University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.

“And so,” said Mrs. Captain Badger to Miss Roxy Toothacre,
“it seems that Moses Pennel a'n't going to have Sally
Kittridge after all, — he 's engaged to Mara Lincoln.”

“More shame for him,” said Miss Roxy, with a frown
that made her mohair curls look really tremendous.

Miss Roxy and Mrs. Badger were the advance party at
a quilting, to be holden at the house of Mr. Sewell, and had
come at one o'clock to do the marking upon the quilt, which
was to be filled up by the busy fingers of all the women in
the parish. Said quilt was to have a bordering of a pattern
commonly denominated in those parts clam-shell, and this
Miss Roxy was diligently marking with indigo.

“What makes you say so, now?” said Mrs. Badger, a
fat, comfortable, motherly matron, who always patronized
the last matrimonial venture that put forth among the young
people.

“What business had he to flirt and gallivant all summer
with Sally Kittridge, and make everybody think he was
going to have her, and then turn round to Mara Lincoln at
the last minute? I wish I 'd been in Mara's place.”

In Miss Roxy's martial enthusiasm, she gave a sudden
poke to her frisette, giving to it a diagonal bristle which
extremely increased its usually severe expression; and any
one contemplating her at the moment would have thought
that for Moses Pennel or any other young man to come with

tender propositions in that direction, would have been indeed
a venturesome enterprise.

“I tell you what 't is, Mis' Badger,” she said, “I 've
known Mara since she was born, — I may say I fetched
her up myself, for if I had n't trotted and tended her them
first four weeks of her life, Mis' Pennel 'd never have got
her through; and I 've watched her every year since; and
havin' Moses Pennel is the only silly thing I ever knew her
to do; but you never can tell what a girl will do when it
comes to marryin', — never!”

“But he 's a real stirrin', likely young man, and captain
of a fine ship,” said Mrs. Badger.

“Don't care if he 's captain of twenty ships,” said Miss
Roxy, obdurately; “he a'n't a professor of religion, and
I believe he 's an infidel, and she 's one of the Lord's
people.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Badger, “you know the unbelievin'
husband shall be sanctified by the believin' wife.”

“Much sanctifyin' he 'll get,” said Miss Roxy, contemptuously.
“I don't believe he loves her any more than fancy;
she 's the last plaything, and when he 's got her, he 'll be
tired of her, as he always was with anything he got ever
since. I tell you, Moses Pennel is all for pride and ambition
and the world; and his wife, when he gets used to her,
'll be only a circumstance, — that 's all.”

“Come, now, Miss Roxy,” said Miss Emily, who in her
best silk and smoothly-brushed hair had just come in, “we
must not let you talk so. Moses Pennel has had long talks
with brother, and he thinks him in a very hopeful way,
and we are all delighted; and as to Mara, she is as fresh
and happy as a little rose.”

“So I tell Roxy,” said Miss Ruey, who had been absent

from the room to hold private consultations with Miss Emily
concerning the biscuits and sponge-cake for tea, and who
now sat down to the quilt and began to unroll a capacious
and very limp calico thread-case; and placing her spectacles
awry on her little pug nose, she began a series of ingenious
dodges with her thread, designed to hit the eye of
her needle.

“The old folks,” she continued, “are e'en a'most tickled
to pieces, — 'cause they think it 'll jist be the salvation of
him to get Mara.”

“I a'n't one of the sort that wants to be a-usin' up girls
for the salvation of fellers,” said Miss Roxy, severely.
“Ever since he nearly like to have got her eat up by
sharks, by giggiting her off in the boat out to sea when she
wa' n't more 'n three years old, I always have thought he
was a misfortin' in that family, and I think so now.”

Here broke in Mrs. Eaton, a thrifty energetic widow of
a deceased sea-captain, who had been left with a tidy little
fortune which commanded the respect of the neighborhood.
Mrs. Eaton had entered silently during the discussion, but
of course had come, as every other woman had that afternoon,
with views to be expressed upon the subject.

“For my part,” she said, as she stuck a decisive needle
into the first clam-shell pattern, “I a'n't so sure that all
the advantage in this match is on Moses Pennel's part.
Mara Lincoln is a good little thing, but she a'n't fitted to
help a man along, — she 'll always be wantin' somebody to
help her. Why, I 'member goin' a voyage with Cap'n
Eaton, when I saved the ship, if anybody did, — it was
allowed on all hands. Cap'n Eaton was n't hearty at that
time, he was jist gettin' up from a fever, — it was when
Marthy Ann was a baby, and I jist took her and went to

sea and took care of him. I used to work the longitude for
him and help him lay the ship's course when his head was
bad, — and when we came on the coast, we were kept out
of harbor beatin' about nearly three weeks, and all the
ship's tacklin' was stiff with ice, and I tell you the men
never would have stood it through and got the ship in, if it
had n't been for me. I kept their mittens and stockings all
the while a-dryin' at my stove in the cabin, and hot coffee
all the while a-boilin' for 'em, or I believe they 'd a-frozen
their hands and feet, and never been able to work the ship
in. That 's the way I did. Now Sally Kittridge is a great
deal more like that than Mara.”

“There 's no doubt that Sally is smart,” said Mrs. Badger,
“but then it a'n't every one can do like you, Mrs.
Eaton.”

“Oh no, oh no,” was murmured from mouth to mouth;
“Mrs. Eaton must n't think she 's any rule for others, —
everybody knows she can do more than most people;”
— whereat the pacified Mrs. Eaton said “she did n't know
as it was anything remarkable, — it showed what anybody
might do, if they 'd only try and have resolution; but that
Mara never had been brought up to have resolution, — and
her mother never had resolution before her, it wa' n't in
any of Mary Pennel's family, — she knew their grandmother
and all their aunts, and they were all a weakly set,
and not fitted to get along in life, — they were a kind of
people that somehow did n't seem to know how to take hold
of things.”

At this moment the consultation was hushed up by the
entrance of Sally Kittridge and Mara, evidently on the
closest terms of intimacy, and more than usually demonstrative
and affectionate, — they would sit together and use

each other's needles, scissors, thread, and thimbles interchangeably,
as if anxious to express every minute the most
overflowing confidence. Sly winks and didactic nods were
covertly exchanged among the elderly people, and when Mrs.
Kittridge entered with more than usual airs of impressive
solemnity, several of these were covertly directed toward
her, as a matron whose views in life must have been considerably
darkened by the recent event.

Mrs. Kittridge, however, found an opportunity to whisper
under her breath to Miss Ruey what a relief to her it was
that the affair had taken such a turn. She had felt uneasy
all summer for fear of what might come. Sally was so
thoughtless and worldly, she felt afraid that he would lead
her astray. She did n't see, for her part, how a professor
of religion like Mara could make up her mind to such an
unsettled kind of fellow, even if he did seem to be rich and
well to do. But then she had done looking for consistency;
and she sighed and vigorously applied herself to quilting
like one who has done with the world.

In return, Miss Ruey sighed and took snuff, and related
for the hundredth time to Mrs. Kittridge the great escape
she once had from the addresses of Abraham Peters, who
had turned out a “poor drunken creetur.” But then it was
only natural that Mara should be interested in Moses; and
the good soul went off into her favorite verse: —

In fact, Miss Ruey's sentimental vein was in quite a gushing
state, for she more than once extracted from the dark corners
of the limp calico thread-case we have spoken of certain
long-treasured morceaux of newspaper poetry, of a
tender and sentimental cast, which she had laid up with
true Yankee economy, in case any one should ever be in
a situation to need them. They related principally to the
union of kindred hearts, and the joys of reciprocated feeling,
and the pains of absence. Good Miss Ruey occasionally
passed these to Mara, with glances full of meaning,
which caused the poor old thing to resemble a sentimental
goblin, keeping Sally Kittridge in a perfect hysterical tempest
of suppressed laughter, and making it difficult for Mara
to preserve the decencies of life toward her well-intending
old friend. The trouble with poor Miss Ruey was that,
while her body had grown old and crazy, her soul was just
as juvenile as ever, — and a simple, juvenile soul disporting
itself in a crazy, battered old body, is at great disadvantage.
It was lucky for her, however, that she lived in the most
sacred unconsciousness of the ludicrous effect of her little
indulgences, and the pleasure she took in them was certainly
of the most harmless kind. The world would be a far better
and more enjoyable place than it is, if all people who are
old and uncomely could find amusement as innocent and
Christian-like as Miss Ruey's inoffensive thread-case collection
of sentimental truisms.

This quilting of which we speak was a solemn, festive
occasion of the parish, held a week after Moses had sailed
away; and so piquant a morsel as a recent engagement
could not, of course, fail to be served up for the company
in every variety of garnishing which individual tastes might
suggest.

It became an ascertained fact, however, in the course of
the evening festivities, that the minister was serenely approbative
of the event; that Captain Kittridge was at length

brought to a sense of the errors of his way in supposing
that Sally had ever cared a pin for Moses more than as a
mutual friend and confidant; and the great affair was settled
without more ripples of discomposure than usually attend
similar announcements in more refined society.