"How can you, Ruth! You are a worse heathen than ever. But then there is no church in Tuskamuck, so I suppose it is not to be wondered at. That's another reason for taking you away from this wilderness."

"There are two churches, as you know very well," I said.

"Nonsense! They're only meeting-houses,--conventicles. However, when you come to Boston to live, we will see."

"I told you last night that I shouldn't give up Tuskamuck."

"I know you did, but I didn't mind that. You must give it up."

She went away insisting upon this, and refusing to accept any other decision. I did so far yield as to promise provisionally that I would go abroad with her this summer. I need to see the world with a broader view again, and I shall enjoy it. To think of the picture galleries fills me with joy already. I should be willing to cross the Atlantic just to see once more the enchanting tailor of Moroni's in the National Gallery. It is odd, it comes into my mind at this moment that he looks something like Tom Webbe, or Tom looks something like him. Very likely it is all nonsense. Yes; I will go for the summer--to leave here altogether--no, that is not to be thought of.

March 24. The whole town is excited over an accident up at the lake this morning. A man and his son were drowned by breaking through the ice.

They had been up to some of the logging camps, and it is said they were not sober. They were Brownrigs, and part of the family in the little red house. The mother and the daughter are left. I hope it is not heartless to hate to think of them. I have no doubt that they suffer like others; only it is not likely folk of this sort are as sensitive as we are. It is a mercy that they are not.

March 25. The Brownrig family seems just now to be forced upon my attention, and that in no pleasant way.

Aunt Naomi came in this forenoon, and seated herself with an air of mysterious importance. She looked at me with her keen eyes, penetrating and humorous even when she is most serious, and seemed to be examining me to discover what I was thinking. It was evident at once that she had news. This is generally true, for she seems always to have something to tell. Her mind gathers news as salt gathers moisture, and her greatest pleasure is to impart what she has heard. She has generally with me the air of being a little uncertain how I may receive her tidings. Like all persons of strong mind and a sense of humor, she is by nature in sympathy with the habit of looking at life frankly and dispa.s.sionately, and I believe that secretly and only half consciously she envies me my mental freedom. Sometimes I have suspected her of leading me on to say things which she would have felt it wrong to say herself because they are unorthodox, but which she has too much common sense not to sympathize with. She is convinced, though, that such freedom of thought as mine is wrong, and she n.o.bly deprives herself of the pleasure of being frank in her thoughts when this would involve any reflection upon the theological conventions which are her rule of life. She gratifies a lively mind by feeding it on sc.r.a.ps of gossip and commenting on them in her pungent way; she is never unkind in her thought, I am sure, but she does sometimes say sharp things. Like Lady Teazle, however, she abuses people out of pure good nature. I looked at her this morning as she sat swinging her foot and munching--there is no other word for it!--her green barege veil, and I wondered, as I have often wondered before, how a woman really so clever could be content to pa.s.s so much of her time in the gathering and circulating of mere trivialities. I suppose that it is because there is so little in the village to appeal to the intellectual side of her, and her mind must be occupied. She might be a brilliant woman in a wider sphere. Now she seems something like a beaver in captivity, building dams of hairbrushes and boots on a carpeted floor.

I confess, too, that I wondered, as I looked at her, if she represented my future. I thought of Cousin Mehitable's doleful predictions of what I should come to if I stay in Tuskamuck, and I tried to decide whether I should come in time to be like Aunt Naomi, a general carrier of news from house to house, an old maid aunt to the whole village, with no real kindred, and with no interests wider than those of village gossip. I cannot believe it, but I suppose at my age she would not have believed it of herself.

"We're really getting to be quite like a city," Aunt Naomi said, with a grimness which showed me there was something important behind this enigmatic remark.

"Are we?" I responded. "I confess I don't see how."

"Humph!" she sniffed. "There's wickedness here that isn't generally looked for outside of the city."

"Oh, wickedness!" I said. "There is plenty of that everywhere, I suppose; but I never have thought we have more than our share of it."

She wagged her foot more violently, and had what might have seemed a considerable lunch on her green veil before she spoke again--though it is wicked for me to make fun of her. Then she took a fresh start.

"What are you knitting?" she asked.

"What started in January to be some mittens for the Turner boy. He brings our milk, and he never seems to have mittens enough."

"I don't wonder much," was her comment. "His mother has so many babies that she can't be expected to take care of them."

"Poor Mrs. Turner," I said. "I should think the poor thing would be discouraged. I am ashamed that I don't do more for her."

"I don't see that you are called upon to take care of all the poor in the town; but if you could stop her increasing her family it'd be the best thing you could do."

When Aunt Naomi makes a remark like this, I feel it is discreet to change the subject.

"I hope that now the weather is getting milder," I observed, "you are not so cold in prayer-meetings."

She was not diverted, even by this chance to dwell on her pet grievance, but went her own way.

"I suppose you'll feel now you've got to look out for that Brownrig girl, too," she said.

"That Brownrig girl?" I repeated.

I tried not to show it, but the blood rushed to my heart and made me faint. I realized something terrible was coming, though I had nothing to go upon but the old gossip about Tom and the fact that I had seen him come from the red house.

"Her sin has found her out," returned Aunt Naomi with indignant emphasis. "For my part, I don't see what such creatures are allowed to live for. Think what kind of a mother she will make. They'd better take her and her baby and drown 'em along with her father and brother."

"Aunt Naomi!" was all I could say.

"Well, I suppose you think I'm not very charitable, but it does make me mad to see that sort of trash"--

"I don't know what you are talking about," I interrupted. "Has the Brownrig girl a child?"

"No; but she's going to have. Her mother's gone off and left her, and she's down sick with pneumonia besides."

"Her mother has gone off?"

"Yes; and it'd be good riddance, if there was anybody to take care of the girl."

It is useless to ask Aunt Naomi how she knows all that goes on in the town. She collects news from the air, I believe. I reflected that she is not always right, and I hoped now she might be mistaken.

"But somebody must be with her if she's down with pneumonia," I said.

"Yes; that old Bagley woman's there. The Overseers of the Poor sent her, but she's about twice as bad as n.o.body, I should think. If I was sick, and she came round, I know I'd ask her to go away, and let me die in peace."

It was evident enough that Aunt Naomi was a good deal stirred up, but I did not dare to ask her why. If there is anything worse behind this scandal, I had rather not know it. We were fortunately interrupted, and Aunt Naomi went soon, so I heard no more. I was sick with the loathsomeness of having Tom Webbe connected in my thought with that wretched girl, and I do hope that it is only my foolishness. He cannot have fallen to such depths.

March 27. I have heard no more from the Brownrigs, and I must hope things were somehow not as Aunt Naomi thought. To-day I learned that she is shut up with a cold. I must go in to-morrow and see her. Miss Charlotte is a great comfort. The dear old soul begins really to look better, and the thinness about her lips is yielding to good feeding. She tells me stories of the old people of the town whom I can just remember, and she is full of reverence for both Father and Mother. Of course I never talk theology with her, but I am surprised sometimes to find that under the sh.e.l.l of her orthodoxy is a good deal of liberalism. I suppose any kindly mortal who accepted the old creeds made allowances for those nearest and dearest, and human nature will always make allowances for itself. I should think that an imaginative belief in a creed, a belief that realized the cruelty of theology, must either drive one mad or make one disbelieve from simple horror. n.o.body but a savage could worship a relentless G.o.d and not become insane from the horror of being in the clutch of an implacable power.

March 28. I have had a most painful visit from Deacon Webbe. He came in looking so gray and old that it shocked me to see him. He shook hands as if he did not know what he was doing, and then sat down in a dazed way, slowly twirling his hat and fixing his eyes on it as if he were blind. I tried to say something, but only stumbled on in little commonplaces about the weather, to which he paid so little attention that it was evident he had no idea what I was saying. In a minute or two I was reduced to silence. One cannot go on saying mechanical nothings in the face of suffering, and it was impossible not to see that Deacon Webbe was in grievous pain.

"Deacon Webbe," I said at last, when I could not bear the silence any longer, "what is the matter?"

He raised his eyes to mine with a look of pitiful helplessness.

"I've no right to come to you, Miss Ruth," he said in his slow way, "but there's n.o.body else, and you always were Tom's friend."

"Tom?" I repeated. "What has happened?"

"It isn't a thing to talk to a woman about," he went on, "and you'll have to excuse me, Miss Ruth. I'm sure you will. It's that Brownrig girl."

I sat silent, and I felt my hands growing cold.

"She's had a baby," he said after a moment.

The simple bald fact was horrible as he said it. I could not speak, and after a little hesitation he continued in a tone so low I could scarcely hear him.

"It's his. Think of the shame of it and the sin of it. It seems to me, if it could only have been the Lord's will, I would have been glad to die rather than to have this happen. My son!"