VI MRS. EM. TO THE RESCUE

It was over two years now since the Widow Em Cottle had left Lemuel Perkins’ house in a rage at some last straw of household tyranny, and then had widened the breach to a chasm by marrying his hereditary enemy and neighbour, Deacon Caldwell. In all that time the chasm had never been bridged by one friendly word, and never, both had declared, would they utter a syllable to each other, if it were to save their lives.

Fortunately, human beings are rarely as bad or as foolish as their own rash vows; and when Mrs. Emma Caldwell stepped out of the Emporium that morning and ran into Lem Perkins, unmistakably headed for home and dinner, she recognized a “leadin’ plain as the nose on her face,” as she afterward explained to the deacon. And Mrs. Caldwell was far too good a woman to disobey a “leading.”

“Mornin’, Lem,” she began boldly, casting the usual polite fly upon the conversational waters. “Much obliged for the pears. They was as tasty as yours always is.”

Mr. Perkins nodded.

“The little gal wanted I should send ’em,” he explained gruffly. “She’s a great hand for neighbourin’, sissy is.”

The bull having turned his forehead in her direction, Mrs. Caldwell promptly seized him by the horns.

“It’s her I want to talk about,” she announced. “She’s a takin’ young one as I’ve seen in a month o’ Sundays, but blind as a bat—or an angel,” she added softly. “Land only knows how she’s managed it, but she’s took all sorts of a shine to her ‘dear Uncle Lemuel,’ as she calls you—thinks you’re the salt of the earth—and good—and kind. Law me, Lem, if you could hear her talk, you’d go home and look in the glass, and say: ‘Mercy me, who be I, anyway?’”

“Waal,” grunted “dear Uncle Lemuel,” turning aside to hide the pleased smile that would twitch at the corners of his mouth in spite of his strenuous efforts, “what’s to hender, Mis’ Caldwell? Blood is thicker’n water—ain’t it?”

“Yourn hain’t,” retorted Mrs. Caldwell promptly. “It’s hern that’s got to provide all the thickenin’ for two. And as to what’s to hender, you are, most likely. I’m worried to death this minute over how soon that little gal’s heart is a-goin’ to be stove to flinders, a-findin’ out how fur you be from an’ angel dropped. She’s been up there to my house this mornin’ slavin’ away over the cook stove a-making pies for a surprise for you, and a-fetchin’ of ’em home so careful! Land, I just had to laugh to see her a-carryin’ ’em home one to a time—three trips she made of it—usin’ both hands, and a-tiptoein’ along as if she was Undertaker Pearse a-startin’ for a funeral. And now I s’pose she’s waitin’ there, all nerved up to see how you’ll relish ’em—not knowin’ that you’re just about as likely to say a word o’ praise as a rhinoceros in a circus. But if you don’t, it’ll break her little heart; that’s all I’ve got to say.”

“Humph!” grunted Uncle Lemuel. “Well, so that’s all you got to say, Neighbour Caldwell, I’m willin’.”

“No, ’tain’t,” retorted Mrs. Caldwell hotly. “’Tain’t by a long shot! Another thing that blessed child’s all worked up about is that Christmas business over to school. I sent her over on an errand to the teacher this mornin’, and they got to talkin’ over there about how you set down on their Christmas doin’s in the trustee meetin’. They didn’t use your name—called you some kind of a nickname or other, the young ones did—and she never dreamed who ’twas, but come back all keyed up and plannin’ to git her Uncle Lem to go to the other old what’s-his-name and fix things up. And how she’s ever goin’ to stand it when she finds that that dear Uncle Lem of hers is the old curmudgeon they was talkin’ about, I dunno. It’s a sin and a shame, Lem Perkins, how that child’s cottoned to you—that’s what I call it.”

She stopped suddenly with a gulp, and wiped away a tear with the corner of her white apron as she turned away.

Uncle Lem stepped after her.

“Em Cottle,” he said abruptly, “you’re a truthful woman, as fur as I know—and I’ve known ye quite a spell. Do you reely b’lieve that young one is so—so—that is——” He paused and cleared his throat. “Does she lot on me as much as she makes out, or is she jest—doin’ it—to git my money, mebbe?”

A blaze of anger dried the tears in Em Cottle’s eyes.

“Well,” she remarked scathingly, “blindness runs in your family, sure enough—only with some it’s for bad and with some it’s for good—that’s all! There ain’t no use wastin’ no more time on you; that’s sure as preachin’.”

With a capable hitch of her green plaid shawl, she turned her plump shoulders full upon him, and started briskly up the road.

Uncle Lemuel glanced furtively about him. The village square was empty; not even Marthy Ann Watkins’ eye was visible at the post-office window.

“Em! Oh, Em!” he called loudly, and then, as the brisk figure in front seemed to hesitate for a moment, he scuttled after it.

“Don’t be in such a brash, Em,” he gasped, as he caught up with her. “We hain’t had a dish o’ talk in so long that I guess we can afford to spend a minute or so a-doin’ it. You didn’t jest ketch my meanin’ then, Em. I didn’t reely think that sissy, there, had plans herself, but I didn’t know but mebbe Ellen——”

“If Ellen Rumball had had her eye on your old money bags, she wouldn’t ’a’ broke with you to go off to Injy with that missionary feller, would she?”

Uncle Lem glowered with the remembrance of past injuries.

“Ellen Rumball pretended to like me, too,” he muttered; “and then she deserted me in my old age for that good-for-nothin’ missionary chap.”

“Pretended?” exploded Mrs. Em; “pretended? If ’tain’t real likin’ that would make a woman swaller down all the things you said, and the way you acted, and bring up her young ones to think you was the finest uncle goin’, well, then it’s real grace; that’s all I’ve got to say! And here I be, a-quarrelin’ with you the same as ever, and I’d made up my mind butter shouldn’t melt in my mouth.”

But Uncle Lemuel was absorbed in struggling against the softening of his grim old face.

“Ellen has fetched sissy up fair to middlin’ well,” he admitted. “She’s kind of smart for her years—handy round the house, I mean, ain’t she, Em? And folksy—it does beat all! They couldn’t nobody around town talk of nothin’ this mornin’ but ‘my little gal,’ as they called her. She started out yestiddy arternoon to do her Christmas tradin’, and she must ’a’ got acquainted with everybody in sight. She promised Marthy Watkins some postcards from Injy. And then the minister comes along, and she got him so interested he asked me if I’d let her speak about missions to the Children’s Band. And Nate Waters—you know I hain’t been in Waters’s store for a matter of a year or so, since he sold me that busted plough—but out come Mis’ Waters this morning, to see if I’d mind her savin’ sissy a little red chain she had there. Sissy took to it uncommon, but she didn’t have money enough to get it, she’d bought so much truck for other folks, and Mis’ Waters wanted to give it to her for Christmas.”

“Well, I hope to the land you let her!” cried Mrs. Caldwell. “She was goin’ to spend a whole fifty cents a-buyin’ you a handsome china cup, Lem, good enough for a president. And, though Nate may be tricky sometimes, Mis’ Waters is a real nice woman.”

Uncle Lem coughed.

“Well, here ’tis, Em,” he replied at last, producing a little packet from his overcoat pocket. “But I guess me and my folks don’t have to be beholden to the Waterses yet for our fixin’s. You know little Loviny was very partial to red, too,” he added, after a moment.

They had now reached the Perkins gate, but Mrs. Caldwell suddenly turned and laid a detaining hand on his arm.

“Why, that’s who ’tis!” she exclaimed softly. “I’ve been a-wonderin’ and a-wonderin’ who that child reminded me of. She don’t take after Ellen Rumball exactly, nor yet Christie, as I remember him, but she’s got the very same disposition as your little Loviny had, laughin’ all day like a brook, and yet as serious and interested as an old woman about things she took a notion to, and the most lovin’ little heart that ever was. I was in the Sixth Reader when she began her A B C’s, but she got to be friends with the whole school afore the first week was out—and I guess there wa’n’t a dry eye to the Centre when we heard tell about the runaway. ‘Of such is the kingdom of heaven’—that was the text to her funeral, wa’n’t it? And I guess ’tis, too, fast enough. And ’twould come a heap sooner on earth, I’m thinkin’, if there was more like her—wouldn’t it? Well, give my love to sissy,” she added quickly, with kindly tact, “and tell her I’ll look for her again in the morning.”

But the old man did not heed her. Across the gulf of over forty years he was looking once more at a gay little figure in red merino, that danced before him, while his little daughter’s voice cried happily:

“Father, father, come kiss Loviny in her Kissmas-coloured d’ess!”