 | CHAPTER II. Dukesborough tales |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
Miss Spouter sat in the hotel parlor; it was on the first floor and
opened upon the street. In it were two wooden rocking-chairs, six
split-bottoms, and a half-round. I shall not undertake to describe the
window-curtains. She was pensive and silent; the still summer
evening disposed her to meditation. She sat silent and pensive, but
not gloomy. Looking out from the window, she espied on the further
side of the square, Miss Pea, who was in the act of turning towards
her. Here she came, in yellow calico and a green calash. As she
walked, her arms were crossed peacefully upon her chest.
“Howdye, stranger!” saluted Miss Spouter. They had not met in
a fortnight.
“Stranger yourself,” answered Miss Pea, with a smile and a sigh.
They embraced; the curls fell upon the bust and the bust fostered
the curls, as only long tried friends can fall upon and foster. Miss
Pea came to stay all night; never had they slept in the same house
without sleeping together.
“Well, Georgy,” Miss Spouter remarked, sweetly, but almost invidiously,
as they were getting into bed, “figger is figger.”
“It's no sich a thing,” answered Miss Pea, with firm self-denial;
“it's curls, you know it's curls.”
“No, George, its figger.”
“Angeline Spouter, you know it aint; it's curls, and you know it's
curls.”
They blew out the candle, and for a short time continued this
friendly discussion; but soon Miss Pea got the best of it, as usual,
and Miss Spouter, by silence and other signs, admitted that it was
curls.
“We've been sleeping a long time together, George.”
“We have that.”
“Ten years.”
“Yes, fifteen of 'em.”
“Gracious me! fifteen?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Well, but I was but a child then.”
Miss Pea coughed. She was the elder by exactly six months.
“Did we think ten years ago that you would now be a Pea and I a
Spouter?”
“I didn't think much about myself, but I had no idea you would.”
“Yet so it is; you with your figger and yet a Pea.”
“And what is worse, you with your curls and yet a Spouter.”
“No, not worse. You ought to have been married years ago,
Georgiana Pea.”
“If I had had your curls and had wanted to marry, I should a been
married and forgot it.”
“No, George, I never had the requisite figger.”
“Angeline Spouter, do hush.”
“Suppose we had married, George?”
“Well.”
“I think I could have made my husband love me, as few men have
ever loved, be they whomsoever they might.”
“Ah! everybody knows that.”
“No, alas! none but thee, George.”
“Yes, but I know better.”
Miss Spouter again gave it up.
Miss Pea would fain have gone to sleep. Her hour for that purpose
had come. But there was yet no slumber upon the eyelids of Miss
Spouter. She talked away. She made hypothetical cases; supposing
for instance they were married. Miss Spouter ventured to look far into
such a possible future, and made some speculations upon the best and
properest ways of bringing up families. It appeared during the conversation
that Miss Spouter, as a general thing, liked girls in families
better than boys, while Miss Pea's preference for boys was bold and
decided. She admitted Miss Pea's argument to be true, that girls are
prettier, especially if they have curls; but, La me! they are such a
trouble! Besides, boys were bad. She must admit that too. But
then they could be whipped and made to mind.
“Oh, you cruel creature!” right there exclaimed the merciful Miss
Spouter.
“No, Angeline,” remonstrated her companion, “no, I am not cruel;
but I believe in makin children mind and behave theirselves.” Miss
Pea was as firm as a rock.
“So do I,” replied Miss Spouter; “but I can't understand how a
woman, a good woman, and a kind woman, and an affectionate woman,
and a woman that had — La, bless me! how could such a woman beat
her own family to death, when in the wide, wide world there was none
others to stand by them in the solemn hour, and —”
“No! no! no!” interposed Miss Pea, “I don't mean that. What I
do mean — La! Angeline Spouter, what are you and me a talkin about?
It's redickerlous. I'm done.”
Miss Pea laughed outright. But Miss Spouter sighed, and remarked
that it wasn't in people to say neither what was to be, nor what wasn't
to be.
“George, I do believe you are going to sleep.”
Miss Pea declared that she wasn't, and like all persons of her size,
she thought she was telling the truth. Miss Spouter had one or two
other remarks which she always made on such occasions, and which
she wanted to make now.
“Georgiana Pea, do you or do you not ever expect to marry? I
ask you candidly.”
“No, Angeline, I don't. I may have had thoughts, I may have had
expectations; pap looks as if he would go distracted if I don't marry;
but to tell you the truth, I have about come to the conclusion that
there's more marries now than ever does well. Pap declares that he
means to marry me off to somebody before he dies. He thinks that I
couldn't take care of myself if he was to die, and that he takes care
of me now himself. I think I'm the one that takes care of him, and I
think I could take as good care of myself then as I do now. He says
I shall marry though, and I'm waitin to see how it'll be. But I tell
you, Angeline Spouter, that there's more marries now than ever does
well.”
“And — well,” answered Miss Spouter, “and so have I concluded
about it. It is the honest expression of the genuine sentiments of my
innermost heart. What is man? A deceitful, vain and foolish creature,
who will to-day talk his honey words and praise a girl's curls, and to-morrow
What is your opinion of man, George? What now is your opinion of
Tom Dyson, who used to melt before the sight of you like summer
clouds ere the sun had set?”
“I think of Tom Dyson like I think of Barney Bolton who used to
praise your curls just like they were so much gold, and like I think
of all of 'em, and that's about as much as I think of an old dead pine
tree or post-oak.”
Miss Pea had not read many books like Miss Spouter, and must
necessarily, therefore, borrow her comparisons from objects familiar to
her country life. Miss Spouter noticed the difference, but refrained
from remarking on it.
“And yet, Georgiana, there is something in me; I feel it. It tells
me that I could have made Barney Bolton much happier than Malinda
Jones has. Barney Bolton is not happy, Georgiana Pea.”
Miss Pea only coughed.
“Yes, indeed! Alas! I see it in his eye; I see it in his walk; I see
it in his every action. The image of Angeline Spouter is in his breast,
and it will stay there forever.”
Miss Pea was always perfectly silent, and endeavored to feel solemn
when this last speech was said.
“If you were to marry, George, I should be the lonesomest creature
in the wide, wide world.”
“Ah, well! when I marry, which is never going to be the case (that
is exceptin pap do go distracted and hunt me up a good chance),
you'll be married and forgot it, and that little curly-headed girl
will be readin, ritin and cypherin.” Miss Pea yawned and laughed
slightly.
“Never, never! But won't you let your little boy come sometimes
in a passing hour to see a lonesome girl, who once was your friend,
but now, alas! abandoned?”
“Angeline Spouter, do hush.”
“George, it is very warm to-night. Is it late?”
“I should — think — it was,” answered Miss Pea, and snored.
Miss Spouter lay for some time awake, but silent. She then lifted
the curtain from the window, through which the moon, high in heaven,
shone upon the bed, withdrew from her cap five or six curls, extended
them upon her snowy breast, smiled dismally, put them up again, looked
went to sleep.
| CHAPTER II. Dukesborough tales | |