 | XIII.
THE SAD CASE OF THE COOPER. Neighbor's wives |  |
13. XIII.
THE SAD CASE OF THE COOPER.
Prudence had all this while been waiting anxiously
for her good-man's return; wishing a hundred times,
in her impatience, that she had gone herself and settled
the affair with Abel. The hour of John's absence was
perhaps the longest in that worthy woman's life. The
morning twilight was never so provokingly cool and
slow. The mists were in no hurry to lift from the hills;
the sun took his time to rise, just as if nothing had
happened. “I shall fly!” she repeatedly informed the
deliberate universe, as she looked over towards her
neighbor's, and the sluggish wheel of time brought no
sign of the cooper's coming.
The wings were not yet grown, however, with which
that massy female was to perform the threatened aërial
excursion. She was by no means a volatile animal. The
consequence was, that when at last John's doleful physiognomy
appeared coming through the gate (the very
posts of which looked solemn, in sympathy with him,
and seemed to squint pathetically at each other, from
under their wooden caps, as he passed), the solid housewife
still gravitated as near the planet as any unfledged
biped on its surface.
“O John Apjohn!” said she, reproachfully, “I've
wanted to git hold of you! What was you gone so long
for?”
“To be sure, to be sure!” said meek John, “I might as
well have not gone at all. No use, no use, Prudy.” And
he sat down as if he didn't expect ever to get up again.
“O you dish-rag!” ejaculated Mrs. Apjohn. “There's
no more sperit or stiffenin' in you than there is in my
apron-string!”
“Don't speak of aprons! don't speak of aprons!” implored
the cooper; the subject being so painfully associated
with that of tomatoes, that he did not think he
could ever see an apron again without qualms.
“Well!” — sharply — “what did you find out? You
let Abel soft-soap you to death, I know by your looks!”
“Prudy,” answered the cooper, lifting his earnest,
melancholy eyes, “Abel Dane's an innocent man. So is
his wife. 'Twasn't neither of them that hung them
things on our door, and they haven't told nobody. I've
their word for 't.”
“That for their word!” Prudence snapped her fingers
scornfully. “Don't tell me! don't tell me, John
Apjohn! They may make you believe that absurd
story, but I know better. Jest look here!”
She displayed before his eyes an old letter-envelope
which had been rolled up, pipe-stem fashion, and which,
when unrolled, showed an obstinate tendency to fly together
again, — very much after the manner of one of
Faustina's curl-papers.
“What is it? where did you get it?” John asked, with
feeble interest.
“Don't you see what it is? It's one of the kivers, —
what ye call 'ems, — of Abel Dane's letters. Here's his
name on't, — don't ye see? And where do you s'pose I
got it? On this very floor, — see!” exclaimed Prudence,
“when I went to sweep up after them nasty tomatuses.”
“Abel Dane!” pronounced the cooper, with difficulty
holding the scroll open with his unsteady fingers, whilst
he spelled out the name. “To be sure, Prudy; to be
sure! On the floor? How come it on the floor? I
don't understand. I don't understand.”
“No, you never understand!” said bitter Prudence.
“You can't see through a grin'stun without somebody
stands by and shows you the hole. It's jest as plain as
day to me now that Abel Dane come here last night and
stuck them tomatuses on our door, — jest as plain as if
I'd seen him do it. He had his label ready to put on to
'em, but in takin' it out of his pocket, he dropped this.
Then when you dragged the vines into the house, you
swep' it along in with 'em. Who else should have one
of his letters? Answer me that, John Apjohn!”
“Wal, wal!” said the cooper, convinced by this overwhelming
circumstantial evidence, “it must be as you
say, Prudy. But I wouldn't have thought he'd have
done it; I wouldn't have thought he'd have done it!”
“I swep' the house only ye's'd'y mornin', and there's
been nobody in't sence but us two, has there? Tell me
that!”
“No, not as I know on,” said John.
“There!” she exclaimed, arrogantly, as if he had been
opposing her theory. “How, then, I'd like to know, did
this paper come here? If you know any better'n I do,
why don't you say? If you can explain it, why don't
you? Come, you know so much!”
“I don't pretend, I don't pretend,” murmured John.
“Wal!” — triumphantly — “I guess you'll give it up,
then, that I'm right for once. Takes me, after all; as
you'll learn after I'm dead and gone, if you don't before,
and I never expect you will; but you'll think of me, and
miss my advice and judgment in matters when I'm laid
in my grave; and I guess you'll wish then you'd heerd
to me more, and thought more of my opinions; but I
hope your conscience won't trouble you on that account,
Mister Apjohn!”
“Don't, don't, Prudy!” entreated the cooper, holding
his leg on his knee, and bending over it, and rocking it
plaintively. “I can't bear it!”
For the frail mortal saw nothing absurd in the hypothesis
of surviving his robust spouse; and he didn't
know but he might feel remorse for his supposed cruel
treatment of her.
“I shan't be always spared to you, Mister Apjohn!”
— The Mister was peculiarly cutting. — “I hope you
don't wish me out of the way before my time comes;
though I sometimes half think you do,” she continued,
giving vent to her feelings in a strain to which she commonly
had recourse, when very much in fault, or very
and I don't say I blame you. A woman can't expect to
git credit for her vartews now-days; but if she happens
for once to be a little unfort'nate in her ca'c'lations, oh,
it's a dreadful thing! and it's laid up ag'inst her as long
as she lives.” Prudence sighed and snuffed.
“Prudy,” said John, “I hain't laid up nothing agin
ye; nor I don't blame ye for nothin', nuther;” which
powerful array of negatives, seconded by a strong sympathetic
snuffing on the part of the cooper, afforded her
the solace she sought for her wounded self-respect.
“Wal!” she exclaimed, wiping her eyes with the corner
of her apron, “as I said afore, I ain't a goin' to die
till I'm even with Abel Dane, if I have to live to be as
old as Methusalem. Come, don't set mopin' there over
your knees! I'm a goin' to have breakfast; and I shan't
let this thing spile my appetite, nuther!”
Prudence was herself again. But John could not so
easily extricate himself from the slough of despond; and
she felt that she ought to do something to encourage him.
“Come, John,” said she, at table, “drink your tea, and
eat your flapjacks, and be a man! Don't let it worry you
a mite. We've got our house and home left, and a little
property to make us comf'table and respected in our
old age, and about money enough a'ready to buy two
more shares; and I'll tell ye what, John Apjohn, — don't
le's lot on doin' much work to-day. We're gittin' forehanded,
so's't we can begin to think of a holiday once in
a while. And I've an idee of what we'll do. Soon's I
and see jest how much there is, though I s'pose I know
perty near; then we'll go and see about gittin' that
money of Mr. Parker, and buyin' two more shares.
And jest think, John! that will give us sixteen dollars
more dividends every year, which'll be a comfort to think
of dull days, now, won't it!”
John failed to be much enlivened by his wife's
schemes. He had not the heart to show himself to the
eyes of the world that day; and, sorrowfully shaking
his head, he answered, as she urged the subject of going
out, —
“No, Prudy, no; you may go and enjoy yourself, but
I shall stay to hum.”
Accordingly Prudence, craving some stimulus to her
dashed spirits, set out, about an hour afterwards, unaccompanied,
to see Mr. Parker about the money, — her
proposal to compute, in the mean time, the contents of
the till, not having been carried into effect, in consequence
of John's dismal lack of interest.
“What's money now?” said the poor man to himself,
sighing as he saw her depart, and wondering how
she could care for such things any more. “O Prudy,
Prudy! I'd give all we've got in this world if we could
hold up our heads as respectable as we did a week ago!
But now!” —
He was going mechanically to feed the pigs; but at
the door his eye fell upon a coil of green vines in a basket,
where Prudence had thrown them, and some red
by the sight, that the swine were left to squeal in vain
for their breakfast the rest of the morning.
Back into the kitchen crept the cooper, and shut himself
up. There was no one to observe him now; and he
gave vent to his woe, uttering a groan at every breath,
tearing out imaginary handfuls of hair, and scouring
with imaginary ashes that smooth, naked scalp of his,
until it shone. Then for a long time all was still in
that doleful kitchen; and he might have been seen sitting,
in a reversed position, astride, upon one of the
splint-bottomed chairs, his arms folded upon the back of
it, and his head bolstered upon his arms, — a little
doubled-up human figure, motionless as an effigy.
John was having a vision, — not of the heavenly kind.
He saw innumerable doors festooned with tomato-vines.
He saw his neighbors, with sarcastic polite faces, nod
coldly at him as he passed on the street, and wink significantly
at each other behind his back. He saw the
children rush out of the school-house to jeer and hoot,
whenever he and his wife appeared. He saw the suspicious
clerks keep an unusually sharp watch over the
goods on the counters, when they entered a store. He
observed the sly glances, and the unnatural hush, — indicative
of a sensation, — when they walked down the
church-aisle on a Sunday morning. He beheld troops
of roguish boys flocking to his house by night to fasten
the badge of disgrace to his latch; and he heard the
scornful laughter. This part of his vision was so vivid,
impish, leering faces at the windows, looking in upon
him, and insulting hands holding up red tomatoes to
taunt him. He started to his feet. The vision vanished;
but the intolerable burden of his shame and distress was
with him still.
“Oh, I can't live! I can't live!” he burst forth. “I
never can show myself where I'm known again; and
what's the use?”
He thought of the well. He went and looked into it.
It was thirty feet deep,— cold, dark, and uninviting. If
Prudy had been there, to fortify his resolution by her
sympathy and example, he might have jumped in. But,
alone, he had not the heart. He concluded that his razor
would open the most expeditious and least disagreeable
door of exit from this dreary world, and went back
into the house. He examined the tonsorial implement,
and honed it. But at every stroke his dread of wounds
and his horror of blood increased. He would not like to
present a ghastly, mangled appearance afterwards, and
aggravate Prudy's feelings by staining her clean floor.
He cast his eyes upwards. There were hooks in the ceiling,
supporting a kitchen pole, — one of those old-fashioned
domestic institutions devoted to towels, dishcloths,
coils of pumpkins, sliced in rings, drying for winter use,
and on the ends of which farmers' hats are hung.
John thought of ropes and straps, clothes-line and
bed-cord, — none of which promised to be very comfortable
to the neck, — and concluded that his red silk handkerchief
was brought out of the bedroom, folded to the requisite
shape, and a solemnly suggestive noose tied in it. This
he slipped over his neck, and drew reasonably close, to
see how it would seem. Then he ascended a chair, and
passed the loose end of the handkerchief over the middle
of the pole, and fastened it, — only to see how it would
seem, you know; for it was his intention to write Prudy
an affectionate letter of farewell before committing himself
to the fatal leap.
Or it may be he had as yet formed no inflexible determination
to destroy himself, — wiser men than he having
been known to divert their melancholy by playing at
suicide. Perhaps, in a little while, he would have descended
from the improvised scaffold, removed the halter,
wiped his eyes with it, and felt better. Let us hope so.
Unfortunately, however, at a critical juncture, a noise,
real or imaginary, startled him. What if his neighbors
were coming once more to insult him? He turned
to look; then turned again hastily to disengage his neck,
and get down. It was an old splint-bottomed chair he
was using, and to avoid injuring the half-worn seat, he
stood on the edges of it. In his agitation, he made a
terrible misstep; the chair was overturned, — it flew
from beneath his feet, — and he was launched.
| XIII.
THE SAD CASE OF THE COOPER. Neighbor's wives | |