Friendship Village

"An' I'm blest if he didn't agree to that.

"'I know I'm ridiculous,' s'he, noddin', sad. 'I know I'm that, Miss Cally.'

"'Well, I didn't mean it that way,' s'I, reticent – an' said no more, with the exception of what I'd rilly meant.

"'Why under the canopy,' I ask' him, for a hint, 'don't you take the Sum Merriman store, an' run it, an' live on your feet? I ain't any patience with a man,' s'I, 'that lives on his toes. Stomp some, why don't you, an' buy that store?'

"An' his answer su'prised me.

"'I did ask Mis' Fire Chief fer the refusal of it,' he said. 'I ask' her when I took my flowers to Sum, to-day – they was wild flowers I'd picked myself,' he threw in, so's I wouldn't think spendthrift of him. 'An' I'm to let her know this week, for sure.'

"'Glory, glory, glory,' s'I, under my breath – like I'd seen a rill live soul, standin' far off on a hill somewheres, drawin' cuts to see whether it should come an' belong to Eb, or whether it shouldn't.

XI

LONESOME. – II

"All that evenin' Eb an' Elspie an' I set by the cook stove, talkin', an' they seemed to be plenty to talk about, an' the air in the room was easy to get through with what you hed to say – it was that kind of an evenin'. Eb was pretty quiet, though, excep' when he piped up to agree. 'Gettin' little too hot here, ain't it?' I know I said once; an' Eb see right off he was roasted an' he spried 'round the draughts like mad. An' a little bit afterwards I says, with malice the fourth thought: 'I can feel my shoulders some chilly,' I says – an' he acted fair chatterin'-toothed himself, an' went off headfirst for the woodpile. I noticed that, an' laughed to myself, kind o' pityin'. But Elspie, she never noticed. An' when it come time to lock up, I 'tended to my wrist an' let them two do the lockin'. They seemed to like to – I could tell that. An' Elspie, she let Eb out the front door herself, like they was rill folks.

"Nex' day I was gettin' ready for Sum Merriman's funeral, – it was to be at one o'clock, – when Elspie come in my room, sort o' shyin' up to me gentle.

"'Miss Cally,' 's'she, 'do you think the mourners'd take it wrong if I's to go to the funeral?'

"'Why, no, Elspie,' I says, su'prised; 'only what do you want to go for?' I ask' her.

"'Oh, I donno,' s'she. 'I'd like to go an' I'd like to ride to the graveyard. I've watched the funerals through the poorhouse fence. An' I'd kind o' like to be one o' the followers, for once – all lookin' friendly an' together so, in a line.'

"'Go with me then, child,' I says. An' she done so.

"Bein' summer, the funeral flowers was perfectly beautiful. They was a rill hothouse box from the Proudfits; an' a anchor an' two crosses an' a red geranium lantern; an' a fruit piece made o' straw flowers from the other merchants; an' seven pillows, good-sized, an' with all different wordin', an' so on. The mound at the side o' the grave was piled knee-high, an' Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, I heard, said it seemed like Sum was less dead than almost anybody 't'd died in Friendship, bein' the grave kind o' spoke up, friendly, when you see the flowers. She went home rill cheerful from the funeral an' was able to help get the supper for the out-o'-town relations, a thing no widow ever thinks of, anyway till the next day – though Sum was her second husband, so it was a little different than most.

"Well, a few of us waited 'round the cemetery afterwards to fix the flowers on the top o' the sod, an' Elspie, she waited with me – fussin' quiet with one thing an' another. Eb, he waited too, standin' 'round. An' when it come time for us women to lay the set pieces on, I see Elspie an' Eb walkin' off toward the top o' the cemetery hill. It's a pretty view from there, lookin' down the slope toward the Old Part, where nobody remembered much who was buried, an' it's a rill popular walk. I liked seein' 'em go 'long together – some way, lookin' at 'em, Elspie so pretty an' Eb so kind o' gentle, you could 'a' thought they was rill folks, her sane an' him with a spine. I slipped off an' left 'em, the cemetery bein' so near my house, an' Eb walked home with her. 'Poor things,' I thought, 'if he does go back to peddlin' an' she has to go to the Alice County poorhouse, I'll give 'em this funeral afternoon for a bright spot, anyhow.'

"But I'd just about decided that Elspie wa'n't to go to Alice County. I hadn't looked the i-dee in the face an' thought about it, very financial. But I ain't sure you get your best lights when you do that. I'd just sort o' decided on it out o' pure shame for the shabby trick o' not doin' so. I hadn't said anything about it to Timothy or Silas or any o' the rest, because I didn't hev the strength to go through the arguin' agony. When the Dick Dasher had pulled out without her, final, I judged they'd be easier to manage. An' that evenin' I told Elspie – just to sort o' clamp myself to myself; an' I fair never see anybody so happy as she was. It made me ashamed o' myself for not doin' different everything I done.

"I was up early that Friday mornin', because I judged't when Elspie wasn't to the train some o' them in charge'd come tearin' to my house to find out why. I hadn't called Elspie, an' I s'posed she was asleep in the other bedroom. I was washin' up my breakfast dishes quiet, so's not to disturb her, when I heard somebody come on to the front stoop like they'd been sent for.

"'There,' thinks I, 'just as I expected. It's one o' the managers.'

"But it wa'n't a manager. When I'd got to the front door, lo an' the hold! there standin' on the steps, wild an' white, was the widow o' the day before's funeral – Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, lookin' like the grave hed spoke up. She'd got up early to go alone to the cemetery, an', my house bein' the nearest, she'd come rushin' back to me with her news.

"'Cally!' s'she, from almost before she laid eyes on me, 'Cally! Somebody's stole every last one o' the flowers off'n Sum's grave. An' the ribbins.'

"She was fair beside herself, bein' as the loss hed piled up on a long sickness o' Sum's, an' a big doctor's bill consequent, an' she nervous anyhow, an' a good deal o' the ribbin tyin' the stems was silk, both sides.

"'I'll hev out the marshal,' s'she, wild. 'I'll send for Timothy. They can't hev got far with 'em. I'll know,' s'she, defiant, 'whether they's anything to the law or whether they ain't.'

"I hed her take some strong coffee from breakfast, an' I got her, after some more fumin's an' fustin's, to walk back to the cemetery with me, till we give a look around. I do as many quick-moved things as some, but I allus try, first, to give a look around.

"'An' another thing,' s'I to her, as we set out, 'are you sure, Mis' Fire Chief, that you got to the right grave? The first visit, so,' I says, 'an' not bein' accustomed to bein' a widow, lately, an' all, you might 'a' got mixed in the lots.'

"While she was disclaimin' this I looked up an' see, hangin' round the road, was Eb. He seemed some sheepish when he see me, an' he said, hasty, that he'd just got there, an' it come over me like a flash't he'd come to see Elspie off. An' I marched a-past him without hardly a word.

"We wasn't mor'n out o' the house when we heard a shout, an' there come Silas an' Timothy, tearin' along full tilt in the store delivery wagon, wavin' their arms.

"'It's Elspie – Elspie!' they yelled, when they was in hearin'. 'She ain't to the depot. She'll be left. Where is she?'

"I hadn't counted on their comin' before the train left, but I thought I see my way clear. An' when they come up to us, I spoke to 'em, quiet.

"'She's in the house, asleep,' s'I, 'an' what's more, in that house she's goin' to stay as long as she wants. But,' s'I, without waitin' for 'em to bu'st out, 'there's more important business than that afoot for the marshal;' an' then I told 'em about Sum Merriman's flowers. 'An',' s'I, 'you'd better come an' see about that now – an' let Eppleby an' the others take down the inmates, an' you go after 'em on the 8.05. It ain't often,' s'I, crafty, 'that we get a thief in Friendship.'

"I hed Timothy Toplady there, an' he knew it. He's rill sensitive about the small number o' arrests he's made in the village in his term. He excited up about it in a minute.

"'Blisterin' Benson!' he says, 'ain't this what they call vandalism? Look at it right here in our midst like a city!' says he, fierce – an' showin' through some gleeful.

"'Why, sir,' says Silas Sykes, 'mebbe it's them human goals. Mebbe they've dug Sum up,' he says, 'an mebbe – ' But I hushed him up. Silas Sykes always grabs on to his thoughts an' throws 'em out, dressed or undressed. He ain't a bit o' reserve. Not a thought of his head that he don't part with. If he had hands on his forehead, you could tell what time he is – I think you could, anyway.

"Well, it was rill easy to manage 'em, they bein' men an' susceptible to fascinations o' lawin' it over somethin'. An' we all got into the delivery wagon, an' Eb, he come too, sittin' in back, listenin' an' noddin', his feet hangin' over the box informal.

"I allus remember how the cemetery looked that mornin'. It was the tag end o' June – an' in June cemeteries seems like somewheres else. The Sodality hed been tryin' to get a new iron fence, but they hadn't made out then, an' they ain't made out now – an' the old whitewashed fence an' the field stone wall was fair pink with wild roses, an' the mulberry tree was alive with birds, an' the grass layin' down with dew, an' the white gravestones set around, placid an' quiet, like other kind o' folks that we don't know about. Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, she went right through the wet grass, cross lots an' round graves, holdin' up her mournin' an' showin' blue beneath – kind o' secular, like her thinkin' about the all-silk ribbin at such a time. Sure enough, she knew her way to the lot all right. An' there was the new grave, all sodered green, an' not a sprig nor a stitch to honour it.

"'Now!' says Mis' Merriman, rill triumphant.

"'Land, land!' s'I, seein' how it rilly was.

"Timothy an' Silas, they both pitched in an' talked at once an' bent down, technical, lookin' for tracks. But Eb, he just begun seemin' peculiar – an' then he slipped off somewheres, though we never missed him, till, in a minute, he come runnin' back.

"'Come here!' he says. 'Come on over here a little ways,' he told us, an' not knowin' anything better to do we turned an' went after him, wonderin' what on the earth was the matter with him an' ready to believe 'most anything.

"Eb led us past the vault where Obe Toplady, Timothy's father, lays in a stone box you can see through the grating tiptoe; an' round by the sample cement coffin that sets where the drives meet for advertisin' purposes, an' you go by wonderin' whose it'll be, an' so on over toward the Old Part o' the cemetery, down the slope of the hill where everybody's forgot who's who or where they rest, an' no names, so. But it's always blue with violets in May – like Somebody remembered, anyhow.

"When we got to the top o' the hill, we all looked down the slope, shinin' with dew an' sunniness, an' little flowers runnin' in the grass, thick as thick, till at the foot o' the hill they fair made a garden, – a garden about the size of a grave, knee-deep with flowers. From where we stood we could see 'em – hothouse roses an' straw flowers, an' set pieces, an' a lot o' pillows, an' ribbins layin' out on the grass. An' there, side of 'em, broodin' over 'em lovin', set Elspie, that I'd thought was in my house asleep.

"Mis' Fire Chief, she wasn't one to hesitate. She was over the hill in a minute, the blue edge o' petticoat bannerin' behind.

"'Up-un my word,' s'she, like a cut, 'if this ain't a pretty note. What under the sun are you doin' sittin' there, Elspie, with my flowers?'

"Elspie looked up an' see her, an' see us streamin' toward her over the hill.

"'They ain't your flowers, are they?' s'she, quiet. 'They're the dead's. I was a-goin' to take 'em back in a minute or two, anyway, an' I'll take 'em back now.'

"She got up, simple an' natural, an' picked up the fruit piece an' one o' the pillows, an' started up the hill.

"'Well, I nev-er,' says Mis' Merriman; 'the very bare brazenness. Ain't you goin' to tell me what you're doin' here with the flowers you say is the dead's, an' I'm sure what was Sum's is mine an' the dead's the same – '

"She begun to cry a little, an' with that Elspie looks up at her, troubled.

"'I didn't mean to make you cry,' she says. 'I didn't mean you should know anything about it. I come early to do it – I thought you wouldn't know.'