University of Virginia Library

2. II.

It was early in July, when the bitter of the apples began to
grow sweet, and their sunward sides a little russet; when the
chickens ceased from peeping and following the parent hen,
and began to scratch hollows in garden beds, and to fly suddenly
upon fences or into trees, and to crow and cackle with unpractised
throats, as though they were well used to it, and
cared not who heard them, for which disagreeable habits their
heads were now and then brought to the block. Blackberries
were ripening in the hedges, and the soft silk was swaying
beneath the tassels of the corn.

Such was the season when, one day, just after dinner, Mrs.
Wetherbe came to pass the afternoon, and, as she said, to kill
two birds with one stone, by securing a passage to the city
on the morrow in my father's wagon—for many were the old
ladies, and young ones too, who availed themselves of a like
privilege. Of course it was a pleasure for us to accommodate
her, and not the less, perhaps, that it was a favor she had never
asked before, and was not likely to ask again.

She was a plain old lady, whom to look at was to know—
good and simple-hearted as a child. She was born and had
been bred in the country, and was thoroughly a country woman;
her high heeled and creaking calf-skin shoes had never trodden
beyond the grass of her own door-yard more than once or twice,
for even a friendly tea-drinking with a neighbor was to her a
matter of not more than biennial occurrence. And on the day
I speak of she seemed to feel mortified that she should spend
two consecutive days like a gad-about—in view of which necessity
feeling bound in all self-respect to offer apologies.

In the first place, she had not for six years been to visit her
niece, Mrs. Emeline Randall, who came to her house more or
less every summer, and really felt slighted and grieved that
her visits were never returned. So Mrs. Randall expressed
herself, and so Mrs. Wetherbe thought, honest old lady as she
was! and so it seemed now as though she must go and see

Emeline, notwithstanding she would just as soon, she said, put
her head in a hornet's nest, any time, as go to town; for she
regarded its gayeties and fashions—and all city people, in her
opinion, were gay and fashionable—as leading directly toward
the kingdom of the Evil One. Therefore it was, as I conceive,
quite doubtful, whether for the mere pleasure of visiting her
amiable niece, Mrs. Wetherbe would have entered the city
limits.

She wanted some cap stuff and some home-made linen, if
such things were to be procured in these degenerate days, though
if she only had the flax she could spin and weave the linen
herself, old as she was, and would not be caught running about
town to buy it; for, if she did say it, she was worth more than
half the girls now at work; and no one who saw how fast her
brown withered fingers flew round the stocking she was knitting,
would have doubted it at all.

“Nothing is fit for the harvest-field but home spun linen,”
said Mrs. Wetherbe, “and if Wetherbe don't have it he'll be
nigh about sick, and I may jest as well go fust as last, for he
won't hear to my spinning, sence I am sixty odd; he says he
don't like the buz of the wheel, but to me there's no nicer
music.”

The last trowsers of her own making were worn out, and
along for several days past her good man had then been obliged
to wear cloth ones; which fact was real scandalous in the good
woman's estimation, and in this view it certainly was time she
should bestir herself, as she proposed.

Moreover, she had one or two other errands that especially
induced her to go to town. A black calico dress she must have,
as she had worn the old one five years, and now wanted to cut
it up and put it in a quilt, for she always intended it to jine
some patchwork she'd had on hand a long time, and now she
was going to do it, and make a quilting party, and have the
work all done at once. I, of course, received then and there
the earliest invitation.

This was years ago, and the fashion of such parties has long
since passed away, but in due time I will tell you about this,

as you may never have an opportunity of participating in such
a proceeding.

Perhaps you may have seen persons, certainly I have, who
seem to feel called on, from some feeling of obligation I do not
understand, to offer continual apologies for whatever they do,
or propose to do. It was so with good Mrs. Wetherbe, and
after the announcement of this prospective frolic, she talked a
long chapter of whys and wherefores, after this wise.

William Helphenstein Randall, Emeline's oldest son, had
been living at her house three or four years, and he had teased,
month in and month out, to have a wood-chopping and quilting,
some afternoon, and a regular play party in the evening; and
he had done so many good turns for her, that it seemed as if a
body could hardly get round it without seeming reel disobleegin';
and though she didn't approve much of such worldly
carryings on, she thought for once she would humor Helph;
and then, too, they would get wood prepared for winter, and
more or less quilting done—for “though on pleasure she was
bent, she was of frugal mind.”

I remarked that I was under an impression that Mr. Randall
was a man of property, and asked if Helph was out of college.

“Why, bless your heart, no,” said Mrs. Wetherbe, “he
was never in a college, more'n I be this minute; his father is
as rich as Cresus, but his children got all their larnin' in free
schools, pretty much; Helph hasn't been to school this ten
years a'most, I guess. Let me see: he was in a blacksmith's
shop sartainly two or three years before he come to my house,
and he isn't but nineteen now, so he must have been tuck from
school airly. The long and short on't is,” continued the old
lady, making her knitting-needles fly again, “Emeline, poor
gal, has got a man that is reel clos't, and the last time I was
there I most thought he begrudged me my victuals; but I was
keerful to take butter and garden-sass, and so on, enough to
pay for all I got.” And she dropped her work, she was so exasperated,
for though economical and saving in all ways, she
was not meanly stingy. She had chanced to glide into a communicative
mood, by no means habitual to her, and the perspiration
stood in drops on her forehead, and her little black

eyes winked with great rapidity for a minute, before she added,
“And that ain't the worst on't neither, he is often in drink, and
sich times he gits the Old Clooty in him as big as a yearlin'
heifer!”

“Ay, I understand,” I said, “and that is why Helph happens
to live with you.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Wetherbe, resuming her knitting, “that's
why, and it's the why of a good many other things; I don't
know as I ought to talk of things that are none of my business,
as you may say, but my temper gits riled and a'most biles
over the pot, when I think of some things Jinny Mitchel has
telled me: she's their adopted darter, you know; but that
speaking of the pot reminds me that I broke my little dinner
pot last week, and if there will be room for it I want to kerry it
along and get a new leg put in. And so you see,” she concluded,
“I have arrants enough to take me to town;” and she
wiped her spectacles, preparatory to going home, saying the
glasses were too young for her, and she must get older ones to-morrow,
and that was one of the most urgent things, in fact,
that took her to the city. Having promised that I would accompany
her, to select the new dress, and dine with Mrs.
Randall, she took leave, with an assurance of being ready at
six o'clock in the morning, so as not to detain us a grain or
morsel.