Keziah Coffin Part 40

"Who--who--who--"

"Now you've turned to an owl, I do believe. 'Hoo! hoo!' She's engaged to Nat Hammond, that's who. Nothin' very surprisin' about that, is there?"

Kyan made no answer. He rubbed his forehead, while his sister rubbed the grease spots. In jerky sentences she told of the engagement and how the news had reached her.

"I can't believe it," faltered Abishai. "She goin' to marry Nat! Why, I can't understand. I thought--"

"What did you think? See here! you ain't keepin' anything from me, be you?"

The answer was enthusiastically emphatic.

"No, no, no, no!" declared Kyan. "Only I didn't know they was--was--"

"Neither did anybody else, but what of it? Folks don't usually advertise when they're keepin' comp'ny, do they?"

"No--o. But it's gen'rally found out. I know if I was keepin'

comp'ny--or you was, La-viny--"

His sister started.

"What makes you say that?" she demanded, looking quickly up from her rubbing.

"Why, nothin'. Only if I was--or you was, somebody'd see somethin'

suspicious and kind of drop a hint, and--"

"Better for them if they 'tended to their own affairs," was the sharp answer. "I ain't got any patience with folks that's always talkin' about their neighbor's doin's. There! now you go out and stand alongside the cook stove till that wet place dries. Don't you move till 'TIS dry, neither."

So to the kitchen went Kyan, to stand, a sort of living clotheshorse, beside the hot range. But during the drying process he rubbed his forehead many times. Remembering what he had seen in the grove he could not understand; but he also remembered, even more vividly, what Keziah Coffin had promised to do if he ever breathed a word. And he vowed again that that word should not be breathed.

The death and funeral of Captain Eben furnished Trumet with a subject of conversation for a week or more. Then, at the sewing circle and at the store and after prayer meeting, both at the Regular meeting house and the Come-Outer chapel, speculation centered on the marriage of Nat and Grace. When was it to take place? Would the couple live at the old house and "keep packet tavern" or would the captain go to sea again, taking his bride with him? Various opinions, pro and con, were expressed by the speculators, but no one could answer authoritatively, because none knew except those most interested, and the latter would not tell.

John Ellery heard the discussions at the sewing circle when, in company with some of the men of his congregation, he dropped in at these gatherings for tea after the sewing was over. He heard them at church, before and after the morning service, and when he made pastoral calls.

People even asked his opinion, and when he changed the subject inferred, some of them, that he did not care about the doings of Come-Outers. Then they switched to inquiries concerning his health.

"You look awful peaked lately, Mr. Ellery," said Didama Rogers. "Ain't you feelin' well?"

The minister answered that he was as well as usual, or thought he was.

"No, no, you ain't nuther," declared Didama. "You look's if you was comin' down with a spell of somethin'. I ain't the only one that's noticed it. Why, Thankful Payne says to me only yesterday, 'Didama,'

says she, 'the minister's got somethin' on his mind and it's wearin' of him out.' You ain't got nothin' on your mind, have you, Mr. Ellery?"

"I guess not, Mrs. Rogers. It's a beautiful afternoon, isn't it?

"There! I knew you wa'n't well. A beautiful afternoon, and it hotter'n furyation and gettin' ready to rain at that! Don't tell me! 'Tain't your mind, Mr. Ellery, it's your blood that's gettin' thin. My husband had a spell just like it a year or two afore he died, and the doctor said he needed rest and a change. Said he'd ought to go away somewheres by himself. I put my foot down on THAT in a hurry. 'The idea!' I says. 'You, a sick man, goin' off all alone by yourself to die of lonesomeness. If you go, I go with you.' So him and me went up to Boston and it rained the whole week we was there, and we set in a little box of a hotel room with a window that looked out at a brick wall, and set and set and set, and that's all. I kept talkin' to him to cheer him up, but he never cheered. I'd talk to him for an hour steady and when I'd stop and ask a question he'd only groan and say yes, when he meant no.

Finally, I got disgusted, after I'd asked him somethin' four or five times and he'd never answered, and I told him, I believed he was gettin'

deef. 'Lordy!' he says, 'I wish I was!' Well, that was enough for ME.

Says I, 'If your mind's goin' to give out we'd better be home.' So home we come. And that's all the good change and rest done HIM. Hey? What did you say, Mr. Ellery?"

"Er--oh, nothing, nothing, Mrs. Rogers."

"Yes. So home we come and I'd had enough of doctors to last. I figgered out that his blood was thinnin' and I knew what was good for that. My great Aunt Hepsy, that lived over to East Wellmouth, she was a great hand for herbs and such and she'd give me a receipt for thickenin' the blood that was somethin' wonderful. It had more kind of healin' herbs in it than you could shake a stick at. I cooked a kittleful and got him to take a dose four times a day. He made more fuss than a young one about takin' it. Said it tasted like the Evil One, and such profane talk, and that it stuck to his mouth so's he couldn't relish his vittles; but I never let up a mite. He had to take it and it done him a world of good.

Now I've got that receipt yet, Mr. Ellery, and I'll make some of that medicine for you. I'll fetch it down to-morrow. Yes, yes, I will. I'm agoin' to, so you needn't say no. And perhaps I'll have heard somethin'

about Cap'n Nat and Grace by that time."

She brought the medicine, and the minister promptly, on her departure, handed it over to Keziah, who disposed of it just as promptly.

"What did I do with it?" repeated the housekeeper. "Well, I'll tell you.

I was kind of curious to see what 'twas like, so I took a teaspoonful.

I did intend to pour the rest of it out in the henyard, but after that taste I had too much regard for the hens. So I carried it way down to the pond and threw it in, jug and all. B-r-r-r! Of all the messes that--I used to wonder what made Josh Rogers go moonin' round makin' his lips go as if he was crazy. I thought he was talkin' to himself, but now I know better, he was TASTIN'. B-r-r-r!"

Keziah was the life of the gloomy parsonage. Without her the minister would have broken down. Time and time again he was tempted to give up, in spite of his promise, and leave Trumet, but her pluck and courage made him ashamed of himself and he stayed to fight it out. She watched him and tended him and "babied" him as if he was a spoiled child, pretending to laugh at herself for doing it and at him for permitting it. She cooked the dishes he liked best, she mended his clothes, she acted as a buffer between him and callers who came at inopportune times. She was cheerful always when he was about, and no one would have surmised that she had a sorrow in the world. But Ellery knew and she knew he knew, so the affection and mutual esteem between the two deepened. He called her "Aunt Keziah" at her request and she continued to call him "John." This was in private, of course; in public he was "Mr. Ellery" and she "Mrs. Coffin."

In his walks about town he saw nothing of Grace. She and Mrs. Poundberry and Captain Nat were still at the old home and no one save themselves knew what their plans might be. Yet, oddly enough, Ellery was the first outsider to learn these plans and that from Nat himself.

He met the captain at the corner of the "Turnoff" one day late in August. He tried to make his bow seem cordial, but was painfully aware that it was not. Nat, however, seemed not to notice, but crossed the road and held out his hand.

"How are you, Mr. Ellery?" he said. "I haven't run across you for sometime. What's the matter? Seems to me you look rather under the weather."

Ellery answered that he was all right and, remembering that he had not met the captain since old Hammond's death, briefly expressed his sympathy. His words were perfunctory and his manner cold. His reason told him that this man was not to blame--was rather to be pitied, if Keziah's tale was true. Yet it is hard to pity the one who is to marry the girl you love. Reason has little to do with such matters.

"Well, Mr. Ellery," said Captain Nat, "I won't keep you. I see you're in a hurry. Just thought I'd run alongside a minute and say good-by. Don't know's I'll see you again afore I sail."

"Before you sail? You--you are going away?"

"Yup. My owners have been after me for a good while, but I wouldn't leave home on account of dad's health. Now he's gone, I've got to be gettin' back on salt water again. My s.h.i.+p's been drydocked and overhauled and she's in New York now loadin' for Manila. It's a long vy'age, even if I come back direct, which ain't likely. So I may not see the old town again for a couple of years. Take care of yourself, won't you? Good men, especially ministers, are scurse, and from what I hear about you I cal'late Trumet needs you."

"When are you going?"

"Last of next week, most likely."

"Will you--shall you go alone? Are you to be--to be--"

"Married? No. Grace and I have talked it over and we've agreed it's best to wait till I come back. You see, dad's been dead such a little while, and all, that--well, we're goin' to wait, anyhow. She'll stay in the old house with Hannah, and I've fixed things so she'll be provided for while I'm gone. I left it pretty much to her. If she'd thought it best for us to marry now, I cal'late I should have--have--well, done what she wanted. But she didn't. Ah, hum!" he added with a sigh; "she's a good girl, a mighty good girl. Well, so long and good luck."

"Good-by, captain."

"Good-by. Er--I say, Mr. Ellery, how things at the parsonage? All well there, are you?"

"Yes."

"Er--Keziah--Mrs. Coffin, your housekeeper, is she smart?"

"Yes. She's well."

"That's good. Say, you might tell her good-by for me, if you want to.

Tell her I wished her all the luck there was. And--and--just say that there ain't any--well, that her friend--say just that, will you?--her FRIEND said 'twas all right. She'll understand; it's a--a sort of joke between us."

"Very good, captain; I'll tell her."