University of Virginia Library

4. IV.
MRS. APJOHN'S ADVENTURE.

And now, what stress of ill-fortune had hurried Abel
into sending this alarming missive? To answer which
question, we must go back to Tasso Smith and the Apjohns,
and to one bright, particular Sunday in this history.

A still, September day, with the peculiar sentiment
of the Sabbath breathing in the air, yellowing in the
sunshine, brooding over field and orchard almost like a
conscious presence, and filling all the silent rooms of the
house with its cool hush. The bells have ceased ringing;
the choirs have ceased singing; and the naughty
boys, sitting in the wagons under the meeting-house
sheds, can hear far off the monotonous tones of the
minister's discourse.

Abel Dane sits by his brilliant and showily-dressed
wife in their smart pew. His mother has also, by a
strong resolution and effort, got to church this afternoon,
thinking it the last Sunday of the season, and perhaps the
last Sunday of her life that she shall be able to hear the
good old man preach. On one side of this group you
may see the young man, Tasso Smith, occasionally stroking
his moustache, with a display of finger-rings, and

casting significant glances at Faustina; while, on the
other, his bald pate shining in the light, sits solemn John
Apjohn, choking in black cravat, rolling up his large
eyes at the preacher, and now and then drawing down
the corners of his mouth with a dismal sigh.

Prudence is not present. In the morning she can
usually endure a sermon of reasonable length; but in
the afternoon it is impossible for her to avoid the sin
of drowsiness. “The more flesh, the more frailty.”
And it is so mortifying to the sensitive John to have
to keep waking her up, in order to prevent her nodding
and snoring, that she has wisely resolved to spend
her Sunday afternoons at home.

She reads a little, sleeps a good deal, opens the till
of the chest to see that her money is safe, and perhaps
counts it over, then thinks of preparing supper. With
a basket on her arm, she visits the garden for vegetables.
She is sorry the tomatoes are poor and puny. She is
fond of tomatoes, and involuntarily looks over the fence
into Abel Dane's garden, where there are bushels of
nice, ripe ones. Before Eliza went and Faustina came,
the Danes used to give her all the vegetables she wanted;
for they always had a large garden generously cultivated,
while she had but a poor little strip of ground,
with only a shiftless husband to look after it.

“Think of that, John Apjohn!” she says to herself.
“If I only had a husband that was wuth a cent!” —
doubtless forgetting that it is not alone John's inefficiency,
but her own tight hold of the purse-strings, which

prevents his enriching the soil in a manner to insure
good crops. “Now, old Mis' Dane, and Abel, too, for
that matter, had jest as lives we'd have some of them
tomatuses as not. It's a pity to see 'em wasted. They
look to me to be a-rottin' on the ground. Anyway,
frost'll come and finish 'em 'fore their folks can ever use
'em up. I've a good notion jest to step over and pick a
few. They never'd know it; and John'll think they
come off'm our own vines.”

Up and down and all around she looks, and sees no
eye beholding her.

“They've all gone to meetin' 'cept the baby, and I
see Melissy take him and carry him over to her folks's.
House is all shet up, I know. Only a few tomatuses.
What's the harm, I'd like to know? I'm sure I'd
ruther any one would have my tomatuses than leave 'em
to rot on the ground. I will jest step over and take two
or three.”

“Stepping over” was a rather light and airy way of
expressing it. Did you ever see a fat woman climb a
fence, and didn't laugh? Cautiously feeling the boards
till she finds one she has confidence in; hugging the
post affectionately; tangling her knees in her skirts;
putting her elbows over the topmost board, and finally
getting one foot over; then turning around, as she
brings up the other foot; stopping a minute to arrange
skirts, then getting down backwards, very much as she
got up, — all this is in the programme. Prudence is
not nearly so spry as a eat; but, give her time, and she

is good for any common board-fence, provided nobody is
looking. She is particularly anxious, on this occasion,
to assure herself that nobody is looking. And so the
feat is accomplished, and she treads carefully among
the tomatoes.

Although purposing to pick only a few, they are so
large and so plenty that she fills her basket almost before
she knows it. Then, it is “sich a pity to see 'em
wasted,” she thinks she will put two or three in her
apron. For this is the subtlety of sin; that a thousand
excuses suggest themselves for taking just a little of the
forbidden fruit; then to add a little more to that little
cannot really make much difference in the offence; and
so you progress by degrees in the indulgence, till you
have not only filled your basket, but your apron also.

Stooping, with broad back to the golden sunshine and
blue Sabbath sky; holding up her apron with one hand,
and loading it with the other, she is peering among the
vines, when suddenly she is startled by a harsh growl.
In great fright she looks up and sees Turk bristling before
her.

“Massy sakes! why, Turk! don't you know me?”

“Gur-r-r-r!” answers Turk.

“Dear me!” gasps Prudence. “You never acted so
before, Turk! You never barked at me! Come, doggy!
poor fellow! poor fellow!”

She reaches out her hand coaxingly, and the brute
snaps at it. Then the soul of the woman grows sick
within her, and her knees shake. Right before her

stands the red-eyed, snarling monster,—between her and
the fence, between her and her basket; and what shall
she do?

“Turk, it's me, Turk! your old friend, doggy!” she
tells him.

“Can't help it!” plainly answers doggy, deep in his
thundering throat.

But he won't dare to bite her, she thinks. And, if she
dies for it, she must get out of the garden before the folks
come from meeting. She makes a charge at her basket.
Turk meets her with a terrific leap and snarl, and seizes
her apron with his teeth. Involuntarily screaming, she
retreats. She clings to the apron with her hands, he
with his jaws. She pulls one way, he tugs the other.
The string breaks. Prudence loses her hold of the
apron, and falls in the entangling tomato-vines. Turk
goes back upon his haunches, with the captured apron
in his teeth.

“I never, never! Oh, dear, dear! What shall I do?
what shall I do?” splutters Prudence, as she disengages
her feet from the vines, feels the smashed tomatoes
under her, gets up, and still sees Turk, with her apron
and basket, between her and the fence. And now she
thinks she hears the carriages coming from meeting.

The impulse is to run. And leave her basket and
apron in possession of the enemy? No, they must be
brought off from the battle-field at all hazards. Prudence
is wild, or she would never dare advance again to
the contest. Turk waits till she has reached the apron-string,

and begun to pull it gently, when, once more
considering it time to assume the offensive, he gives a
bound, rescues the rag, hurls her backwards to the
ground, and seats himself beside her, with his fore
paws on her dress, and his red tongue, white teeth, hot
breath, and ferocious eyes close to her face. She does
not scream; she does not attempt to rise; for when she
stirs, his growl reverberates in her ear, and she feels his
moist muzzle wetting her throat.

A sad predicament for a respectable woman, isn't it?
Oh, what would she give if she had only stayed in her
own garden, and never cast covetous eyes at her neighbor's?
If she only had her apron and basket safe and
empty the other side of the fence, would she ever, ever
do such a thing again? Never, never!

“Turk, Turk, good doggy!” she pleads, in her desperation,
“do let me go! Only this time, Turk! I
never will agin! Please do, that's a nice dog, now!”
But the inexorable Turk glares over her, looking greedily
up the road, and listening, not to her entreaties, but
to the sound of the approaching wheels. And there we
may as well leave her, for the present, to her interesting
reflections.