Part 12

“I ain't said as much as this about it for five years,” she went on, with a tell-tale quiver in her voice, “but now I've got going I can't stop. I'll have to get the weight out o' my heart somehow.

“Three days after I put Lovey's baby into her arms the Lord called her home. 'When I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reuben,' says she holding the baby as if she could never let it go, 'I didn't think I'd got to give up my own in place of it; but it's the first fiery flood we've had, dear, and though it burns to my feet I'll tread it as brave as I know how.'

“She didn't speak a word after that; she just faded away like a snowdrop, hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared at one another in the face as if we was dead instead of her, and we went about that house o' mourning like sleep-walkers for days and says, not knowing whether we et or slept, or what we done.

“As for the baby, the poor little mite didn't live many hours after its mother, and we buried 'em together. Reuben and I knew what Lovey would have liked. She gave her life for the baby's, and it was a useless sacrifice, after all. No, it wa'n't neither; it couldn't have been! You needn't tell me God'll let such sacrifices as that come out useless! But anyhow, we had one coffin for 'em both, and I opened Lovey's arms and laid the baby in 'em. When Reuben and I took our last look, we thought she seemed more 'n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. There never was another like her, and there never will be. 'Nonesuch,' Reuben used to call her.”

There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the old clock and the tinkle of a distant cowbell. Priscilla made an impetuous movement, flung herself down by the basket of rags, and buried her head in Diadema's gingham apron.

“Dear Mrs. Bascom, don't cry. I'm sorry, as the children say.”

“No, I won't more 'n a minute. Jot can't stand it to see me give way. You go and touch a match to the kitchen fire, so 't the kettle will be boiling, and I'll have a minute to myself. I don't know what the neighbors would think to ketch me crying over my drawing-in frame; but the spell's over now, or 'bout over, and when I can muster up courage I'll take the rest of the baby's cloak and put a border of white everlastings round the outside of the rug. I'll always mean the baby's birth and Lovey's death to me; but the flowers will remind me it 's life everlasting for both of 'em, and so it's the most comforting end I can think of.”

It was indeed a beautiful rug when it was finished and laid in front of the sofa in the fore-room. Diadema was very choice of it. When company was expected she removed it from its accustomed place, and spread it in a corner of the room where no profane foot could possibly tread on it. Unexpected callers were managed by a different method. If they seated themselves on the sofa, she would fear they did not “set easy” or “rest comfortable” there, and suggest their moving to the stuffed chair by the window. The neighbors thought this solicitude merely another sign of Diadema's “p'ison neatness,” excusable in this case as there was so much white in the new rug.

The fore-room blinds were ordinarily closed, and the chillness of death pervaded the sacred apartment; but on great occasions, when the sun was allowed to penetrate the thirty-two tiny panes of glass in each window, and a blaze was lighted in the fire-place, Miss Hollis would look in as she went upstairs, and muse a moment over the pathetic little romance of rags, the story of two lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned posies, whose gay tints were brought out by a setting of sombre threads. Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that all its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage, motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, were chronicled in this narrow space not two yards square.

Diadema came in behind the little school-teacher one afternoon.

“I cal'late,” she said, “that being kep' in a dark room, and never being tread on, it will last longer 'n I do. If it does, Priscilla, you know that white crepe shawl of mine I wear to meeting hot Sundays: that would make a second row of everlastings round the border. You could piece out the linings good and smooth on the under side, draw in the white flowers, and fill 'em round with black to set 'em off. The rug would be han'somer than ever then, and the story--would be finished.”

A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS.

“Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, Know more than any book. Down with your doleful problems, And court the sunny brook. The south-winds are quick-witted, The schools are sad and slow, The masters quite omitted The lore we care to know.”

Emerson's April.

“Find the 317th page, Davy, and begin at the top of the right-hand column.”

The boy turned the leaves of the old instruction book obediently, and then began to read in a sing-song, monotonous tone:--

“'One of Pag-pag'”--

“Pag-a-ni-ni's.”

“'One of Paggernyner's' (I wish all the fellers in your stories didn't have such tough old names!) 'most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs he had when playing at Lord Holland's.' (Who was Lord Holland, uncle Tony?) 'Some one asked him to im-pro-vise on the violin the story of a son who kills his father, runs a-way, becomes a highway-man, falls in love with a girl who will not listen to him; so he leads her to a wild country site, suddenly jumping with her from a rock into an a-b-y-double-s'”--

“Abyss.”

“'--a--rock--into--an--abyss, were they disappear forever. Paggernyner listened quietly, and when the story was at an end he asked that all the lights should be distinguished.'”

“Look closer, Davy.”

“'Should be extinguished. He then began playing, and so terrible was the musical in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been given him that several of the ladies fainted, and the sal-salon-salon, when relighted, looked like a battle-field.' Cracky! Wouldn't you like to have been there, uncle Tony? But I don't believe anybody ever played that way, do you?”

“Yes,” said the listener, dreamily raising his sightless eyes to the elm-tree that grew by the kitchen door. “I believe it, and I can hear it myself when you read the story to me. I feel that the secret of everything in the world that is beautiful, or true, or terrible, is hidden in the strings of my violin, Davy, but only a master can draw it from captivity.”

“You make stories on your violin, too, uncle Tony, even if the ladies don't faint away in heaps, and if the kitchen doesn't look like a battle-field when you 've finished. I'm glad it doesn't, for my part, for I should have more housework to do than ever.”

“Poor Davy! you couldn't hate housework any worse if you were a woman; but it is all done for to-day. Now paint me one of your pictures, laddie; make me see with your eyes.”

The boy put down the book and leaped out of the open door, barely touching the old millstone that served for a step. Taking a stand in the well-worn path, he rested his hands on his hips, swept the landscape with the glance of an eagle, and began like a young improvisator:--

“The sun is just dropping behind Brigadier Hill.”