University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
PANCAKES.

HALF an hour later, Ralph, having seen Miss Nancy
Sawyer's machinery of warm baths and simple
remedies once safely in operation, and having seen
the roan colt comfortably stabled, and rewarded for
his faithfulness by a bountiful supply of the best hay
and the promise of oats when he was cool—half an hour later
Ralph was doing the most ample, satisfactory, and amazing justice
to his Aunt Matilda's hot buckwheat-cakes and warm coffee.
And after his life in Flat Creek Aunt Matilda's house did look like
paradise. How white the table-cloth, how bright the coffee-pot,
how clean the wood-work, how glistening the brass door-knobs,
how spotless everything that came under the sovereign sway of
Mrs. Matilda White! For in every Indiana village as large as
Lewisburg, there are generally a half-dozen women who are admitted
to be the best housekeepers. All others are only imitators.
And the strife is between these for the pre-eminence. It is at
least safe to say that none in Lewisburg stood so high as an

enemy to dirt, and as a “rat, roach, and mouse exterminator,”
as did Mrs. Matilda White, the wife of Ralph's maternal uncle,
Robert White, Esq., a lawyer in successful practice. Of course
no member of Mrs. White's family ever staid at home longer
than was necessary. Her husband found his office—which he
kept in as bad a state as possible in order to maintain an
equilibrium in his life—much more comfortable than the stiffly
clean house at home. From the time that Ralph had come
to live as a chore-boy at his uncle's, he had ever crossed the
threshold of Aunt Matilda's temple of cleanliness with a horrible
sense of awe. And Walter Johnson, her son by a former
marriage, had—poor, weak-willed fellow!—been driven into
bad company and bad habits by the wretchedness of extreme
civilization. And yet he showed the hereditary trait, for all
the genius which Mrs. White consecrated to the glorious
work of making her house too neat to be habitable, her son
Walter gave to tying exquisite knots in his colored cravats
and combing his oiled locks so as to look like a dandy barber.
And she had no other children. The kind Providence
that watches over the destiny of children takes care that very
few of them are lodged in these terribly clean houses.

But Walter was not at the table, and Ralph had so much
anxiety lest his absence should be significant of evil, that he
did not venture to inquire after him as he sat there between
Mr. and Mrs. White disposing of Aunt Matilda's cakes with an
appetite only justified by his long morning ride and the excellence
of the brown cakes, the golden honey, and the coffee,
enriched, as Aunt Matilda's always was, with the most generous
cream. Aunt Matilda was so absorbed in telling of the
doing of the Dorcas Society that she had entirely forgotten

to be surprised at the early hour of Ralph's arrival. When
she had described the number of the garments finished to be
sent to the Five Points Mission, or the Home for the Friendless,
or the South Sea Islands, I forget which, Ralph thought
he saw his chance, while Aunt Matilda was in a benevolent
mood, to broach a plan he had been revolving for some time.
But when he looked at Aunt Matilda's immaculate—horribly immaculate—housekeeping,
his heart failed him, and he would have
said nothing had she not inadvertently opened the door herself.

“How did you get here so early, Ralph?” and Aunt Matilda's
face was shadowed with a coming rebuke.

“By early rising,” said Ralph. But, seeing the gathering
frown on his aunt's brow, he hastened to tell the story of
Shocky as well as he could. Mrs. White did not give way
to any impulse toward sympathy until she learned that
Shocky was safely housed with Miss Nancy Sawyer.

“Yes, Sister Sawyer has no family cares,” she said by way
of smoothing her slightly ruffled complacency, “she has no
family cares, and she can do those things. Sometimes I think
she lets people impose on her and keep her away from the
means of grace, and I spoke to our new preacher about it
the last time he was here, and asked him to speak to Sister
Sawyer about staying away from the ordinances to wait on
everybody, but he is a queer man, and he only said that he
supposed Sister Sawyer neglected the inferior ordinances that
she might attend to higher ones. But I don't see any sense
in a minister of the gospel calling prayer-meeting a lower ordinance
than feeding catnip-tea to Mrs. Brown's last baby. But
hasn't this little boy—Shocking, or what do you call him?—
got any mother?”

“Yes,” said Ralph, “and that was just what I was going to
say.” And he proceeded to tell how anxious Shocky was to
see his half-blind mother, and actually ventured to wind up his
remarks by suggesting that Shocky's mother be invited to stay
over Sunday in Aunt Matilda's house.

“Bless my stars!” said that astounded saint, “fetch a pauper
here? What crazy notions you have got! Fetch her here
out of the poor-house? Why, she wouldn't be fit to sleep in
my—” here Aunt Matilda choked. The bare thought of having
a pauper in her billowy beds, whose snowy whiteness was frightful
to any ordinary mortal, the bare thought of the contagion
of the poor-house taking possession of one of her beds, smothered
her. “And then you know sore eyes are very catching.”

Ralph boiled a little. “Aunt Matilda, do you think Dorcas
was afraid of sore eyes?”

It was a center shot, and the lawyer-uncle, lawyerlike, enjoyed
a good hit. And he enjoyed a good hit at his wife best
of all, for he never ventured on one himself. But Aunt Matilda
felt that a direct reply was impossible. She was not a
lawyer but a woman, and so dodged the question by making
a counter-charge.

“It seems to me, Ralph, that you have picked up some
very low associates. And you go around at night, I am
told. You get over here by daylight, and I hear that you have
made common cause with a lame soldier who acts as a spy
for thieves, and that your running about of nights is likely to
get you into trouble.”

Ralph was hit this time. “I suppose,” he said, “that you've
been listening to some of Henry Small's lies.”

“Why, Ralph, how you talk! The worst sign of all is that

you abuse such a young man as Dr. Small, the most exemplary
Christian young man in the county. And he is a great friend
of yours, for when he was here last week he did not say a
word against you, but looked so sorry when your being in
trouble was mentioned. Didn't he, Mr. White?”

Mr. White, as in duty bound, said yes, but he said yes in a
cool, lawyerlike way, which showed that he did not take quite
so much stock in Dr. Small as his wife did. Which was a
comfort to Ralph, who sat picturing to himself the silent flattery
which Dr. Small's eyes paid to his Aunt Matilda, and the
quiet expression of pain that would flit across his face when
Ralph's name was mentioned. And never until that moment
had Hartsook understood how masterful Small's artifices were.
He had managed to elevate himself in Mrs. White's estimation
and to destroy Ralph at the same time, and had managed to
do both by a contraction of the eyebrows!

But the silence was growing painful, and Ralph thought to
break it and turn the current of thought from himself by asking
after Mrs. White's son.

“Where is Walter?”

“Oh! Walter's doing well. He went down to Clifty three
weeks ago to study medicine with Henry Small. He seems
so fond of the doctor, and the doctor is such an excellent man
you know, and I have strong hopes that Wallie will be led to
see the error of his ways by his association with Henry. I
suppose he would have gone to see you but for the unfavorable
reports that he heard. I hope, Ralph, you too will make
the friendship of Dr. Small. And for the sake of your poor,
dead mother”—here Aunt Matilda endeavored to show some
emotion—“for the sake of your poor, dead mother—”

But Ralph heard no more. The buckwheat-cakes had lost
their flavor. He remembered that the colt had not yet had
his oats, and so, in the very midst of Aunt Matilda's affecting
allusion to his mother, like a stiff-necked reprobate that he
was, Ralph Hartsook rose abruptly from the table, put on his
hat, and went out toward the stable.

“I declare,” said Mrs. White, descending suddenly from her
high moral stand-point, “I declare that boy has stepped right
on the threshold of the back-door,” and she stuffed her white
handkerchief into her pocket, and took down the floor-cloth to
wipe off the imperceptible blemish left by Ralph's boot-heels.

And Mr. White followed his nephew to the stable to request
that he would be a little careful what he did about anybody in
the poor-house, as any trouble with the Joneses might defeat
Mr. White's nomination to the judgeship of the Court of Common
Pleas.