Mrs. Tree's Will Part 19

"Mr. Homer," he said, and at the sound of his voice the little gentleman stopped rocking and looked up in alarm: "when it comes to things like this, it's man to man, I expect. If Annie Lizzie wants to marry you, I won't stand in her way. I'll take myself and my stick off out o' sight somewheres, where she'll never hear of neither one of us again. But if--"

He stopped short; for Mr. Homer had risen to his feet in great agitation, and was waving his hands and blinking painfully through the dusk.

"My dear young friend!" he cried. "My dear but mistaken young friend, you distress me infinitely. You do not think--it cannot be possible that you think that this poor child has--has formed any such--such monstrous conception? If I thought so, I should resign my being,--a--cease upon the midnight, not without pain, but unspeakably the reverse. It is a most extraordinary thing that twice within a single summer I should have been exposed, sir, to a misapprehension of this amazing, this--a--portentous, this--a--unspeakably inauspicious description. I am not a marrying man, Thomas. Though regarding the s.e.x with the deepest veneration, sir, I have for many years regarded it across a gulf, if I may so express myself; a chasm, sir; a--a--maelstrom of separation, to speak strongly. Your suggestion fills me with pain; with--anguish; with--a--gorgons and chimera dire--meaning no disparagement to the young person in question. I had thought, Thomas,--I had conceived,--I had formed the apprehension, sir, that she was attached to you, and that you admitted the soft impeachment; that your heart responded to the--a--soft flutings of the tender pa.s.sion. I thought to see you wedded, and sharing my home, being as son and daughter to me. I--I--I--"

Mr. Homer's voice faltered. But Tommy Candy caught the distressedly waving hands in his.

"Mr. Homer," he cried, with a broken laugh, "don't, sir! don't take on!

I'm a fool, that's all, the biggest fool the world holds this minute.

I've loved Annie Lizzie ever since I was ten years old, and I believe she has me."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE LAST WORD

"Come back, have they?" said Seth Weaver. Seth was painting the outside of Miss Penny Pardon's shop, and Miss Penny was hopping in and out, hovering about the door like a lame robin, dividing her attention between Seth and the birds.

"Wal, have 'em a good time, did they?"

"Elegant!" replied Miss Penny, joyously. "They had them an elegant time, Seth. Miss Wax--There! look at me! and I said 'Mis' Hollopeter' just as slick when she come in! She was in this mornin', to tell Sister about the latest styles. I thought 'twas real kind of her, with all she had to think of in her golden joy. Folks _is_ so kind, I don't see how it comes to be such a wicked world as some calls it. Well, she told us all about it. They went to Niag'ry Falls first. He was wishful to take her to Was.h.i.+n'ton, but she said Nature come first in her eyes, even before Gov'ment; she has fine thoughts, and an elegant way of expressin' 'em, I always think. There! she said the Falls was handsome! 'twas beyond the power of thought, she said. Ain't you gettin' jest a dite too much red in that trimmin', Seth?"

"I guess not!" said Seth. "You don't want it to look like you was advertisin' a new brand of mustard, do ye? Where else did they go?"

"They went to New York," said Miss Penny. "It was there she see the styles. Went to the theatre, and to Central Park, and walked down Fifth Avenue; and his friends give them a testimonial dinner, and--oh, it was lovely to hear her tell about it. I declare, I should like to go to New York some day myself. Big sleeves is comin' in again; not that you care about that, Seth, but Sister was real pleased to know it. And Mr. Pindar has commenced to flesh up some already, Mis' Hollopeter says. He was as poor as a split flounder, you know: hadn't ben nourished good for years, she thinks. There! Men-folks don't know how to feed themselves, seems though, no more nor birds doos. Take that parrot there; you'd think he'd know by this time that fresh paint don't agree with him real well, yet he'll get at it and chaw it every chance he gets, and then has to come to me for doctorin'; it's the same with men-folks, the best of 'em. But Mr. Pindar'll get the best of victuals from now on!" Miss Penny concluded with an emphatic nod.

"She don't want to feed him too high all of a suddin," said Seth, drawing his brush carefully round a window-casing. "He might go the way of Job Joralemon's hoss."

"What way was that?" asked Miss Penny, pausing with a cage in her hand.

"Who is Job Joralemon? I don't know as I ever heard of him."

"He was a man over to Tinkham Corners," said Seth. "Meanest man in them parts, where they get the gold medal for meanness every year, some say.

Come along a man one day, travellin' man, lookin' for a hoss to buy. His hoss had died, or run away, or ben stole, or somethin', I dono what.

Anyways, he heard Job had a hoss to sell, and come to look at him. He warn't much of a one to look at,--the hoss, I mean, though Job warn't no Venus, neither; but this man, he thought likely he could fat him up and drive him a spell, till he got through his business, and then sell him for a mite more than he give for him. Wal, he took the hoss--he was stayin' at Rowe's Tavern over there--and give him a good solid feed, hay and grain, and then started out to drive on to the next town. Wal, sir,--ma'am, I should say,--quick as he got out the yard, that hoss started on the dead run; man couldn't hold him any more than you could a yearlin' steer. He run like wild-fire a little ways, and then he clum over a fence, buggy and all,--stump-fence it was,--and then he fell down, and rolled over, and died, then and there. The man collected himself out of the kindlin's, and looked round, and see old Rowe, the tavern-keeper, comin' up, grinnin' all over.

"'What does this mean?' the man hollers out, mad as hops. 'What kind of a hoss do you call this?' he says.

"Old Rowe kinder grunts. 'I call that a sawdust hoss,' he says.

"'Sawdust Granny!' says the man. 'What d'ye mean by that?'

"'Wal!' says old Rowe. 'Fact is, Job's ben in the habit of feedin'

sawdust to that hoss, and keepin' green goggles on him so's he'd think 'twas gra.s.s. Come to give him a good feed, ye see, and 'twas too much for him, and car'd him off.'

"So what I say is, you tell Mis' Hollopeter she wants to be careful how she feeds Pindar up, that's all."

"Seth Weaver, if you ain't the beat!" exclaimed Miss Penny. "I believe you made that up right here and now. Ain't you ashamed to tell such stories?"

"Not a mite! not a mite!" said Seth, comfortably. "Take more'n that to shame me. Ask Annie Lizzie if it don't. Here she comes along now. Ain't she a pictur'?"

Annie Lizzie came blossoming along the street in her pink calico dress; her pink sunbonnet was hanging on her shoulders, and her soft dark hair curled round her face just for the pleasure of it. She was swinging a bright tin pail in her hand; altogether the street seemed to lighten as she came along it.

"h.e.l.lo, Annie Lizzie!" said Seth, as she came up to the shop. "Comin' to see me, ain't ye?"

"I guess not!" said Miss Penny. "I expect she's come to see me, ain't you, Annie Lizzie? I've got a new piece of ribbin in, jest matches your dress, and your cheeks, too."

Annie Lizzie dimpled and smiled shyly. "I'd love to see it, Miss Penny,"

she said; "but first I come with a message for Mr. Weaver."

"Then I'll go and feed the rest of them birds," said Miss Penny.

"There! hear 'em hollerin' the minute I say 'feed'? They are the cutest!"

She vanished into the shop, and Seth looked up at the young girl with a friendly twinkle. "Back stairs again, Annie Liz?" he asked. "I expect to get at 'em to-morrow, honest I do."

"No, sir, 'twasn't the stairs this time," said Annie Lizzie, looking down. "Ma didn't know I was comin', or she might have said something. I come with a message from Tommy, Mr. Weaver. He wanted to know could you spare him some white paint."

"What does he want of white paint?" asked Seth.

"Wants to paint the front gate," replied Annie Lizzie.

"Sho!" said Seth. "The front gate was painted only last fall. There ain't no need to paint it ag'in for three years."

"I know!" said the girl, patiently. "But all the same he's goin' to paint it, and he wants you should put somethin' in it so's it won't dry."

"So's it _will_ dry, you mean!" corrected Seth. "Tell him I won't do it.

Hastenin' white paint's like hastenin' a mud-turtle; it's bad for his const.i.tution, and _then_ he don't get anywheres. White paint has to dry slow, or it's no good. You tell Tommy that, and tell him he'd oughter know it, much as he's hung round my shop."

"He doos know it!" said Annie Lizzie, in her cooing voice. "He don't want it to dry, Mr. Weaver."

"Don't want it to dry!" repeated Seth.

"No, sir. He said I might tell you, so's you'd understand; he knew you wouldn't let it go no further, Mr. Weaver. Fact is, he wants to keep folks away for a spell, so's Mr. Homer can get rested up. He's real wore out with all these celebrations and goin's on, and he has so many callers he don't have no chance to live hardly. So Tommy thought if he could paint the gate, and keep on paintin' it, with a good paint that lasted wet, you see, it would--Well, what he means is,--there couldn't anybody get in but what had pants on. It's a narrow gate, you know."

"I know," said Seth, with a grim twinkle. "I see. That's Tommy Candy all over. Tell him I'll fix him up an article will do the business; he needn't have no fears. But how about them little pink petticuts of yourn, Annie Lizzie? I dono as Tommy is so special anxious to keep them out, is he?"

The pink of Annie Lizzie's dress was surely not a fast color, for it seemed to spread in a rosy cloud over her soft cheeks, up, up, to the soft rings of hair against her forehead.

"Direxia's real good to me," she said, simply. "She lets me come in the back gate."

THE END.