peggy looked up into the face laughing down into hers, and the big brown eyes blinked.
"you've got red apples in your cheeks this mornin', miss mary, and your eyes is just as shinin' as them ocean waves we saw last summer, when the sun made 'em sparkle in silver splashes. just as blue, too. i ain't ever seen such blue eyes and long lashes as you've got, but you don't often have real red apples in your cheeks."
"it's the weather. who could help having red apples in stinging air like this? and who isn't glad to be living when every single tree is dressed in green and gold, or brown and tan, or yellow and red, and the sun is just laughing at you, and dancing for joy? it's such a nice world, peggy, this world is, if we'll just keep our eyes open to the pretty things in it, and our hearts to its good things. of course we have to see the ugly ones; if we didn't we might bump into them, and get hurt or soiled or something. but seeing and keeping on looking are very different things. wait a minute, peggy! let's stop and take a good breath now we're at the top of the hill. isn't it lovely up here, and isn't the air delicious? it's good to be living to-day!"
peggy put her hands on her hips in imitation of the girl by her side, and tried to draw in a deep breath as slowly as she did, but her first effort was not successful, and the exhalation was abrupt. mary cary laughed.
"you'll have to practise, peggy. it isn't easy at first, but our lungs deserve a bath as surely as our bodies, and this is such grand air in which to give it to them. did you get any chincapins yesterday?"
"wash and jeff's hats full. we strung five strings last night and ate the rest. i took araminta winters one string. i don't like araminta. she's a whiney little pussy cat, and sly as a fox, but she's sick and can't go after nuts or anything, and i thought you'd like her to have one. i didn't want her to have it. she told a story on me once and i ain't ever forgot it. i reckon 'twould be a good thing if she was to die."
"good gracious, peggy! you sound like a vivisectionist. araminta's mother wouldn't agree with you. she loves araminta, if you don't."
"no'm, she don't—that is, she ain't any way crazy 'bout her. mothers feel bound to love what they've borned, i reckon, but araminta ain't anything to be dyin' anxious to have around. she's ugly as sin and got sore eyes, and when you see her comin' you run if you see her before she sees you. there's a lot of folks like that, ain't there, miss mary? muther say there is."
"oh, i don't know. if you didn't see the funny side you might run, but i nearly always see the funny side, and all kinds of people interest me."
peggy shook her head. "all folks ain't got a funny side to see. they're just naturally nasty. always seein' what's wrong and talkin' about it. muther says some folks is born to poke for rubbish, and if they can't find a thing mean to say they'll say it anyhow. crittersizers, i believe she calls 'em. some who ain't good at anything else is great at that, she says."
"very true, my solemn peggy, but you shouldn't know it." mary cary laughed. "and if we don't like 'crittersizers,' then don't let's criticise. it was my besetting sin, peggy, and it took me a long time to learn we all have rubbish in us, and it wasn't a bit hard to see the ugly things in people. and unless we can rake the rubbish out and get rid of it, it doesn't do much good to talk about it. people used to make me so /mad!/"
"just like they make me now?"
"do they?" mary cary looked down in the sober little face. "then cut it out, peggy. if you don't like some people or the things they do and can't change them, then keep out of their way. don't be nice to their faces and ugly behind their backs. that's the most rubbishy thing in the world. there's plenty of room to stay apart."
"that's what you do, ain't it?"
"i?" the surprise in her voice was genuine. "why, no. i don't stay away from people."
"you didn't go to mrs. deford's party wednesday."
mary cary turned to the child beside her. "who told you i didn't go to mrs. deford's party wednesday?"
"susie heard miss lizzie bettie pryor and miss puss jenkins talkin' about it in the store yesterday. susie says they think she's just air, and the way they lay out people when they're lookin' at hats frightens her. they said they didn't blame you, for mrs. deford had never let up on you since you been back. they said she's so crazy for miss lily to marry mr. john maxwell that she's got him skeered to death, and they believed that's the reason he went to europe this summer, and they reckon he's hidin' yet, as he ain't been down here lately, not since last may, and this is the last of october."
"he's coming—" mary cary stopped abruptly, then she laughed. "it's too splendid to talk about ugly things to-day, peggy. let's run to the bottom of the hill and to the big sycamore-tree and then we'll turn in the calverton road and go home. you are going to stay with me to dinner, and to-night miss gibbie is coming to tea, and to-morrow—" she reached up and pulled a branch of scarlet leaves from a maple-tree and shook them gayly in the air. "oh, to-morrow there's lots of things to be done. here, give me your hand. when i say three, we'll start."
laughing, panting, glowing, they reached the foot of the hill and then the sycamore-tree, and this time peggy's face was as full of color as mary cary's. for a moment they stood in the radiant sunshine and let the air, crisp and fresh with the sting of autumn, blow on them; then, still hand in hand, went singing down the road and on to tree hill.
some hours later peggy was gone, and before the crackling logs on the andirons in the library mary cary, on her knees, held out her hands to their blaze and nodded to the dancing flames.
"it's so nice to have you, fire. i love you! you are so warm and cheerful and such good company. and you're such a good thing to dream in and see pictures in and tell fairy tales to. you tell fairy tales yourself. you can be very nice, fire—but oh, your ashes!"
with the tongs she turned over a log, and out of the willow basket on the hearth took another and laid it carefully on the top. as it sputtered and crackled she sat down on the rug and clasped her hands over her knees, looking with half-shut eyes in the dancing flames, unmindful of their heat or the burning of her face.
presently she turned and looked around the room. twilight had fallen, and only the glint of firelight touched here and there familiar objects, rested a moment lovingly on bit of brass, or flirted hastily away from picture or chair; and as she watched its gleams dart in and out she smiled softly to herself.
"kisses!" she said. "you dear room! i love you, too!" into space she kissed her hand, then laughed at her childishness.
"isn't it nice each season has its own things?" she said, talking to the flames. "in the spring the apple blossoms were so lovely they almost hurt. the trees, the birds, the flowers, everything was so beautiful that i behaved as if i'd never seen a spring before. that's the nice part of spring. it brings its newness every time, and i'm just as surprised as if it were the very, very first. but i believe i love the fall best. it makes you tingle so to do things; everything is worth while, everything is worth doing, everybody is worth helping, and you couldn't help enough to save your life!
"i'm so glad, too, the house is all fixed for the winter. doesn't it look pretty?" she glanced at rugs and curtains and chintz-covered chair; at the bowls of brilliantly colored leaves of the top of book-shelves and tables, and sniffed the pungent winter pinks, step-sisters to the proud chrysanthemums in the hall, and again she nodded her head.
"what a happy creature you ought to be, mary cary! you've got so much; the chance to work, a dear home—"
"dreaming! in front of the fire and dreaming again! not the politest of ways to meet your guests, and the front door open as usual. perhaps you don't know it, but in cold weather doors should be shut!"
"heigho, miss gibbie!" from the rug mary cary scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around her visitor's neck, giving her a sounding kiss and a hearty hug. "i'm so glad you've come! you rode, of course, but the wind has bitten you cheeks, and they've got apples in them as red as mine were this morning. hasn't it been a grand day? peggy came home with me and we took a long walk, and—"
"if you will stop talking and ring for hedwig to take my things i'll think more of your manners. you're getting as bad as buzzie tate. some of these days your breath will be lost. what's that i smell is here? winter pinks? bless my soul if they're not the same kind i used to pull as a child when i spent the day with grandmother bloodgood!" she walked over to the desk and sniffed the flowers upon it. "the very same. down by the sun-dial they used to be—"
"that's where they are now. i love them. they are so plain and unpretentious. not a bit like chrysanthemums."
she helped miss gibbie off with her coat, untied the strings to her bonnet, and took her gloves; then she examined the coat critically.
"you need a new one, miss gibbie. this one is downright shabby. when you order your dresses in january you certainly must get a new coat."
"i'll do nothing of the kind. i've only had that coat nine years and it's got to last ten. i have two others, one heavier and one lighter weight, and i seldom wear this. have no idea of getting another."
"but velvet rubs so, and you don't want people to talk as if—"
"don't i?" miss gibbie sat down in the big chair mary cary had pushed for her near the fire, and spread out the full folds of her black silk skirt with deliberate precision. "how do you know what i want people to do? my dear miss cary, only dead people don't talk. what we say and what we do, what we wear and where we go, is cause for comment in exact proportion to what we do not say and what we do not do, what we do not wear and where we do not go, with those people who do us the honor of spending their time in discussing us. just eighteen years ago this november my brain grasped the importance of fully realizing this and the advantage of pleasing one person in this world. to please all is impossible. i would deny no one the pleasure of talking about me."
"it depends on what they say. i don't like people to say things about me that aren't nice." she handed hedwig miss gibbie's wraps. "i mean if they aren't true."
"when i here things said about me that are not nice and are not true i take a lawyer and go to see the person who has said them and call for proofs. when not forthcoming i take away with me a piece of paper testifying that said person has lied. i have two or three little affidavits of that kind in my desk. things said about me that are not nice and yet are true i let alone, but the other kind—" she waved her hand. "were there fewer cowards in the world there would be fewer gossips. but what's the matter with my coat? it isn't worn out, and if i got a new one it would be of the same material and the same shape. not going to get a new one!"
"are you always going to wear the same shape clothes?" mary cary put a log of wood on the fire, then sat down on the rug at miss gibbie's feet and smiled in her face. "aren't you ever going to change?"
"never! why should i change? brain cells weren't meant to be worn out trying to decide between pink and blue or princesse and polonaise. we have to wear clothes, a requirement of custom, but more time, temper, character, and peace of mind, not to mention money, have been sacrificed to them than to any other altar on this green earth, and for what? most women look like freaks. their garments are travesties on grace and comfort, and when not a pretence in quality are usually a bad imitation of a senseless style. an old sheep dressed lamb-fashion, especially if the old sheep is fat and over fifty, is hard to forgive. when i was fifty i came to my senses, decided on a certain pattern for my clothes, and have been wearing the same kind ever since. in january and june i write to the dressmaker for what i want. one hour twice a year and the work is done. what's the matter with me? don't i look nice?"
"very nice. i like those full skirts gathered on to a fitted waist, with your throat open and elbow sleeves. but you can wear velvet and silk and beautiful lace, and fill the front of your dress with tulle. everybody can't. it takes—"
"sense and system. you mean money; but the sloppiest-dressed woman in town spends more than i do on clothes, very probably. wastes it in trash. i get a velvet dress once in five years. two silks a year, a few muslins, and there i am. lace lasts forever, and nothing is lost on trimmings. lack of sense, lack of sense—" she waved her beaded bag in the air—"is what's the matter with the world. women are slaves of custom; their most despairing quality is their cowardly devotion to the usual and their sheepy following of silly fashions. woman's vanity and man's pampering of it are the cause of more trouble in most homes than fires and pestilence. man is to blame for it. through the ages he's been woman's dictator, and being too sensible to wear petticoats and pink ribbons himself, but liking to see them worn, he put them on woman and told her she was pretty in them. that was enough. to please men is what some women think they were made for, and to do it they're content. women are such fools! what were you dreaming about when i came in? seeing pictures in the fire, of course. what were they?"
"guess!" mary cary put her arms on miss gibbie's knees and laughed in the keen gray eyes. "but you'd never guess! i was thinking how dear everything is here and how i love it. there isn't but one thing more i'd like in the house. just one. and i was wondering if you'd mind if i had it. you knew poor little mrs. trueheart was dead, didn't you?"
"yes, but you don't want her ghost, do you?" miss gibbie nodded toward the face which had nodded toward hers. "do you want a spook in the house?"
"no—a baby—she left one five weeks old. can i adopt it, miss gibbie? would you mind? sometimes i get so lonely—i mean, i just love a little baby, and this poor little thing hasn't any mother, and its father drinks, and the oldest girl has more than she can do for the other children." she gave a deep, eager breath. "i'd love a little baby so, miss gibbie. i'd rather hold one in my arms and rock it to sleep than dance all night, and i like to dance. i never did understand how mothers could let nurses put their babies to bed. i just love to hold them and squeeze them /tight!/ she pressed her arms close to her bosom and, bending, kissed the hollow which they made; then looked up again. "would you mind if i took this little trueheart baby? hedwig and i could take care of it and—"
miss gibbie leaned back in her chair; her eyes closed in hopeless resignation, and her hands fell limp in her lap.
"wants—to—adopt—a—baby! trueheart baby—mother dead of consumption and father death-proof—an alcohol inoculate! what sense the lord saw fit to give you, mary, he seems at times to take away. i thought time would help you, but you're still a child—still a child."
mary cary shook her head. "i'm not a child; i'm a woman. but why can't i have it? the cost wouldn't be much and i can afford it, and i'd just love to have it." she held out her arms. "see," she said, "they were meant to hold a baby, and they ache for one sometimes. this is such a delicate little thing—it's a little girl. and i—once there wasn't anybody to take care of me, and i had to be an—i don't understand why you'd mind—"
"you don't, and i'm not going to try to make you. some things are not to be explained. did you say we were to have tea? i always have my tea at four, and it's nearly six. where's hedwig? she at least can understand when i say i want tea!"
