ann barstow stood at the kitchen table, rubbing her silver tea-set. the house was poor and old, but very clean, and ann—a thin little eager body—seemed to fit it perfectly. her strong hands moved back and forth as if she were used to work and loved it for its own sake; but there were other things she loved, and the days that summer seemed to her fuller of life and motion than they had been since she was young. she had lived alone in this little clearing, backed by pine woods, for over thirty years, and every sound of sighing or falling branch was familiar to her, with every resinous tang. ann thought there was no place on earth so fitted for a happy life as a curving cross-road where people seldom came; but her content increased this summer when young jerry hamlin began building a large house across the road, a few rods below her gate, to live there with his wife. when ann heard the news, she was vaguely agitated by it. for a time it seemed as if something were about to invade her calm. but as the house went up, she began to find she liked the tapping of hammers and the sound of voices never [216]addressed to her. when jerry and his wife came to look at things, as they did nearly every day, and threw her a hearty word or a smile, she liked them, too, and it came to her that her old age was to be the brighter for company.
to-day the house was still and empty; she missed the workmen, and polished the harder, to take off her mind. a heavy step was at the door. she knew at once who it was: mrs. john c. briggs, walking slowly because her "heft" was great, and blooming with good-will all over her large face, framed in its thin blond hair.
"come in," called ann. "set right down. i won't leave off my work. i'm all over this 'ere polishin' stuff."
mrs. john c. sank into a seat, and devoted the first few moments to breathing.
"well," said she, "i heard the workmen was off to-day; so i thought i'd poke in an' see the new house."
"yes," said ann, "they had to wait for mortar. it's goin' to be a nice pretty place, ain't it?"
"complete. well, i should think you'd be rejoiced to have neighbors, all alone as you be."
ann smiled.
"i never see a lonesome minute," she said. "there's everything goin' on round in these woods. the birds an' flyin' things are jest as [217]busy as the hand o' man, if ye know how to ketch 'em at it. still, i guess i've got to the time o' life when i shall kinder enjoy neighbors."
"ain't you never afraid?"
"i guess there's nothin' round here that's wuss'n myself," returned ann, proffering the ancient witticism with a jocose certainty of its worth. "i ain't very darin', neither. not much like father, i ain't, nor what brother will used to be. either o' them'd face old nick an' give him as good as he sent."
"well, all i can say is, folks can't be too near for me. what would you do if you should be sick in the night?"
"i dunno," said ann gayly. "set down an' suck my claws, i guess, an' wait till daylight. i can't think o' nothin' else." she had finished her polishing and set back the silver, to eye it with a critical and delighted gaze. then she washed her hands at the sink, and brought out a fine white napkin from the high-boy, and spread it on a little table between the windows. "i dunno but i'm dretful childish," she said, "but arter i've got it all rubbed up, i keep it here in sight, a day or two, it ketches the sun so. then i set it away in the best-room cluzzet."
"it's real handsome," said mrs. john c. "how many pieces be there? this is the whole on 't, as i remember it."
[218]"jest as you see it. yes, 'tis handsome. mother set the world by it."
"i dunno but i'd ruther have the wuth on 't," said mrs. john c., as she had said many times before.
"well," agreed ann, "i dunno but father would. he wa'n't doin' very well that year. i was a little mite of a thing then, an' i remember it all as if 'twa'n't but yesterday. father come in, an' he says: 'well, i guess i've saved the judge a pretty good smash-up. that span o' colts run away down the river road.' 'who's in the carriage?' says mother. 'he drivin' himself?' 'no,' says father. 'he'd jest lifted annie in, an' there was a paper blew along the road, an' they started.' 'annie?' says mother, 'that little mite? he don't deserve to have a child. why, father,' says she, lookin' up over her glasses,—mother had near-sighted eyes,—'your clo's are all tore off o' you, an' there's your hand all bleedin'.' father begun to wash himself up at the sink, an' while he stood there, in walked the judge. he was white as a cloth. 'barstow,' says he, 'you name anything you want that's in my power to git ye, an' you shall have it.' 'twas a pretty hard year for father, as i told ye, but he never asked favors from nobody. i can see jest how he looked when he turned round an' answered. father was a real handsome man. 'much obleeged, judge,' says he. [219]'i don't want nothin' i can't git for myself.' the judge looked kinder hurt, but he turned to mother. 'mis' barstow,' says he, 'can't you think o' some kind of a keepsake you'd like?' mother spoke up as quick as a wink. 'i want a little mite of a silver pitcher for cream,' says she. 'i see one when i was a little girl.' 'you shall have it,' says the judge; an' 'twa'n't a week afore this set come, all marked complete. i never see anybody quite so tickled as mother was; an' father he kinder laughed. he couldn't help it, to think how she got ahead of him."
"well," said the visitor again, "it's as handsome as ever i see." she got slowly on her feet. "there! i guess i must be movin' along. we're goin' up to the street right arter dinner, an' i must have it early. don't you want to send?"
"i'd like some molasses."
"well, we'll drive this way an' call an' git the jug. come over an' see us, won't you?"
"yes, i will. you come again."
when she was gone, ann, under the suggestion of an early dinner, set about getting her own. she had some calf's head from the day before, and she warmed it up with herbs. the kitchen smelled delightfully, and as she set out the food on her bare table, always scoured white to save the use of a cloth, she felt the richness of her own comfortable life. she ate peacefully, [220]sitting there in the sun and watching her shining silver, and just as she was finishing there came a knock at the door.
"walk right in," called ann; but as nobody responded, she got up and opened the door herself. a young man stood on the broad stone, shabby, dust-covered, and with a tired face. the face was sullen, too. he looked as if life had been uncivil to him and he hated it. ann felt a little shock, like a quicker heart-beat. it was in some subtle way like the face of her brother will, who had died in his reckless youth.
"gi' me a bite o' suthin' to eat," he said, as if it were a formula he had often used. "i ain't had a meal for a week."
"massy sakes! yes," said ann. "come right in. here, you set there, an' i'll warm it up a mite. i didn't have no potaters to-day,—i was in a kind of a hurry,—but i guess you can make out with bread."
he took the chair and watched her while she set on the spider again and warmed her savory dish. ann filled the kettle at the same time. she judged that he might like a cup of tea, and told herself she would sit down and take it with him. but when the food was before him, he addressed himself to it, tacitly rejecting all her attempts to whip up conversation.
"you travelin' far?" asked ann, over her [221]own cup of tea, when she had skimmed the top of the milk for him.
"not very."
he frowned a little, and bent to his occupation. his hunger bore out what he had said. he cleared the dishes and drained the teapot. then he rose, took his hat, and, without a look at ann, jerked out a "much obliged," and was gone.
"well," said ann, smiling to herself ruefully, thinking of to-morrow's dinner, "talk about folks that eat an' run!"
but, washing the dishes and trying meantime to plan her happy afternoon, she could not put away the memory of her brother's eyes and one tumbling lock of hair; whispers from the past were clamorous at her ear. presently there was the sound of wheels, and mrs. john c., perched beside her meagre husband, called from the door:—
"here we be, ann. where's your jug? what if you should clap on your bunnit an' ride along to the street?"
she spoke cordially, judging that on such a spring day everybody was better out of the woods and upon the highway.
"no," said ann. "i got too much to do. i'm goin' into the pines arter some goldthread an' sarsaparil'. 'most time for spring bitters. but i'm obleeged to ye for takin' the jug."
[222]half an hour later ann closed the door behind her and, with a little basket on her arm and a kitchen knife to dig with, wandered away to her dear retreat. there she worked less than she had expected, the sunshine was so beguiling. she found many spring treasures, the sort she came upon year after year, and always with the same delighted wonder. a new leaf or a budding plant was enough to send ann off into vistas of quiet joy. spring clouds were thick, when she walked home, in a tumultuous white flock, and she liked them as well as the blue they covered. the earth was very satisfying to ann. the air had made her hungry, and with a smile at her own haste, she drew out her little table and began to set it.
suddenly she stopped, as if a hand had grasped her heart. the room was different. a spot of brightness had gone out of it. the silver tea-set was not there. she hurried into the sitting-room, wild with hope that she might have set it away; but the place was empty. ann went back into the kitchen, and sank down because her knees refused to hold her. not once did she think of the value of what she had lost, but only as it linked the past to her own solitary days. the tea-set had been a kind of household deity, the memorial of her father's courage and her mother's happiness, a brighter sun of life than any [223]that could rise again. she sat there still; her heart beat heavily.
"ann!" it was mrs. john c.'s voice from the wagon. "come git your jug."
ann rose and went weakly out.
"there 'tis in the back o' the wagon," said mrs. john c. "john'd git out, but the colt's possessed to start, an' i don't like to be left with the reins. mercy, ann! what's the matter o' you? you feel sick?"
ann had dragged out the heavy jug, but there was no strength in her lean arms, and she swayed almost to the ground.
"no," she said, in a dull quiet, "i ain't sick; my silver tea-set's gone."
"gone! gone where?"
"i don't know," said ann, in the same despairing way, "unless somebody's stole it."
"john, do you hear that?" cried mrs. john c., in high excitement. "that silver tea-set's gone. it's the one ann sets her life by, an' it's wuth i dunno what. can't you do suthin'?"
john c. looked about him with a vague solemnity.
"anybody could git into these woods," he said, "an' you'd have hard work to find out where."
"hard work!" repeated mrs. john c., in extreme scorn. "i guess 't'll be hard work, but so's a good many things. don't set there talkin'. [224]don't you worry, ann! we'll stir up the neighbors, an' 'f your tea-set's anywheres above ground, we'll have it back, or i'll miss my guess. come, john, come. le' 's git along."
power and vengeance breathed from all her portly frame, and so they drove away, she even, as ann saw, in her dull bewilderment, putting out a hand to shake the whip in its socket, and john c. holding in the plunging colt.
ann wearily tugged in the molasses-jug and put it in its place. then she sat down by the window, trembling, not to think over what had happened, but to bear her loss as she might. from the first moment of discovering it, she had had no hope. tragic things of this sort were strangers to her simple life, and now that one had come, she knew no depth of experience to draw from. sickness she could bear, or death if it should come, because they were factors of the common lot; but it had never occurred to her that so resplendent a thing as a silver tea-set could belong to any one and then be reft away.
the dusk gathered and thickened. the frogs were peeping down by the old willows, and for the first time in her life the melancholy of early spring lay cold upon her heart. it was perhaps eight o'clock when she heard a hand at the door.
"ann!" called mrs. john c. "ann, you there?"
[225]ann rose heavily.
"come in," she said. "i'll light up."
when she had set the lamp on the table and lighted it with a trembling hand, mrs. john c., waiting to find a chair, gazed at her in wonder. ann looked stricken. her hair was disordered, her eyes were sunken, and suddenly she was old. mrs. john c. spoke gently, moved out of her energetic sweep and swing.
"law, ann! don't you take it so terrible hard. 'tain't wuth it, even a tea-set ain't. what should you say if i told you they'd got onto the track on 't?"
"no," said ann, out of her dull endurance, "they won't ever do that. when a thing o' that kind's gone, it's gone. don't do no good to make a towse about it. i sha'n't ever see it again."
"well, i guess i'd make a towse," said mrs. john c., robustly. "if you won't, i will for ye. mebbe you're nearer gittin' it back than you think. i told john i wa'n't goin' to wait a minute. i run over to tell ye." then ann listened, though as one still without hope. "sam merrill'd been down the gully road, fencin'," continued mrs. john c., now with an exuberant relish of her news, "an' when he was comin' home along by the old pelton house he sees a kind of a tramp goin' in there. he was youngish, [226]sam said, an' he had on a light coat, an' the pockets on 't bulged. what do you think o' that? minute he said it, i says to myself, 'that's ann's tea-set.'"
all at once there came a picture before ann's eyes: not the tramp with the bulging pockets, as he sought the hospitality of the ruined house, but the same tramp as he stood on her doorstone and asked for food. the whole event was clear to her. she called herself a fool for not having known at once.
"sam say anything more about him?" she asked eagerly. "what he had on?"
"no. come to think of it, yes, he did, too. said he had on an old straw hat with a red an' blue band round it. sam said he noticed that because 'twas so early for a straw. said it looked more like a child's hat. guessed he'd picked it up some'r's."
"yes," said ann, out of her daze, "so 't did." yet she was not thinking of the hat as it might identify a thief, but of the brows under it, with a look she used to know.
"why, ann barstow!" mrs. john c. was saying, "you don't mean to tell me you see him yourself?"
suddenly it seemed to ann as if it were not the young tramp they were recalling, but her brother himself.
[227]"no," she said defiantly. "i jest put in a word, that's all."
mrs. john c. swept on in the strain of her hopeful heralding.
"so, soon as sam told that—'twa'n't more 'n half an hour ago—i says to him, 'you go an' stir up some o' the boys, an' 'long towards ten o'clock you jest surround the old pelton house an' git him, tea-set an' all. stan's to reason,' says i, 'it's an old deserted house, an' he's goin' to git part of a night's rest there. 'fore mornin' he'll be up an' put for some banjin'-place he's got, an' then that silver'll be melted up an' you never'll see hide nor hair on 't again.' one spell i thought mebbe he was goin' to build up a fire in the old fireplace an' melt it right then an' there; but john says 'tain't likely. says you need more heat'n that to melt up silver." she paused for want of breath.
"be they goin' to do it?" asked ann faintly.
"who?"
"them young folks. be they goin' to surround him an' take him up?"
"well, i guess they be," said mrs. john c., rising and drawing her shawl about her. "they will if they've got any seem to 'em. so i told 'em when they was talkin' on 't over."
ann followed her to the door.
"if they should come acrost the tea-set," she [228]hesitated, "mebbe they'd git hold o' that an' let him go."
mrs. john c. gave her a reassuring touch with her capable right hand.
"don't you worry," she said, out of cheerful experience of her own enterprise. "i see to that. i says to john c., 'he ain't a-goin' to slip out an' git away. it's goin' to be done accordin' to law an' order,' i says. 'i sha'n't sleep a wink till that scoundrel's landed in jail.' so i says to john c., 'you harness up the colt an' ride over an' git the sheriff, an' when the boys pitch onto him, have him ready to clap the handcuffs on.' don't you worry, ann. you'll see your tea-set yit."
ann stood at the door, hearing her walking heavily away, and a gentle rage possessed her when she noted how broad her back looked, how capable of carrying burdens to their goal. she was deeply attached to mrs. john c., but she realized how impossible it was to block her purposes. hitherto they had all seemed beneficent ones; but now ann felt something of the indignant protest that always surged in her when she saw a sleek and prosperous cat baiting a mouse. she went in and sat down again, with a double anxiety upon her. it was not only her tea-set she lamented, but the hardness of life wherein any creature should be worried down [229]and caught. and she remembered, as she did not in loyalty allow herself to remember often, that her brother also had been wild.
suddenly something roused her. it was not so much a thought as a touch upon her heart, and she sat up straight, as full of fire and purpose as mrs. john c. herself, only it was purpose of another kind. mrs. john c. had the force of weight, and in ann there were tense fibres of youth, not yet done thrilling. she threw her little shawl over her head and hurried out of the house. for an instant she paused, with a new impulse of caution, to lock the door. then with a scorn of her present possessions, her one treasure gone, she latched it only, and took the wood-path to the swamp. ann walked with a trained delicacy and caution suited to the woods. the thrilling of the frogs grew louder, and shortly she was at the old lightning oak that served her for a landmark. before her lay the boggy place where she came in all warm seasons of the year for one thing or another: the wild marsh-marigold,—good for greens,—thoroughwort, and the root of the sweet-flag. p'ison flag grew here, too, the sturdy, delicate iris that made the swamp so gay.
ann stayed a moment for breath. haste had driven the blood to her face, and the cool spring air seemed to generate in her the heat of summer. [230]until now she had loved the sound of the frogs, piping in the spring, but in the irritation of her trouble she spoke aloud to them: "can't anybody be allowed to hear themselves think?" the haste of her errand tapped her again upon the arm, and she picked up the board which was one of the tools of her trade, left always at the foot of the lightning oak, and with it skirted the swamp to the east where the tussocks were large. then, throwing her board before her from one foothold to another, she crossed the swamp. twice she had fallen, and her dress was wet. she was muddy to the knees, but she wrung out her heavy skirts and ran along the path she knew to the door of the deserted house.
ann thought she had never seen a place so still. it had the desolation of a spot where life has been and where it is no more. she listened a moment, her eyes searching the dark bulk of the house, her hand upon her racing heart. she smelled smoke. then she called:—
"you there? i know ye be. open the door."
there was no sound. she tried the door, and, finding it bolted, shook the handle with all the force of her strong arms.
"you let me in," she called again. "i've got suthin' to say to ye. it's suthin' you'll be glad to hear."
but after she had waited a moment in the [231]taunting stillness, she withdrew a little, that her voice should reach him, wherever he might be.
"i know all about it. you've took my silver tea-set an' you've got it in there now. other folks knows it, too, an' about moonrise they're comin' here an' surround the house an' make you give it up." she paused for an eager breath. the futility of the moment choked her. "you hear to me," she called again, in her strained, beseeching voice. "'twon't do ye no good to hide, for they know you're there. an' 'twon't do ye no good to fight, for there's a whole b'ilin' of 'em, an' like 's not they've got guns. now when i'm gone—i'm goin' right off home now—you slip out the back o' the house an' go as straight as you can cut, right acrost the pastur'. that'll bring ye to a lane. you turn to your right an' foller it, an' it'll take ye onto the high-road. then you take that an' keep to your left. t'others'll come from the right. an' if you find a good hidin'-place, you better clap the tea-set into it, under some brush or suthin', an' come back arter it some other time. ye see, they've started up the sheriff an' i dunno what all. mis' john c.'s puttin' on 't through, an' mebbe they've telegraphed over the country by this time. 'tain't any small matter, takin' a silver tea-set so. i'm terrible worried about ye. there! now i'm [232]goin'. you wait a minute, if ye don't want me to see ye. then you can put."
but when she had taken a dozen steps on her homeward way, she returned as hastily. her voice broke again upon the stillness, with a thrill in it of renewed beseeching. "look here, you! one thing you do, fust thing arter you git away from here. you see 'f you can't find some work an' you do it." the present experience seemed to have fallen away from her. she might have been addressing the boy who also had been wild in those years so long ago. "you keep on this way an' you'll end in jail an' i dunno but suthin' that's wuss. mebbe nobody won't ketch ye this time,—you better melt the tea-set up soon as ever you can,—but some time they will. now you mind what i tell ye."
this time she did turn away, and with her light and knowing step plunged into the woods. once there, as she remembered afterwards, her knees seemed to fail her, but she went weakly on, until, at a good distance from the house, she sat down on a bank under the sighing pines and leaned against a tree to let the cool air touch her face. "my suz!" she breathed. her mind was all a mingling of past and present, but chiefly it seemed to be invaded by a young face, sullen sometimes like the tramp's, and then again gay with laughter.
[233]when she came to her every-day frame of mind, the woods were still, and to her vivid sensibilities more deserted. she made no doubt the thief was gone in the way she had marked out for him. ann had a childlike sense that he would believe her, because she meant so well. she took her own path soberly home again, not across the marsh this time, but half the way by the high-road. at one point she caught the sound of voices, subdued to the mysterious note of the hour itself. she stepped over a stone wall and lay down in the damp bracken there, and in a moment, as she expected, the cautious steps went by her on their quest, a party of eight or ten, as she judged, raising her head cautiously from her retreat to look and listen. then she lay down again, chuckling softly as she did when the mouse escaped, even though it was to gnaw her cheese. and presently she took the road, and so went home.
ann could not go to bed that night. it was not that she expected news, but she had a feeling that powers were abroad to shape and guide things, and that, though humbly, she must be among them. perhaps it was the excitement of the time and stirring memories, but, for whatever reason, it seemed to her that her "folks" were all about her, strengthening her to the kindnesses and the loyalties of life. she was not in the habit [234]of praying; but as she lay upon the lounge in the kitchen, between waking and sleep, she kept saying to some hidden power: "you look out for him. young folks don't know half the time what's best for 'em." and toward morning, in her confused state between life and sleep, she hardly knew whether it was her brother she prayed for or the unknown man. once she heard a quick, sharp noise as if a window opened. she started up. "yes, yes!" she called, out of her dream. "you want me? i'm right here." but no one answered, and she settled again to sleep.
it was seven o'clock when she opened her eyes to find the kitchen flooded with light. it was a brilliant day, but she was stiff and cold. after she had started her fire, she went into the bedroom to comb her hair, and glanced into the little blurred mirror she sometimes found her only company. the window was wide, the fresh may air blowing in, and there under the window on the floor was her silver tea-set. ann sat down before it and gathered it into her arms as if it were a child. the tears ran down her cheeks. "to think," she kept saying, "to think he fetched it back. only to think on 't!" and while she sat there, very happy with the tea-set in her lap, she heard a step she knew. she came swiftly to her feet. then she put the silver on her bureau in a shining row, and questioned her [235]face in the glass. the tears were on it still, but that hardly mattered on a face that smiled so hard. but she did wipe away the drops with her apron, and then hurried into the kitchen to meet her visitor. mrs. john c. was bedraggled from loss of sleep, and defeat sat upon her shining brow.
"well, ann," she said gloomily, "i ain't got any news for ye. he wa'n't there, arter all, though there'd been a fire an' they found he cooked himself some eggs. but they're goin' to beat up the woods arter breakfast, an' if he's above ground he's goin' to be took."
ann could scarcely sober her smiling mouth.
"you tell 'em it's all right," she announced jubilantly. "where do you s'pose i found it? in my bedroom, arter all."
mrs. john c. regarded her with blighting incredulity. ann had been guiltily careless, and yet she expressed no grief over the trouble she had made. it was beyond belief.
"ann barstow," said she, "you don't mean to tell me you had this whole township up traipsin' the woods all night, an' me without a wink o' sleep, an' that tea-set in your bedroom, arter all?"
ann did flush guiltily. her eyes fell.
"you beseech 'em not to think hard of me," she urged. "i never do put it in my bedroom,—you [236]know yourself them two places i keep it in,—but there 'twas."
mrs. john c. turned majestically to be gone. she spoke with an emphasis that seemed, even to her, inadequate.
"well, ann barstow, i should think you was losin' your mind."
"mebbe i be," said ann, joyously, following her to the door. "mebbe i be. but there's my tea-set. i'm terrible pleased."
