the better my place looks the worse his does, by comparison."

"It is a sight!" said Mrs. Benson, standing for a moment by the sink and looking up to Kimball's.

"I went up there one night after dark, when I knew Caleb 'd gone to Hixam, an' I patched up some o' the holes in his stone wall, thinkin' his whiteweed seeds wouldn't blow through quite so thick!"--and Amanda joined Mrs. Benson at the window. "I'd 'a' done a day's work on his side o' the wall as lief as not, only I knew folks would talk if they saw me."

"Land, no, they wouldn't, Mandy. Everybody knows you wouldn't take him if he was the last man on earth; an' as for Caleb, I guess he wouldn't marry any woman above ground, not if she was a seraphim. I used to think he'd spunk up some time or other, when he got over his mother's death; but it's too late now, I'm afraid."

"Caleb set great store by his mother; that's one good thing about him," said Amanda.

"He did for certain," agreed Mrs. Benson. "If that girl he was engaged to hadn't 'a' spoken disrespectful to her in his hearin' there'd 'a' been a wife an' children up there now an' the place would 'a' looked diff'rent."

"Not so very diff'rent! He didn't lose much in Eliza Johnson. I guess he knows that by now!" remarked Amanda serenely; "though I s'pose 't was quarrelin' with her that set him runnin' down hill, all the same."

"I never thought he cared anything about Eliza. She was determined to have him, an' he was too lazy to say no, but you see in the end she only got her labor for her pains. The Kimball boys never had any luck with their love affairs. When Caleb an' his mother was left alone, she was terrible anxious for him to marry. She was allers findin' girls for him, but part of 'em wouldn't look at him, and he wouldn't make up to any of 'em."

"I was livin' in Lewiston those years," said Amanda.

"I remember you was. Well, when old Mrs. Kimball broke her arm, Charles, the youngest son, that was a stage-driver, determined he'd get somebody for Caleb, for his own wife wouldn't lift her finger to help 'bout the house. He saw a girl up to Steep Falls that he kind o' liked the looks of, an' he offered her a ride down to his mother's to spend the day, thinkin' if the family liked her she might do for Caleb. However, her eyes was weak an' she didn't know how to milk, so they thought she'd better go home by train. That would 'a' been fair enough for both parties, but when Charles drove her to the station he charged her fifteen cents an' it made an awful sight o' talk. She had a hot temper, an' she kind o' resented it!"

"I dare say 't wa'n't so," commented Amanda; "but everybody's dead that could deny it, except Caleb, and he wouldn't take the trouble."

"It's one of the days when he's real drove, ain't it?" asked Susan sarcastically, as she looked across the field to the wood-pile where a gray-shirted figure sat motionless. "If ever a man needed a wife to patch the seat of his pants, it's Caleb Kimball! I guess it's the only part of his clothes he ever wears out. He wa'n't like that before his mother died; the wheels seemed to stop in him then an' there. He was queer an' strange an' shy, but I never used to think he'd develop into a reg'lar hermit. She'd turn in her grave, Mis' Kimball would, to see him look as he does. I don't s'pose he gets any proper nourishment. The smartest man in the world won't take the trouble to make pie for himself, yet he'll eat it 's long 's he can stan' up! Caleb's mother was a great pie-baker. I can see her now, shovelin' 'em in an' out o' the oven Saturdays, with her three great black lanky boys standin' roun' waitin' for 'em to cool off.--'Only one, mother?' Caleb used to say, kind o' wheedlin'ly, while she laughed up at him leanin' against the door-frame.--'What's one blueb'ry pie amongst me?'"

"He must 'a' had some fun in him once," smiled Amanda.

"They say women-folks ain't got no sense o' humor," remarked Mrs. Benson, with a twitch of her thread. "I notice the men that live without 'em don't seem to have any! We may not amount to much, but we're somethin' to laugh at."

"Why don't you bake him a pie now an' then, an' send it up, Susan?" asked Amanda.

"Well, there, I don't feel I hardly know him well enough, though William does. I dare say he wouldn't like it, an' he'd never think to return the plate, so far away.--Besides, there never is an extry pie in a house where there's a man an' three boys; which reminds me I've got to go home an' make one for breakfast, with nothin' to make it out of."

"I could lend you a handful o' dried plums."

"Thank you; I'll take 'em an' much obliged. I declare it seems to me, now the rhubarb's 'bout gone, as if the apples on the trees never would fill out enough to drop off. There does come a time in the early summer, after you're sick of mince, 'n' squash, 'n' punkin, 'n' cranberry, 'n' rhubarb, 'n' custard, 'n' 't ain't time for currant, or green apple, or strawb'ry, or raspb'ry, or blackb'ry--there does come a time when it seems as if Providence might 'a' had a little more ingenuity in plannin' pie-fillin'!--You might bake a pie for Caleb now an' then yourself, Mandy; you're so near."

"Mrs. Thatcher lives half a mile away," replied Amanda; "but I couldn't carry Caleb Kimball a pie without her knowin' it an' makin' remarks. I'd bake one an' willin' if William 'd take it to him; but there, 't would only make him want another. He's made his bed an' he's got to lie on it."

"He lays on his bed sure enough, an' most o' the time probably--but do you believe he ever makes it?"

Amanda shuddered. "I don't know, Susan; it's one o' the things that haunts me; whether he makes it or whether he don't."

"Do you ever see any wash hung out?" Mrs. Benson's needle stopped in midair while she waited for Amanda's answer.

"Ye-es; now an' then."

"What kind?"

"Sheets; once a gray blanket; underclothes; but naturally I don't look when they're hung out. He generally puts 'em on the grass, anyway."