第2章 IN WHICH KEZIAH HEARS TWO PROPOSALS AND THE BEGINN

Ellery must take after his father some.Surprisin',ain't it,what a family the old critter's got.The girl laughed again.For one brought up,since her seventh year,in the strictest of Come-Outer families,she laughed a good deal.Many Come-Outers considered it wicked to laugh.Yet Grace did it,and hers was a laugh pleasant to hear and distinctly pleasant to see.It made her prettier than ever,a fact which,if she was aware of it,should have been an additional preventive,for to be pretty smacks of vanity.Perhaps she wasn't aware of it.

What do you think Uncle Eben would say if he heard that?she asked.

Say I took after my father,too,I presume likely.Does your uncle know you come here to see me so often?And call me 'aunt' and all that?

Of course he does.Aunt Keziah,you mustn't think Uncle Eben doesn't see the good in people simply because they don't believe as he does.He's as sweet and kind as--Who?Eben Hammond?Land sakes,child,don't I know it?Cap'n Eben's the salt of the earth.I'm a Regular and always have been,but I'd be glad if my own society was seasoned with a few like him.

'Twould taste better to me of a Sunday.She paused,and then added quizzically:What d'you s'pose Cap'n Elkanah and the rest of our parish committee would say if they heard THAT?Goodness knows!Still,I'm glad to hear you say it.And uncle says you are as good a woman as ever lived.He thinks you're misled,of course,but that some day you'll see the error of your ways.Humph!I'll have to hurry up if I want to see 'em without spectacles.See my errors!Land sakes!much as I can do to see the heads of these tacks.Takin'up carpets is as hard a test of a body's eyesight as 'tis of their religion.Her companion put down the tablecloth she was folding and looked earnestly at the other woman.To an undiscerning eye the latter would have looked much as she always did--plump and matronly,with brown hair drawn back from the forehead and parted in the middle;keen brown eyes with a humorous twinkle in them--this was the Keziah Coffin the later generation of Trumet knew so well.

But Grace Van Horne,who called her aunt and came to see her so frequently,while her brother was alive and during the month following his death,could see the changes which the month had wrought.She saw the little wrinkles about the eyes and the lines of care about the mouth,the tired look of the whole plucky,workaday New England figure.She shook her head.

Religion!she repeated.I do believe,Aunt Keziah,that you've got the very best religion of anybody I know.I don't care if you don't belong to our church.When I see how patient you've been and how cheerful through all your troubles,it--Mrs.Coffin waved the hammer deprecatingly.There!there!she interrupted.I guess it's a good thing I'm goin'away.Here's you and I praisin'up each other's beliefs,just as if that wasn't a crime here in Trumet.Sometimes when I see how the two societies in this little one-horse place row with each other,I declare if it doesn't look as if they'd crossed out the first word of 'Love your neighbor'and wrote in 'Fight,'instead.Yet I'm a pretty good Regular,too,and when it comes to whoopin'and carryin'on like the Come-Outers,I--Well!well!never mind;don't begin to bristle up.I won't say another word about religion.Let's pick the new minister to pieces.ANY kind of a Christian can do that.But the new minister was destined to remain undissected that morning,in that house at least.Grace was serious now and she voiced the matter which had been uppermost in her mind since she left home.

Aunt Keziah,she said,why do you go away?What makes you?Is it absolutely necessary?Why do I go?Why,for the same reason that the feller that was hove overboard left the ship--cause I can't stay.You've got to have vittles and clothes,even in Trumet,and a place to put your head in nights.Long's Sol was alive and could do his cobblin'we managed to get along somehow.What I could earn sewin'helped,and we lived simple.But when he was taken down and died,the doctor's bills and the undertaker's used up what little money I had put by,and the sewin'alone wouldn't keep a healthy canary in bird seed.

Dear land knows I hate to leave the old house I've lived in for fourteen years and the town I was born in,but I've got to,for all I see.Thank mercy,I can pay Cap'n Elkanah his last month's rent and go with a clear conscience.I won't owe anybody,that's a comfort,and nobody will owe me;though I could stand that,Iguess,she added,prying at the carpet edge.

I don't care!The girl's dark eyes flashed indignantly.Ithink it's too bad of Cap'n Elkanah to turn you out when--Don't talk that way.He ain't turnin'me out.He ain't lettin' houses for his health and he'll need the money to buy his daughter's summer rigs.She ain't had a new dress for a month,pretty near,and here's a young and good-lookin'parson heavin'in sight.Maybe Cap'n Elkanah would think a minister was high-toned enough even for Annabel to marry.He's only twenty-three,they say,remarked Grace,a trifle maliciously.Perhaps she'll adopt him.Annabel was the only child of Captain Elkanah Daniels,who owned the finest house in town.She was the belle of Trumet,and had been for a good many years.

Keziah laughed.

Well,she said,anyhow I've got to go.Maybe I'll like Boston first rate,you can't tell.Or maybe I won't.Ah,hum!'twouldn't be the first thing I've had to do that I didn't like.Her friend looked at her.

Aunt,she said,I want to make a proposal to you,and you mustn't be cross about it.A proposal!Sakes alive!What'll I say?'This is so sudden!'

That's what Becky Ryder,up to the west part of the town,said when Jim Baker,the tin peddler,happened to ask her if she'd ever thought of gettin'married.'O James!this is so sudden!'says Becky.Jim said afterwards that the suddenest thing about it was the way he cleared out of that house.And he never called there afterwards.Grace smiled,but quickly grew grave.