Another silence fell; the pensive pipes puffed; the keen eyes scanned the prospect.

"Looks as if 'twas tryin' to git up some kind o' weather out there!"

said Seth Weaver.

"Doos so!" responded Ebenezer Hoppin. "It's ben tryin' two-three days, but it don't seem to have no pertickler _suc_cess."

"Old Mis' Tree hadn't no use for weather," said Jordan Tooke. "Some women-folks are scairt to death of a rainstorm; you'd think they were afraid of washin' out themselves, same as they be about their clo'es; but she wa'n't that kind; rain or snow, shine or shower, she did what she had a mind to.

"'Weather never took no heed of me,' she used to say, 'and I ain't goin'

to take no heed of it.' No more she did!"

Seth Weaver shook his head, with a reminiscent chuckle. "Ever hear what she said to that feller that come here one time from Salt Marsh and druv the ten-cent team a spell?"

The others shook their heads and turned toward him with an air of relief. Collective sorrow is embarra.s.sing to men.

"There wa'n't much to him," said Seth, "and what there was was full half the time. He didn't stay here long. This village didn't appreciate him the way he liked to be appreciated. Wal, it was snowin' one day, quite a storm it was, and Mis' Tree had sent for him,--Anthony bein' laid up or somethin'. Ezra Doolittle--that was his name, and it suited him--had bit off more jobs than he could swaller, and when he got round to Mis'

Tree's he was half an hour late, and she told him so pretty plain. He had just enough liquor aboard to make him saucy. 'Wal,' he says, 'you're lucky to git me at all. I've druv from h.e.l.l to Jerusalem to git here now.'

"Mis' Tree was all ready for him; she spoke up quick as kindlin': 'You'll git back quicker,' she says, "cause you know the way.'

"I was just drivin' by on my milk route, and she caught sight of me.

"'Seth,' she says, 'I want to go to Mis' Jaquith's. Can you take me?'

"'I'd be pleased to,' says I, 'if you don't mind the pung, Mis' Tree.'

"She was into that pung before you could say 'sausage!'

"'Whip up!' she says; 'get ahead of that feller!' and I laid into my old mare, and off we went kingdom-comin' down the ro'd, me in my old red pung and my buffalo coat, and Mis' Tree in her velvet bunnit and fur cloak, and that feller standin' in the ro'd with his mouth open, same as you were, Salem, with your mud pie. Well, sir, that was a meal o'

victuals for me. I sent the old mare along for all she was wuth, and we got down to Jaquiths' inside of ten minutes. Pretty good time, considerin' what the ro'd was. Got there, and out that old lady hops like a girl.

"'Good boy, Seth!' she says.

"She wanted to give me a dollar, 'cause she had taken me off my route, but I says, 'I guess not, Mis' Tree!' I says. 'I've ben layin' for you ever since you helped mother when she had the fever, and now I've got my chance!' So she laughs and says, call for her on my way back, and I did; but when I found a fourteen-pound turkey sittin' up against my door Christmas mornin',--I wasn't buyin' turkeys that year myself,--I knowed where it come from, and no words said. But what took me was the way she spoke up to that feller. Now some women would have complained, and some would have scol't, and they'd all have gone with the feller 'cause he had a covered team,--but not she! 'You'll get back quicker,' she says, 'from knowin' the way!' and into my team like a flash. Gorry! that's the kind of woman I like to see."

"You'll never see another like her!" said Salem Rock. "The likes of Mis'

Tree never has ben seen and never will be seen, not in this deestrick.

Her tongue was as quick as her heart was kind, and when you say that you've said all there is to say. I s'pose there ain't one of us but could tell a dozen stories like yours, Seth. I dunno as it's proper to tell 'em just now," he paused; "and yet," he continued, "I dunno _but_ it is. She was--so to say--she was all of a piece. You can't think of her without the sharp way she had."

"That's so," Seth a.s.sented; "that's so every time. There wa'n't n.o.body thought more of Mis' Tree than what I did, but yet what keeps comin' up to me ever since she was laid away is them quick, sharp kind o' things she'd say. Now take what she said to Mis' Nudd, Isril Nudd's widder. You all know what Isril was; he was mean as dirt and sour as pickles. He'd scrimped his wife, and he'd half-starved her, and some said he'd beat her, but I never knew how that was. Anyway, Marthy Nudd had as poor a time of it as any woman in this village, and everybody knew it. And yet, when he died she mourned for him as if he was Moses and Simeon and the Angel Gabriel all in one. Well, she come to Mis' Tree beggin' for the loan of some shawl or bunnit or toggery to wear, I dunno what; and she was goin' on about her poor husband, and how she had tried to do her duty by him, and hoped he knew it now he was in heaven, and all that kind of talk. Old Mis' Tree let her say about so much and then she stopped her. You know the way she'd hit the floor with her stick. Rap!

that stick would go, and any one's heart would sit right up in their boosum.

"'That'll do, Marthy!' she says. 'Now listen to me. You say Isril is in heaven?'

"'Oh, yes'm, yes, Mis' Tree,' says Marthy. 'He's numbered with the blest, I don't make no doubt on it.'

"'And you've got the four hundred dollars life insurance that you told me was due?'

"'Yes'm, that's all safe; my brother's put it in the bank for me.'

"'Very well, Marthy Nudd; if you've got Isril into heaven and got four hundred dollars life insurance on him, that's the best piece of work ever you done in your life, or ever will do. Cat's foot!' she says; 'folderol!' she says, 'don't talk to me!' and she shoved her out with her stick and wouldn't hear another word. Gorry! I wouldn't ben Marthy Nudd--"

"Didn't hurt Marthy none, I expect," said Ebenezer Hoppin. "She's one of them kind, sorter betwixt putty and Injia rubber; you can double her up easy, but first thing you know she's out smooth again. Some say she's liable to marry Elihu Wick, over to the Corner. She'd find him some different from Isril."

"What kind of feller is he?" asked Jordan Tooke.

"Oh, a string and shingle man. Give him pork and give him sunset, and he won't ask nothin' more. Marthy won't get no four hundred dollars insurance on him, but he'll go to heaven all right. There isn't a mite o' harm in 'Lihu, and Marthy has earned her rest, I will say."

"Speakin' of insurance," said Salem, slowly, "reminds me we ain't said anything about Mis' Tree's will. It is a sing'lar will, boys."

There was a moment's pause. Heads were shaken and feet were shuffled uneasily.

"Mighty sing'lar," said Hiram Gray.

"Beats all I ever heard of," said Jordan Tooke.

Seth Weaver kept a loyal silence. Salem gave him a look, and, receiving a nod in reply, went on:

"Seth and myself was talkin' it over as we came along, kinder takin' our bearin's, and this is the way it looks to us. Mis' Tree was born in this village, and lived in it a hundred and two years, and died in it; and her folks, the Trees and the Darracotts, have lived and died here since there was a village to die in. Not one of them hundred 'n' two years--since she was of knowledgeable age,--but she was doin' good--in her own way--from the first day of January to the last day of December.

Not one of us sittin' here on this piazzy but she's done good _to_, one way or another. Therefore and thereon-account of--" Salem was obviously and justifiably proud of this phrase, and repeated it with evident enjoyment; "therefore and thereon-account of, I say, and Seth says with me, that if Mis' Tree wanted this village should be called Cat's-foot, or Fiddlesticks, or Folderol, or Fudge, I for one and he for another would give our votes to have it so called."

A confusion of tongues ensued, some agreeing, some protesting, but, while the discussion was at its height, the stage drove up and the day's session was over.

CHAPTER III.

WHAT THE WOMEN SAID

A few days after this, the Ladies' Society met at the house of Miss Bethia Wax. There had been much discussion among the members of the Society as to whether it were fitting to hold a meeting so soon after the death of the foremost woman of the parish. Mrs. Worritt said she for one would be loth to be found wanting in respect for one who had been, as it were, a mile-stone and a beacon-light in that village. Mrs.

Weight, on the other hand, maintained that business was business, and that the heathen in their blindness needed flannel petticoats just as much as they did last week. Miss Wax herself, a lady with a strong sense of the proprieties, was in doubt as to which course would preserve them most strictly. Finally the matter was submitted to Mrs. Geoffrey Strong for decision.

"There is only one wish in my mind, Vesta," said Miss Wax, "and that is to show the highest respect for our venerable friend, and I speak, I am sure, for the whole Society. The question is, how best _to_ show it."

Vesta Strong reflected a moment. "I think, Miss Wax," she said, "it will be wisest to hold the meeting. I am quite sure Aunt Marcia would have wished it. But you might, perhaps, give it a rather special character; make it something of a memorial meeting. What do you think of that?"

Miss Wax's face brightened.

"Excellent," she said. "Vesta, I do think that would be excellent. I am real glad I came to you. I will have the room draped in mourning. Tapes has some nice black bombazine, a little injured by water, but--"

Vesta suppressed a shudder. "Oh, no, Miss Wax!" she said. "I wouldn't do that. Aunt Marcia did not like display of any kind, you know. Your pleasant parlors just as they are will be much better, I am sure."

"I do aim at showing my respect!" pleaded Miss Wax. "Perhaps we might all wear a c.r.a.pe rosette, or streamer. What do you think of that?"

But Vesta did not think well even of this, and Miss Wax reluctantly abandoned the plan of official mourning, though determined to show her respect in her own way as regarded her own person. She was a very tall woman, with a figure which, in youth, had been called willowy, and was now unkindly termed scraggy. She had been something of a beauty, and there was a note of the pathetic in her ringlets and the few girlish trinkets she habitually wore,--a coral necklace, which at sixteen had set off admirably the whiteness of her neck, but which at fifty did not harmonize so well with the prevailing sallow tint; a blue enamel locket on a slender gold chain, etc. She was very fond of pink, and could never forget, poor lady, that Pindar Hollopeter had once called her a lily dressed in rose-leaves. But, though a trifle fantastic, Miss Bethia was as good a soul as ever wore prunella shoes, and her desire to do honor to Mrs. Tree's memory was genuine and earnest. Her soul yearned for the black bombazine hangings, but she was loyal to Vesta's expressed wish, and contented herself with removing certain rose-colored scarfs and sofa-pillows, which on ordinary occasions of entertainment were the delight of her eyes. She had gathered all the white flowers she could find, and had arranged a kind of trophy of silver coffee-spoons on the mantelpiece, surrounding a black velvet band, on which was worked in silver tinsel the inscription: