第20章 THE FORE-ROOM RUG.(3)
'T was a good honest conversion, too, though she did say to me she was afraid that if Reuben hadn't taught her what love was or might be, she 'd never have found out enough about it to love God as she 'd ought to.
"There, I've begun both roses, and hers is 'bout finished.
I sha'n't have more 'n enough white alapaca. It's lucky the moths spared one breadth of the wedding dresses; we was married on the same day, you know, and dressed just alike.
Jot wa'n't quite ready to be married, for he wa'n't any more forehanded 'bout that than he was 'bout other things; but I told him Lovey and I had kept up with each other from the start, and he 'd got to fall into line or drop out o' the percession.--Now what next?"
"Wasn't there anybody at the wedding but you and Lovice?" asked Priscilla, with an amused smile.
"Land, yes! The meeting-house was cram jam full. Oh, to be sure!
I know what you 're driving at! Well, I have to laugh to think I should have forgot the husbands! They'll have to be worked into the story, certain; but it'll be consid'able of a chore, for I can't make flowers out of coat and pants stuff, and there ain't any more flowers on this branch anyway."
Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt thought, and then made a sudden inspired dash upstairs, where Miss Hollis presently heard her rummaging in an old chest.
She soon came down, triumphant.
"Wa'n't it a providence I saved Jot's and Reuben's wedding ties!
And here they are,--one yellow and green mixed, and one brown.
Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to draw in a butterfly hovering over them two roses, and make it out of the neckties,-- green with brown spots. That'll bring in the husbands; and land!
I wouldn't have either of 'em know it for the world. I'll take a pattern of that lunar moth you pinned on the curtain yesterday."
Miss Hollis smiled in spite of herself. "You have some very ingenious ideas and some very pretty thoughts, Mrs. Bascom, do you know it?"
"It's the first time I ever heard tell of it," said Diadema cheerfully. "Lovey was the pretty-spoken, pretty-appearing one; I was always plain and practical. While I think of it, I'll draw in a little mite of this red into my carnation pink.
It was a red scarf Reuben brought Lovey from Portland.
It was the first thing he ever give her, and aunt Hitty said if one of the Abel Grangers give away anything that cost money, it meant business. That was all fol-de-rol, for there never was a more liberal husband, though he was a poor minister; but then they always _are_ poor, without they're rich; there don't seem to be any halfway in ministers.
"We was both lucky that way. There ain't a stingy bone in Jot Bascom's body. He don't make much money, but what he does make goes into the bureau drawer, and the one that needs it most takes it out.
He never asks me what I done with the last five cents he give me.
You 've never been married Miss Hollis, and you ain't engaged, so you don't know much about it; but I tell you there 's a heap o' foolishness talked about husbands. If you get the one you like yourself, I don't know as it matters if all the other women folks in town don't happen to like him as well as you do; they ain't called on to do that.
They see the face he turns to them, not the one he turns to you.
Jot ain't a very good provider, nor he ain't a man that 's much use round a farm, but he 's such a fav'rite I can't blame him.
There 's one thing: when he does come home he 's got something to say, and he 's always as lively as a cricket, and smiling as a basket of chips.
I like a man that 's good comp'ny, even if he ain't so forehanded.
There ain't anything specially lovable about forehandedness, when you come to that. I shouldn't ever feel drawed to a man because he was on time with his work. He 's got such pleasant ways, Jot has!
The other afternoon he didn't get home early enough to milk; and after I done the two cows, I split the kindling and brought in the wood, for I knew he 'd want to go to the tavern and tell the boys 'bout the robbery up to Boylston. There ain't anybody but Jot in this village that has wit enough to find out what 's going on, and tell it in an int'resting way round the tavern fire.
And he can do it without being full of cider, too; he don't need any apple juice to limber _his_ tongue!
"Well, when he come in, he see the pails of milk, and the full wood-box, and the supper laid out under the screen cloth on the kitchen table, and he come up to me at the sink, and says he, 'Diademy, you 're the best wife in this county, and the brightest jewel in my crown,--that 's what _you_ are!'
(He got that idea out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.)
Now I'd like to know whether that ain't pleasanter than 't is to have a man do all the shed 'n' barn work up smart, and then set round the stove looking as doleful as a last year's bird's nest? Take my advice, Miss Hollis: get a good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you a husband that'll keep on courting a little now and then, when he ain't too busy; it smooths things consid'able round the house.
"There, I got so int'rested in what I was saying, I've went on and finished the carnation, and some of the stem, too.
Now what comes next? Why, the thing that happened next, of course, and that was little Jot.
"I'll work in a bud on my rose and one on Lovey's, and my bud'll be made of Jot's first trousers. The goods ain't very appropriate for a rosebud, but it'll have to do, for the idee is the most important thing in this rug.
When I put him into pants, I hadn't any cloth in the house, and it was such bad going Jot couldn't get to Wareham to buy me anything; so I made 'em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, and lined 'em with flannel."
"Buds are generally the same color as the roses, aren't they?" ventured Priscilla.
"I don't care if they be," said Diadema obstinately.
"What's to hender this bud's bein' grafted on? Mrs. Granger was as black as an Injun, but the little Granger children were all red-headed, for they took after their father.
But I don't know; you've kind o' got me out o' conceit with it.