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Page 40
"My, how we did laugh! And Lavina must needs try it right away, to
please Gracie; and she said it worked beautiful. But whether it was the
laughin' so much right on top of a hearty supper, or the bendin' down to
try her new toy, or both, she jest says, as natural as I'm speakin' now,
'Jabez, I'm a-goin'--' and then stopped. And when I looked up to see why
she didn't finish, she was gone, sure enough."
His voice broke, and he stopped abruptly. Mr. Birchard, without in the
least intending to do it, grasped his hand, and held it with
affectionate warmth for a moment.
"Thank you, young man, thank you kindly," said Uncle Jabez, recovering
his voice and shaking Mr. Birchard's hand heartily at the same moment.
"You've an uncommon feelin' heart for one so young.
"To say I was lonesome after she went don't say much; but time evens
things out after a while, or we couldn't stand it as long as we do.
Gracie she settled into a little woman all at once, as you may say, and
seemed older for a while than she does now. The rest was all married and
gone, but one boy,--a good boy, too. But they came around me, comfortin'
and helpin', though each one of 'em mourned her nigh as much as I did
myself; and after a while, as I said, I got used, in a manner, to doin'
'ithout her."
Here he made a long pause, with his eyes intently fixed upon the
darkness of the adjoining store-room. The heat from the stove had become
too great after the shutting of the shutters, and one of the men had
opened an inner door for ventilation.
Now, as one pair of eyes after another followed those of the old man,
there was a sort of subdued stir around the circle, and the
schoolmaster, to his intense disgust, caught himself looking hastily
over his shoulder,--the door being behind him.
Mr. Dickey broke the spell by suddenly rising, with the exclamation, "I
think we're cooled off about enough; and, as I'm a little rheumaticky
to-night, I'll shut that door, if you've none of you no objections."
There was a subdued murmur of assent, the door was closed, and Uncle
Jabez returned to the thread of his discourse:
"Lemme see: where was I? Oh, yes. You may think it a little strange,
now, but I didn't neither see nor hear tell of her for a full six
months. If I was makin' this story up, and anxious to make a _good_
story of it, you can see, if you're fair-minded, that I'd say she came
back right away. Now, wouldn't I be most likely to? Say?"
He appealed so directly to Mr. Birchard, pausing for a reply, that the
sceptic was obliged to answer in some way, and, with a curious sort of
reluctance, he said slowly, "Yes--I suppose--I'm sure you would."
This seemed to satisfy Uncle Jabez, and he went on with his story:
"I came home from town one stormy night, about six months after she
died, pretty well beat out,--entirely so, I may say. I'd been drivin'
some cattle into the city, and I'd had only a poor concern of a boy to
help me. The cattle was contrai-ry,--contrai-rier'n common; and I
remember thinkin', when the feller at the drove-yard handed me my check,
that I'd earned it pretty hard. That's the last about it I do remember.
I s'pose I must 'a' put it in my pocket-book, the same as usual; but I
rode home in a sort of a maze, I was so tired and drowsy, and I'd barely
sense enough to eat my supper and grease my boots afore I went to bed. I
had a bill to pay the next day, and I opened my pocket-book, quite
confident, to take out the check. It wasn't there. I always kep' a
number of papers in that pocket-book, and I thought at fust it had got
mislaid among 'em: so I turned everything out, and unfolded 'em one by
one, and poked my finger through a hole between the leather and the
linin', and made it a good deal bigger,--but that's neither here nor
there,--and before I was through I was certain sure of one thing,---
that wherever else that check was, it wasn't in that pocket-book. Then I
tried my pockets, one after the other,--four in my coat, four in my
overcoat, three in my vest, two in my pants: no, it wasn't in any of
them, and I begun to feel pretty queer, I can tell you. It was my only
sale of cattle for the season; I was dependin' on it to pay a bill and
buy one or two things for Gracie; and, anyhow, it's no fun to lose a
hunderd-dollar check and feel as if it must have been bewitched away
from you. I rode back to the drove-yard, though I wasn't more'n half
rested from the day before, and they said they'd stop payment on the
check and give me a chance to look right good for it, and if I couldn't
find it they'd draw me another. You see, they knowed me right well, and
they wasn't afraid I was tryin' to play any sort of a game on 'em.
Still, it wasn't a pleasant thing to have happen, for, say the best you
could of it, it argued that I'd lost a considerable share of my wits.
So, when I come home, I felt so kind of worried and down-hearted that I
couldn't half eat my supper; and that worried Gracie,--she was a
thin-skinned little critter, and if I didn't eat the same as usual she'd
always take it into her head there was something wrong with the
victuals. I fell asleep in my cheer right after supper, and slept till
nine o'clock; and then Gracie woke me, and ast me if I didn't think I'd
better go to bed. I said yes, I s'posed I had; but by that time I was
hungry, and I ast her what she had good in the pantry. She brightened up
wonderful at that,--though when I come to look closer at her I see she'd
been cryin',--and she said there was doughnuts, fresh fried that day,
and the best half of a mince pie. I told her that was all right so far
as it went, but I'd like somethin' a little solider to begin with: so
she found me a few slices of cold pork and one of her cowcumber pickles,
and I eat a right good supper. She picked at a piece of pie, by way of
keepin' me company, but she didn't eat much. Now, I tell you this, which
you may think isn't revelant to the subject, to let you see I went to
bed comfortable. We laughed and talked over our little supper, and
pretended we was city-folks, on our way home from the theater, gettin' a
fancy supper at Delmonico's. And I forgot all about the check for the
time bein', as slick and clean as if I'd never had it nor lost it. But,
nevertheless, when I went to sleep I begun to dream about it, and was to
the full as much worried in my dream as I was when I was awake. I seemed
to myself to be huntin' all over the house, in every hole and corner I
could think of, and sometimes I'd come on pieces of paper that looked so
like it outside I'd make sure I'd found it, and then when I opened 'em
they'd be ridickilous rhymes, 'ithout any sense to 'em; when all of a
sudden I heard Lavina's voice, as plain as you hear mine now. It seemed
to come from a good ways off just at first, callin' 'Father,'--she
always called me 'Father,' partly because she didn't like the name of
Jabez, and it is a humbly name, I'm free to confess,--and then again
nearer, 'Father;' and then again, as if it was right at the foot of the
stairs. And this time it went on to say, loud and plain, so's 't I could
hear every word, 'You look in the little black teapot on the top shelf
of the pantry, where I kep' the missionary money, and see what you'll
find.' And with that I heard her laugh; and I'd know Lavina's laugh
among a thousand. I was too dazed like to do it right away, and I must
'a' fell asleep while I was thinkin' about it, for when I woke up it was
broad daylight and Gracie was callin' to me to get up. But I hadn't
forgot a word that Lavina'd said, and I went for that teapot as quick as
I was dressed, and there was the check, sure enough, in good order and
condition!"
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