第19章 THE FORE-ROOM RUG.(2)

"A spray of two roses in the centre,--there 's the beginning; why, don't you see, dear Mrs. Bascom?"

"Course I do," said Diadema, diving to the bottom of the dish-pan. "I've got my start now, and don't you say a word for a minute. The two roses grow out of one stalk; they'll be Lovey and me, though I'm consid'able more like a potato blossom.

The stalk 's got to be green, and here is the very green silk mother walked bride in, and Lovey and I had roundabouts of it afterwards.

She had the chicken-pox when we was about four years old, and one of the first things I can remember is climbing up and looking over mother's footboard at Lovey, all speckled.

Mother had let her slip on her new green roundabout over her nightgown, just to pacify her, and there she set playing with the kitten Reuben Granger had brought her.

He was only ten years old then, but he 'd begun courting Lovice.

"The Grangers' farm joined ours. They had eleven children, and mother and father had thirteen, and we was always playing together.

Mother used to tell a funny story about that. We were all little young ones and looked pretty much alike, so she didn't take much notice of us in the daytime when we was running out 'n' in; but at night when the turn-up bedstead in the kitchen was taken down and the trundle-beds were full, she used to count us over, to see if we were all there.

One night, when she 'd counted thirteen and set down to her sewing, father come in and asked if Moses was all right, for one of the neighbors had seen him playing side of the river about supper-time. Mother knew she 'd counted us straight, but she went round with a candle to make sure.

Now, Mr. Granger had a head as red as a shumac bush; and when she carried the candle close to the beds to take another tally, there was thirteen children, sure enough, but if there wa'n't a red-headed Granger right in amongst our boys in the turn-up bedstead!

While father set out on a hunt for our Moses, mother yanked the sleepy little red-headed Granger out o' the middle and took him home, and father found Moses asleep on a pile of shavings under the joiner's bench.

"They don't have such families nowadays. One time when measles went all over the village, they never came to us, and Jabe Slocum said there wa'n't enough measles to go through the Dennett family, so they didn't start in on 'em. There, I ain't going to finish the stalk;

I'm going to draw in a little here and there all over the rug, while I'm in the sperit of plannin' it, and then it will be plain work of matching colors and filling out.

"You see the stalk is mother's dress, and the outside green of the moss roses is the same goods, only it 's our roundabouts.

I meant to make 'em red, when I marked the pattern, and then fill out round 'em with a light color; but now I ain't satisfied with anything but white, for nothing will do in the middle of the rug but our white wedding dresses.

I shall have to fill in dark, then, or mixed. Well, that won't be out of the way, if it 's going to be a true rag story; for Lovey's life went out altogether, and mine hasn't been any too gay.

"I'll begin on Lovey's rose first. She was the prettiest and the liveliest girl in the village, and she had more beaux than you could shake a stick at. I generally had to take what she left over.

Reuben Granger was crazy about her from the time she was knee-high; but when he went away to Bangor to study for the ministry, the others had it all their own way. She was only seventeen; she hadn't ever experienced religion, and she was mischeevous as a kitten.

"You remember you laughed, this morning, when Mr. Bascom told about Hogshead Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep company with Lovey; but she couldn't abide him, and whenever he come to court her she clim' into a hogshead, and hid till after he 'd gone.

The boys found it out, and used to call him 'Hogshead Jowett."

He was the biggest fool in Foxboro' Four Corners; and that 's saying consid'able, for Foxboro' is famous for its fools, and always has been. There was thirteen of 'em there one year.

They say a man come out from Portland, and when he got as fur as Foxboro' he kep' inquiring the way to Dunstan; and I declare if he didn't meet them thirteen fools, one after another, standing in their front dooryards ready to answer questions.

When he got to Dunstan, says he, 'For the Lord's sake, what kind of a village is that I've just went through?

Be they _all_ fools there?'

"Hogshead was scairt to death whenever he come to see Lovice.

One night, when he 'd been there once, and she 'd hid, as she always done, he come back a second time, and she went to the door, not mistrusting it was him. 'Did you forget anything?' says she, sparkling out at him through a little crack.

He was all taken aback by seeing her, and he stammered out, 'Yes, I forgot my han'k'chief; but it don't make no odds, for I didn't pay out but fifteen cents for it two year ago, and I don't make no use of it 'ceptins to wipe my nose on.'

How we did laugh over that! Well, he had a conviction of sin pretty soon afterwards, and p'r'aps it helped his head some; at any rate he quit farming, and become a Bullockite preacher.

"It seems odd, when Lovice wa'n't a perfessor herself, she should have drawed the most pious young men in the village, but she did: she had good Orthodox beaux, Free and Close Baptists, Millerites and Adventists, all on her string together; she even had one Cochranite, though the sect had mostly died out.

But when Reuben Granger come home, a full-feathered-out minister, he seemed to strike her fancy as he never had before, though they were always good friends from children. He had light hair and blue eyes and fair skin (his business being under cover kep' him bleached out), and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple you ever see; for she was dark complected, and her cheeks no otherways than scarlit the whole durin' time. She had a change of heart that winter; in fact she had two of 'em, for she changed hers for Reuben's, and found a hope at the same time.