University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
VARIOUS CHANGES, BUT LITTLE PROGRESS IN THE STORY.

As soon as the news of Mrs. Babb's death became known,
the neighbors hastened to Lakeside to offer their help. The
necessary arrangements for the funeral were quietly and
speedily made, and, on the second day afterwards, the body of
the housekeeper was laid beside that of Jason Babb, in the
Presbyterian churchyard at Ptolemy, where he had been
slumbering for the last twenty-three years. The attendance
was very large, for all the farmers' wives in the valley had
known Mrs. Babb, and still held her receipts for cakes, preserves,
and pickles in high esteem. The Reverends Styles
and Waldo made appropriate remarks and prayers at the
grave, so that no token of respect was wanting. All the
neighbors said, as they drove homewards, “The funeral was a
credit to her.” Her spirit must have smiled in stern satisfaction,
even from its place by Jason's side, and at the feet of
Mrs. Dennison, as it looked down and saw that her last unconscious
appearance among mortals was a success.

Miss Dilworth took counsel of her friends, Hannah Thurston
and Mrs. Waldo, on the day of the funeral. She confessed to
them, with returning misgivings, what had taken place between
Bute Wilson and herself, and was a little surprised at
the hearty gratification which they both expressed.

“How glad I am!” cried Mrs. Waldo; “it is the very
thing!”

“Yes,” said Hannah Thurston, in her grave, deliberate manner,
“I think you have made a good choice, Carrie.”

If any spark of Miss Caroline Dilworth's old ambition still
burned among the ashes of her dreams, it was extinguished at
that moment. The prophets of reform were thenceforth dead
to her. She even took a consolation in thinking that if her
wish had been fulfilled, her future position might have had its
embarrassments. She might have been expected to sympathize
with ideas which she did not comprehend—to make use
of new shibboleths before she had learned to pronounce them
—to counterfeit an intelligent appreciation when most conscious
of her own incompetency. Now, she would be at ease.
Bute would never discover any deficiency in her. She spoke
better English and used finer words than he did, and if she
made a mistake now and then, he wouldn't even notice it.
With the disappearance of her curls her whole manner had
become more simple and natural. Her little affectations broke
out now and then, it is true, but they had already ceased to be
used as baits to secure a sentimental interest. There was even
hope that her attachment to Bute would be the means of developing
her somewhat slender stock of common-sense.

“Bute says we must be married as soon as he gets well,”
she said: “he won't wait any longer. Is there any harm in
my staying here and taking care of him until he's entirely out
of danger?”

Mrs. Waldo reflected a moment. “Certainly none until
Mr. Woodbury returns,” she said. “Mr. Waldo has answered
his letter to Bute, which came this morning. If he leaves
Saratoga at once, he will be here in three or four days. The
doctor says you are an admirable nurse, and that is reason
enough why you should not leave at present.”

“The other reason ought to be enough,” said Hannah
Thurston. “She owes a wife's duty towards him now, when
he needs help which she can give. I am sure Mr. Woodbury
will see it in the same light. He is noble and honorable.”

“Why, Hannah!” cried Mrs. Waldo, “I thought you and
he were as far apart as the opposite poles!”

“Perhaps we are, in our views of certain subjects,” was the

quiet reply. “I can, nevertheless, properly estimate his character
as a man.”

Mrs. Waldo suppressed a sigh. “If you could only estimate
your own true character as a woman!” she thought.

Miss Dilworth's duties were now materially lightened. The
danger of further contagion had passed, and some one of the
neighbors came every day to assist her. Bute only required
stimulating medicines, and the usual care to prevent a relapse,
of which there seemed to be no danger. He began to recover
his healthful sleep at night, and his nurse was thus enabled to
keep up her strength by regular periods of rest. Once or
twice a day she allowed him to talk, so long as there was no
appearance of excitement or fatigue. These half-hours were
the happiest Bute had ever known. To the delicious languor
and peace of convalescence, was added the active, ever-renewed
bliss of his restored love, and the promises which it whispered.
He delighted to call Miss Carrie, in anticipation, “Little
wife!” pausing, each time he did so, to look for the blush
which was sure to come, and the smile on the short red lips,
which was the sweetest that ever visited a woman's face. Of
course it was.

One day, nevertheless, as he lay looking at her, and thinking
how much more steady and sensible she seemed since her
curls were gathered up—how much more beautiful the ripples
of light brown hair upon her temples—a cloud came over his
face. “Carrie,” he said, “there's one thought worries me, and
I want you to put it straight, if you can. S'pose I hadn't got
sick,—s'pose I hadn't lost my senses, would you ever ha' come
to your'n?”

She was visibly embarrassed, but presently a flitting roguish
expression passed over her face, and she answered: “Would
you have given me a chance to do it, Bute?”

“Likely not,” said he. “You spoke plain enough last winter,
and 'twasn't for me to say the first word, after that.
When a man's burnt his fingers once't, he keeps away from
the fire. But I want to know why you come to take keer o'

me and Mother Forty. Was it only because you were sorry,
and wanted to pay me for my disapp'intment in that way?
Can you lay your hand on your heart and say there was any
thing more?”

Miss Carrie immediately laid her hand on her heart. “Yes,
Bute,” she said, “there was something more. I was beginning
to find it out, before, but when I heard you were so bad,
it came all at once.”

“Look here, Carrie,” said Bute, still very earnestly, although
the cloud was beginning to pass away, “some men have hearts
like shuttlecocks, banged back and forth from one gal to another,
and none the wuss of it. But I a'n't one of 'em. Whenever
I talk serious, I 'xpect to be answered serious. I believe
what you say to me. I believed it a'ready, but I wanted to be
double sure. You and me have got to live together as man
and wife. 'Twon't be all skylarkin': we've got to work, and
help one another, and take keer o' others besides, if things goes
right. What'll pass in a gal, won't pass in a married woman:
you must get shut o' your coquettin' ways. I see you've took
the trap out o' your hair, and now you must take it out o' your
eyes. 'Ta'n't that it'll mean any thing any more—if I thought
it did, I'd feel like killin' you—but it won't look right.”

“You mustn't mind my foolishness, Bute,” she answered,
penitently, “and you mustn't think of Seth Wattles!”

“Seth be—con-sarn'd!” Bute exclaimed. “When I see you
pickin' up dead frogs, I'll believe you like to shake hands with
Seth! I've got agreeable thoughts than to have him in my
head. Well—I don't bear no grudge ag'in him now; but I
can't like him.”

“I don't like him either. Fancy such a fellow as he thinking
himself good enough for Hannah Thurston! There's no
man good enough for her!”

“Like enough she thinks herself too good for any man,'
Bute remarked. “But them a'n't the women, Carrie, that a
man wants to marry. It'll be a lucky woman that gits Mr.
Max.”

“Oh, I must go and see to Mr. Woodbury's room!” cried
Miss Dilworth, starting up. “Perhaps he'll come this very
day. Then I suppose I must go away, Bute.”

“I hope not, Carrie. I wouldn't mind bein' a bit sicker for
a day or two, o' purpose to keep you here. What! are you
goin' away in that fashion, Little Wife?”

Miss Dilworth darted back to the bedside, stooped down,
like a humming-bird presenting its bill to a rather large flower,
and was about to shoot off again, when Bute caught her by
the neck and substituted a broad, firm kiss, full of consistency
and flavor, for the little sip she had given him.

“That's comfortin',” said he. “I thank the Lord my mouth
a'n't as little as your'n.”

Before night, Mr. Woodbury arrived, having taken a carriage
at Tiberius and driven rapidly over the hills. Mr. Waldo's letter,
announcing Bute's dangerous condition and Mrs. Babb's death,
had greatly startled and shocked him. His summer tour was
nearly at an end, and he at once determined to return to Lakeside
for the autumn and winter. He was not surprised to find
his household in charge of Miss Dilworth, for the news had
already been communicated to him. She met him at the door,
blushing and slightly embarrassed, for she scarcely felt herself
entitled to be ranked among his acquaintances, and the calm
reserve of his usual manner had always overawed her.

“I am very glad to find you still here, Miss Dilworth,” he
said, pressing her hand warmly; “how can I repay you for
your courage and kindness? Bute—?”

“He is much better, Sir. He is expecting you: will you
walk up and see him?”

“Immediately. I suppose I ought not to carry all this dust
with me. I will go to my room first.”

“It is ready, Sir,” said Miss Dilworth. “Let me have your
coat.”

Before Woodbury had finished washing his face and hands,
and brushing the white dust of the highway out of his hair,
there was a light tap on the door. He opened it and beheld

his coat, neatly dusted and folded, confronting him on the back
of a chair. Bute's room he found in the most perfect order.
The weather had been warm, dry, and still, and the window
furthest from the bed was open. The invalid lay, propped up
with two extra pillows, awaiting him. Woodbury was at first
shocked by his pale, wasted face, to which the close-cut hair
gave a strange, ascetic character. His eyes were sunken, but
still bright and cheerful, and two pale-blue sparks danced in
them as he turned his head towards the door.

“Bute, my poor fellow, how are you? I did not dream this
would have happened,” said Woodbury, taking the large,
spare hand stretched towards him.

“Oh, I'm doin' well now, Mr. Max. 'Twas queer how it
come—all 't once't, without any warnin'. I knowed nothin'
about it till I was past the danger.”

“And Mrs. Babb—was she sick long? Did she suffer
much?”

“I don't think she suffered at all: she was never out of her
head. She seemed to give up at the start, I'm told, and all
the medicines she took was no use. She jist made up her mind
to die, and she always had a strong will, you know, Mr. Max.”
Bute said this quietly and seriously, without the least thought
of treating the memory of his foster-mother lightly.

“She had a good nurse, at least,” said Woodbury, “and you
seem to be equally fortunate.”

“Well, I guess I am,” answered Bute, his face on a broad
grin, and with more color in it than he had shown for many
days. “I've had the best o' nussin', Mr. Max. Not but
what Pat and Mr. Merryfield was as kind as they could be—
'twasn't the same thing. And I may as well out with it
plump: there's no nuss quite ek'l to a man's own wife.”

“Wife!” exclaimed Woodbury, in amazement.

“Well—no—not jist yit,” stammered Bute; “but she will
be as soon as I git well enough to marry. I'd been hankerin'
after her for these two years, Mr. Max., but it mightn't ha'
come to nothin' if I hadn't got sick.”

“You mean Miss Dilworth, of course?”

Bute nodded his head.

“You astonish me, Bute. I scarcely know her at all, but I
think you have too much good sense to make a mistake. I
wish you joy, with all my heart; and yet”—he continued in a
graver tone, taking Bute's hand, “I shall be almost sorry for
it, if this marriage should deprive me of your services on the
farm.”

“How?” cried Bute, instantly recovering his former paleness,
“do you mean, Mr. Max., that you wouldn't want me
afterwards?”

“No, no, Bute! On the contrary, I should be glad to see
you settled and contented. But it is natural, now, that you
should wish to have a farm of your own, and as Mrs. Babb's
legacy will enable you to buy a small one, I thought—”

“Bless you, Mr. Max.!” interrupted Bute, “it would be a
small one. What's a few hundred dollars? I've no notion o'
goin' into farmin' on a ten-acre lot.”

“Mr. Waldo tells me that her property amounts to about
twenty-seven hundred dollars.”

“Twenty—seven—hundred!” and Bute feebly tried to
whistle. “Well—Mother Forty always was a cute 'un—who'd
ha' thought it? And she's left it all to me—she keered a
mighty sight more for me than she let on.” Here something
rose in his throat and stopped his voice for a moment. “I'll
do her biddin' by it, that I will!” he resumed. “I shall leave
it out at interest, and not touch a cent of the capital. Time
enough for my children to draw that. Oh, Mr. Max., now the
Lord may jist send as many youngsters to me and Carrie, as
He pleases!”

A dim sensation, like the memory of a conquered sorrow,
weighed upon Woodbury's heart for an instant, and passed
away.

“I know when I'm well off,” Bute went on. “I'm contented
to stay as I am: every thing on the farm—the horses, th'
oxen, the pigs, the fences, the apple-trees, the timber-land—

seems to me as much mine as it is your'n. If I had a farm o'
my own, it'd seem strange like, as if it belonged to somebody
else. I've got the hang of every field here, and know jist what
it'll bring. I want to make a good livin': I don't deny that;
but if I hold on to what I've got now, and don't run no resks,
and put out th' interest ag'in every year, it'll roll up jist about
as fast and a darned sight surer, than if I was to set up for myself.
If you're willin', Mr. Max., we can fix it somehow. If
the tenant-house on the 'Nacreon road was patched up a little,
it'd do for the beginnin'.”

“We can arrange it together, Bute,” said Woodbury, rising.
“Now you have talked long enough, and must rest. I will
see you again before I go to bed.”

As Miss Dilworth, at his request, took her seat at the table
and poured out the tea, Woodbury looked at her with a new
interest. He had scarcely noticed her on previous occasions, and
hence there was no first impression to be removed. It seemed
to him, indeed, as if he saw her for the first time now. The
ripples in her hair caught the light; her complexion was unusually
fair and fresh; the soft green of her eyes became
almost brown under the long lashes, and the mouth was infantine
in shape and color. A trifle of affectation in her manner
did not disharmonize with such a face; it was natural to her,
and would have been all the same, had she been eighty years
old instead of twenty-six. With this affectation, however,
were combined two very useful qualities—a most scrupulous
neatness and an active sense of order. “Upon my soul, it is
Lisette herself,” said Woodbury to himself, as he furtively
watched her airs and movements. Who would have expected
to find so many characteristics of the Parisian grisette in one
of our staid American communities? And how astonishing,
could he have known it, her ambitious assumption of Hannah
Thurston's views! It was a helmet of Pallas, which not only
covered her brow, but fell forward over her saucy retroussé
nose, and weighed her slender body half-way to the earth.

She felt his scrutiny, and performed her tea-table duties with

two spots of bright color in her cheeks. Woodbury knew
that she suspected what Bute's principal communication to
him had been, and, with his usual straightforward way of
meeting a delicate subject, decided to speak to her at once.
She gave a little start of confusion—not entirely natural—as
he commenced, but his manner was so serious, frank, and respectful,
that she soon felt ashamed of herself and was drawn,
to her own surprise, to answer him candidly and naturally.

“Bute has told me, Miss Dilworth,” said he, “of your
mutual understanding. I am very glad of it, for his sake.
He is an honest and faithful fellow, and deserves to be happy.
I think he is right, also, in not unnecessarily postponing the
time, though perhaps I should not think so, if his marriage
were to deprive me of his services. But he prefers to continue
to take charge of Lakeside, rather than buy or lease a
farm for himself. I hope you are satisfied with his decision?”

“Yes, Mr. Woodbury,” she answered: “I should not like
to leave this neighborhood. I have no relatives in the country,
except an aunt in Tiberius. My brother went to Iowa five
years ago.”

“Bute must have a home,” Woodbury continued. “He
spoke of my tenant-house, but besides being old and ruinous,
it is not well situated, either for its inmates, or for the needs
of the farm. I had already thought of tearing it down, and
building a cottage on the knoll, near the end of the lane.
But that would take time, and—”

“Oh, we can wait, Mr. Woodbury!”

He smiled. “I doubt whether Bute would be as ready to
wait as you, Miss Dilworth. I am afraid if I were to propose
it, he would leave me at once. No, we must make some
other arrangement in the mean time. I have been turning the
matter over in my mind and have a proposition to make to
you.”

“To me!”

“Yes. Mrs. Babb's death leaves me without a housekeeper.
My habits are very simple, the household is small, and I see

already that you are capable of doing all that will be required.
Of course you will have whatever help you need; I ask nothing
more than a general superintendence of my domestic
affairs until your new home is ready. If you have no objection
of your own to make, will you please mention it to
Bute?”

“Bute will be so pleased!” she cried. “Only, Mr. Woodbury,
if it isn't more than I am capable of doing? If I'm
able to give you satisfaction!”

“I shall be sure of your wish to do so, Miss Dilworth,”
said Woodbury, rising from the table; “and I have the further
guarantee that you will have Bute to please, as well as
myself.”

He went into the library and lighted a cigar. “Lucky
fellow!” he said to himself, with a sigh. “He makes no intellectual
requirements from his wife, and he has no trouble in
picking up a nice little creature who is no doubt perfection in
his eyes, and who will be faithful to him all his days. If she
doesn't know major from minor; if she confuses tenses and
doubles negatives; if she eats peas with her knife, and trims
her bonnet with colors at open war with each other; if she
never heard of Shakespeare, and takes Petrarch to be the name
of a mineral—what does he care? She makes him a tidy
home; she understands and soothes his simple troubles; she
warms his lonely bed, and suckles the vigorous infants that
spring from his loins; she gives an object to his labor, a contented
basis to his life, and a prospect of familiar society in
the world beyond the grave. Simple as this relation of the
sexes is for him, he feels its sanctity no less than I. His espousals
are no less chaste; his wedded honor is as dear, his
paternal joys as pure. My nature claims all this from woman,
but, alas! it claims more. The cultivated intelligence comes
in to question and criticize the movements of the heart. Here,
on one side, is goodness, tenderness, fidelity; on the other,
grace, beauty, refinement, intellect—both needs must be fulfilled.
How shall I ever reach this double marriage, except

through a blind chance? Yet here is one woman in whom it
would be nearly fulfilled, and a strange delusion into which
she has fallen warns me to think of her no more!”

The conscious thread of his thoughts broke off, and they
loosened themselves into formless reverie. As he rose to revisit
Bute's chamber, he paused a moment, thinking: “That
I can analyze her nature thus deliberately, is a proof that I do
not love her.”

Bute was delighted with the new arrangement which Woodbury
had proposed to Miss Dilworth. The latter would leave
in a few days, he said, and spend the subsequent two or three
weeks before the wedding could take place, at the Widow
Thurston's.

“After it's all over, Mr. Max.,” said Bute, “she shall stay
here and tend to the house jist as long as you want; but—
you won't mind my sayin' it, will you?—there's only one
right kind of a housekeeper for you, and I hope you won't be
too long a-findin' her.”