The Copy-Cat and Other Stories Part 26

Meantime Jim Bennet was seated in his best parlor and Susan Adkins was whispering to Mrs. Trimmer out in the kitchen.

"I don't know whether he's gone stark, staring mad or not," whispered Susan, "but he's in the parlor smoking his worst old pipe, and that big tiger tommy is sitting in his lap, and he's let in all the other cats, and they're nosing round, and I don't dare drive 'em out. I took up the broom, then I put it away again. I never knew Mr. Bennet to act so. I can't think what's got into him."

"Did he say anything?"

"No, he didn't say much of anything, but he said it in a way that made my flesh fairly creep. Says he, 'As long as this is my house and my furniture and my cats, Mis' Adkins, I think I'll sit down in the parlor, where I can see to read my paper and smoke at the same time.' Then he holds the kitchen door open, and he calls, 'Kitty, kitty, kitty!' and that great tiger tommy comes in with his tail up, rubbing round his legs, and all the other cats followed after. I shut the door before these last ones got into the parlor." Susan Adkins regarded malevolently the three tortoise-sh.e.l.l cats of three generations and various stages of growth, one Maltese settled in a purring round of comfort with four kittens, and one perfectly black cat, which sat glaring at her with beryl-colored eyes.

"That black cat looks evil," said Mrs. Trimmer.

"Yes, he does. I don't know why I didn't drown him when he was a kitten."

"Why didn't you drown all those Malty kittens?"

"The old cat hid them away until they were too big. Then he wouldn't let me. What do you suppose has come to him? Just smell that awful pipe!"

"Men do take queer streaks every now and then," said Mrs. Trimmer. "My husband used to, and he was as good as they make 'em, poor man. He would eat sugar on his beefsteak, for one thing. The first time I saw him do it I was scared. I thought he was plum crazy, but afterward I found out it was just because he was a man, and his ma hadn't wanted him to eat sugar when he was a boy. Mr. Bennet will get over it."

"He don't act as if he would."

"Oh yes, he will. Jim Bennet never stuck to anything but being Jim Bennet for very long in his life, and this ain't being Jim Bennet."

"He is a very good man," said Susan with a somewhat apologetic tone.

"He's too good."

"He's too good to cats."

"Seems to me he's too good to 'most everybody. Think what he has done for Amanda and Alma, and how they act!"

"Yes, they are ungrateful and real mean to him; and I feel sometimes as if I would like to tell them just what I think of them," said Susan Adkins. "Poor man, there he is, studying all the time what he can do for people, and he don't get very much himself."

Mrs. Trimmer arose to take leave. She had a long, sallow face, capable of a sarcastic smile. "Then," said she, "if I were you I wouldn't begrudge him a chair in the parlor and a chance to read and smoke and hold a p.u.s.s.y-cat."

"Who said I was begrudging it? I can air out the parlor when he's got over the notion."

"Well, he will, so you needn't worry," said Mrs. Trimmer. As she went down the street she could see Jim's profile beside the parlor window, and she smiled her sarcastic smile, which was not altogether unpleasant.

"He's stopped smoking, and he ain't reading," she told herself. "It won't be very long before he's Jim Bennet again."

But it was longer than she antic.i.p.ated, for Jim's will was propped by Edward Hayward's. Edward kept Jim to his standpoint for weeks, until a few days before Christmas. Then came self-a.s.sertion, that self-a.s.sertion of negation which was all that Jim possessed in such a crisis. He called upon Dr. Hayward; the two were together in the little study for nearly an hour, and talk ran high, then Jim prevailed.

"It's no use, Edward," he said; "a man can't be made over when he's cut and dried in one fas.h.i.+on, the way I am. Maybe I'm doing wrong, but to me it looks like doing right, and there's something in the Bible about every man having his own right and wrong. If what you say is true, and I am hindering the Lord Almighty in His work, then it is for Him to stop me. He can do it. But meantime I've got to go on doing the way I always have. Joe has been trying to drive that tip-cart, and the horse ran away with him twice. Then he let the cart fall on his foot and mash one of his toes, and he can hardly get round, and Amanda and Alma don't dare touch that money in the bank for fear of not having enough to pay the taxes next year in case I don't help them. They only had a little money on hand when I gave them that talking to, and Christmas is 'most here, and they haven't got things they really need. Amanda's coat that she wore to meeting last Sunday didn't look very warm to me, and poor Alma had her furs chewed up by the Leach dog, and she's going without any.

They need lots of things. And poor Mis' Adkins is 'most sick with tobacco smoke. I can see it, though she doesn't say anything, and the nice parlor curtains are full of it, and cat hairs are all over things.

I can't hold out any longer, Edward. Maybe I am a door-mat; and if I am, and it is wicked, may the Lord forgive me, for I've got to keep right on being a door-mat."

Hayward sighed and lighted his pipe. However, he had given up and connived with Jim.

On Christmas eve the two men were in hiding behind a clump of cedars in the front yard of Jim's nieces' house. They watched the expressman deliver a great load of boxes and packages. Jim drew a breath of joyous relief.

"They are taking them in," he whispered--"they are taking them in, Edward!"

Hayward looked down at the dim face of the man beside him, and something akin to fear entered his heart. He saw the face of a lifelong friend, but he saw something in it which he had never recognized before. He saw the face of one of the children of heaven, giving only for the sake of the need of others, and glorifying the gifts with the love and pity of an angel.

"I was afraid they wouldn't take them!" whispered Jim, and his watching face was beautiful, although it was only the face of a little, old man of a little village, with no great gift of intellect. There was a full moon riding high; the ground was covered with a glistening snow-level, over which wavered wonderful shadows, as of wings. One great star prevailed despite the silver might of the moon. To Hayward Jim's face seemed to prevail, as that star, among all the faces of humanity.

Jim crept noiselessly toward a window, Hayward at his heels. The two could see the lighted interior plainly.

"See poor Alma trying on her furs," whispered Jim, in a rapture. "See Amanda with her coat. They have found the money. See Joe heft the turkey." Suddenly he caught Hayward's arm, and the two crept away.

Out on the road, Jim fairly sobbed with pure delight. "Oh, Edward,"

he said, "I am so thankful they took the things! I was so afraid they wouldn't, and they needed them! Oh, Edward, I am so thankful!" Edward pressed his friend's arm.

When they reached Jim's house a great tiger-cat leaped to Jim's shoulder with the silence and swiftness of a shadow. "He's always watching for me," said Jim, proudly. "p.u.s.s.y! p.u.s.s.y!" The cat began to purr loudly, and rubbed his splendid head against the man's cheek.

"I suppose," said Hayward, with something of awe in his tone, "that you won't smoke in the parlor to-night?"

"Edward, I really can't. Poor woman, she's got it all aired and beautifully cleaned, and she's so happy over it. There's a good fire in the shed, and I will sit there with the p.u.s.s.y-cats until I go to bed.

Oh, Edward, I am so thankful that they took the things!"

"Good night, Jim."

"Good night. You don't blame me, Edward?"

"Who am I to blame you, Jim? Good night."

Hayward watched the little man pa.s.s along the path to the shed door.

Jim's back was slightly bent, but to his friend it seemed bent beneath a holy burden of love and pity for all humanity, and the inheritance of the meek seemed to crown that drooping old head. The door-mat, again spread freely for the trampling feet of all who got comfort thereby, became a blessed thing. The humble creature, despised and held in contempt like One greater than he, giving for the sake of the needs of others, went along the narrow foot-path through the snow. The minister took off his hat and stood watching until the door was opened and closed and the little window gleamed with golden light.

THE AMETHYST COMB

MISS JANE CAREW was at the railroad station waiting for the New York train. She was about to visit her friend, Mrs. Viola Longstreet. With Miss Carew was her maid, Margaret, a middleaged New England woman, attired in the stiffest and most correct of maid-uniforms. She carried an old, large sole-leather bag, and also a rather large sole-leather jewel-case. The jewel-case, carried openly, was rather an unusual sight at a New England railroad station, but few knew what it was. They concluded it to be Margaret's special handbag. Margaret was a very tall, thin woman, unbending as to carriage and expression. The one thing out of absolute plumb about Margaret was her little black bonnet. That was askew. Time had bereft the woman of so much hair that she could fasten no head-gear with security, especially when the wind blew, and that morning there was a stiff gale. Margaret's bonnet was c.o.c.ked over one eye. Miss Carew noticed it.

"Margaret, your bonnet is crooked," she said.

Margaret straightened her bonnet, but immediately the bonnet veered again to the side, weighted by a stiff jet aigrette. Miss Carew observed the careen of the bonnet, realized that it was inevitable, and did not mention it again. Inwardly she resolved upon the removal of the jet aigrette later on. Miss Carew was slightly older than Margaret, and dressed in a style somewhat beyond her age. Jane Carew had been alert upon the situation of departing youth. She had eschewed gay colors and extreme cuts, and had her bonnets made to order, because there were no longer anything but hats in the millinery shop. The milliner in Wheaton, where Miss Carew lived, had objected, for Jane Carew inspired reverence.

"A bonnet is too old for you. Miss Carew," she said. "Women much older than you wear hats."

"I trust that I know what is becoming to a woman of my years, thank you.

Miss Waters," Jane had replied, and the milliner had meekly taken her order.

After Miss Carew had left, the milliner told her girls that she had never seen a woman so perfectly crazy to look her age as Miss Carew.

"And she a pretty woman, too," said the milliner; "as straight as an arrer, and slim, and with all that hair, scarcely turned at all."

Miss Carew, with all her haste to a.s.sume years, remained a pretty woman, softly slim, with an abundance of dark hair, showing little gray.

Sometimes Jane reflected, uneasily, that it ought at her time of life to be entirely gray. She hoped n.o.body would suspect her of dyeing it. She wore it parted in the middle, folded back smoothly, and braided in a compact ma.s.s on the top of her head. The style of her clothes was slightly behind the fas.h.i.+on, just enough to suggest conservatism and age. She carried a little silver-bound bag in one nicely gloved hand; with the other she held daintily out of the dust of the platform her dress-skirt. A glimpse of a silk frilled petticoat, of slender feet, and ankles delicately slim, was visible before the onslaught of the wind.

Jane Carew made no futile effort to keep her skirts down before the wind-gusts. She was so much of the gentlewoman that she could be gravely oblivious to the exposure of her ankles. She looked as if she had never heard of ankles when her black silk skirts lashed about them. She rose superbly above the situation. For some abstruse reason Margaret's skirts were not affected by the wind. They might have been weighted with buckram, although it was no longer in general use. She stood, except for her veering bonnet, as stiffly immovable as a wooden doll.