Neighborhood Stories

“It don’t seem right even to have you call me ‘dear,’ ” says Hettie, sad.

Amos burst right out. “It is right – it is right!” says he. “They can’t nobody make me feel ‘dear’ is wicked, not when it means as dear as you are to me. Hettie,” Amos says, “sit down here a minute.”

“Not us. Not together,” says Hettie, nervous.

“Yes!” says Amos, commanding, “I don’t know when I’ll see you again. Set down here, by me.”

And by the little stillness, I judged she done so. And I says this: “Them poor things ain’t had ten minutes with each other in over a year, and if they know I’m here, that’ll spoil this time. I’d better stay where I am, still, with my thoughts on my sandwiches.” And that was what I done. But I couldn’t – I couldn’t– and neither could most anyone – of helped a word or two leaking through the pantry door and the sandwich thoughts.

“I just wanted to pretend – for a minute,” Amos said, “that this was our house. An’ our kitchen. An’ that we was settin’ here side of the stove an’ belonged.”

“Oh, Amos,” said Hettie, “it don’t seem right to pretend that way with Aunt Hettie’s stove – an’ her feelin’ the way she does.”

“Yes, it is right,” says Amos, stout. “Hettie! Don’t you see? She don’t feel that way. She’s just nervous with grievin’, an’ it comes out like that. She don’t care – really. At least not anything like the way she thinks she does. Now don’t let’s think about her, Hettie – dearest! Think about now. An’ let’s just pretend for a minute it was then. You know —then!”

“Well,” says Hettie, unwilling, – and yet, oh, so willing, – “if it was then, what would you be sayin’?”

“I’d be sayin’ what I say now,” says Amos, “an’ what I’ll say to the end o’ time: that I love you so much that the world ain’t the world without you. But I want to hear you say somethin’. What would you be sayin’, Hettie, if it was then?”

I knew how she dimpled up as she answered – Hettie’s dimples was like the wind had dented a rose leaf.

“I’d prob’ly be sayin’,” says Hettie, “Amos, you ain’t filled the water pail. An’ I’ll have to have another armful o’ kindlin’.”

“Well,” says Amos, “but then when I’d brought ’em. What would you say then?”

“I’d say, ‘What do you want for dinner?’ ” said Hettie, demure. But even this was too much for Amos.

“An’ then we’d cook it,” he says, almost reverent. “Oh, Hettie – don’t it seem like heaven to think of us seein’ to all them little things – together?”

I loved Hettie for her answer. Coquetting is all right some of the time; but – some of the time – so is real true talk.

“Yes,” she says soft, “it does. But it seems like earth too —an’ I’m glad of it.”

“Oh, Hettie,” says Amos, “marry me. Don’t let’s go on like this.”

“Dear,” says Hettie, all solemn, – and forgetting that “dear” was such a wicked word, – “dear, I’d marry you this afternoon if it wasn’t for Aunt Hettie’s feelin’s. But I can’t hurt her – I can’t,” she says.

Well, just then the door bell rung, and Hettie she flew to answer it, and Amos he lit back to the woodshed and went to chopping more ice like life lay all that way. And I was just coming out of the butt’ry with a pan of thin sandwiches ready for the black ribbins, when I heard a kind of groan and a scuffle, and down-stairs come Mis’ Fire Chief Merriman, and all but fell into the kitchen. She had something in her hand.

“Calliope – Calliope Marsh,” says she, all wailing like a bereavement, “Cousin Maria has fell an broke her wrist, an’ she ain’t comin’ at all!”

I stood still, real staggered. I see what it meant to Mis’ Merriman – invites all out, Cousin Maria for surprise and hostess in one, Mis’ Merriman not figgering on appearing at all, account of the Chief, and the company right that minute on the way.

“What’ll I do – what’ll I do?” cries Mis’ Merriman, sinking down on the bottom step in her best black with the crêpe cuffs. “Oh,” she says, “it’s a judgment upon me. I’ll hev to turn my guests from my door. I’ll be the laughing-stock,” says she, wild.

And just then, like the trump of judgment to her, we heard the front door shut, and the first folks to come went marching up the stairs. And at the same minute Amos come in from the shed with the dasher out of the second freezer, and Hettie’s eyes run to him like he was their goal and their home. And then I says:

“Mis’ Fire Chief. Leave your company come in. Serve ’em the food of your house, just like you’ve got it ready. Stay back in the kitchen and don’t go in the parlor and do it all just like you’d planned. And in place of Maria Carpenter and the surprise you’d meant,” says I, “give ’em another surprise. Leave Hettie and Amos be married in your parlor, like they want to be and like all Friendship Village wants to see ’em. Couldn’t nothing be sweeter.”

Mis’ Merriman stared up to me, and set and rocked.

“A weddin’,” she says, “a weddin’ in the parlor where the very last gatherin’ was the funeral of the Chief? It’s sacrilege – sacrilege!” she says, wild.

“Mis’ Merriman,” I says, simple, “what do you reckon this earth is about? What,” says I, “is the purpose the Lord God Most High created it for out of nothing? As near as I can make out,” I told her, “and I’ve give the matter some study, He’s got a purpose hid way deep in His heart, and way deep in the hearts of us all has got to be the same purpose, or we might just as well, and a good sight better, be dead. And a part of that purpose is to keep His world a-going, and that can’t be done, as I see it, by looking back over our shoulders to the dead that’s gone, however dear, and forgetting the living that’s all around us, yearning and thirsting and passioning for their happiness. And a part of His purpose is to put happiness into this world, so’s people can brighten up and hearten out and do the work of the world like He meant ’em to. And you, Mis’ Merriman,” says I, plain, “are a-holding back from both them purposes of God’s, and a-doing your best to set ’em to naught.”

Mis’ Merriman, she looked up kind of dazed from where she was a-sitting. “I ain’t never supposed I was livin’ counter to the Almighty,” she says, some stiff.

“Well,” says I, “none of us supposes that as much as we’d ought to. And my notion, and the notion of most of Friendship Village, it’s just what you’re doing, Mis’ Fire Chief,” says I, – “in some respec’s.”

“Oh, even if I wasn’t, I don’t want to be the laughin’-stock to-day,” says she, weak, and beginning to cry.

“Hettie and Amos,” says I, then, for form’s sake, “if Mis’ Merriman agrees to this, do you agree?”

“Yes! Oh, yes!” says Amos, like the organ and the benediction and the Amen, all rolled into one.

“Yes,” says Hettie, shy as a rose, but yet like a rose nodding on its stalk, positive.

“And you, Mis’ Fire Chief?” says I.

She nodded behind her hands that covered up her face. “I don’t know what to do,” says she, faint. “Go on ahead – all of you!”

My, if we didn’t have to fly around. They wasn’t no time for dress changing. Hettie was in white muslin and Amos in every-day, but it was all right because she was Hettie and because he looked like a king in anything. And they was so many last things to do that none of us thought of dress anyhow. It was four o’clock by then, and folks had been stomping in “past the bell” and marching up-stairs and laying off their things – being as everybody knows what’s what in Friendship Village and don’t hev to be told where to go, same as some – till, judging by the sound, they had all got there and was clacking in the parlor, and Mis’ Fire Chief’s party had begun. And Mis’ Fire Chief herself revived enough to offer to tie the ribbins around the sandwiches.

“My land!” I says, “we can’t do that. We can’t have black ribbin round the wedding sandwiches.”

But Hettie, she broke in, sweet and dignified, and before her aunt could say a word. “Yes, we can,” she says, “yes, we can. I ain’t superstitious, same as some. Uncle’s centerpiece an’ his willow on the tablecloth an’ his blackribbin sandwiches,” says she, “is goin’ to stay just the way they are, weddin’ or no weddin’,” says she. “Ain’t they, Amos?” she ask’ him.

“You bet you,” says Amos, fervent, just like he would have agreed to anything under heaven that Hettie said. And Mis’ Merriman, she looked at ’em then, grateful and even resigned. And time Amos had gone and got back with the license and the minister we were all ready.

They sent me in to sort of pave the way. I slips in through the hall and stood in the door a minute wondering how I’d tell ’em. There they all was, setting sewing and rocking and gossiping, contented as if they had a hostess in every room. And not one of ’em suspecting. Oh, I loved ’em one and all, and I loved the way they was all used to each other, and talking natural about crochet patterns and recipes for oatmeal cookies and what’s good to keep hands from chapping – not one of ’em putting on or setting their best foot forwards or trying to act their best, same as they might with company, but just being themselves, natural and forgetting. And I was glad, deep down in my heart, that Maria Carpenter hadn’t come near. Not glad that she had broke her wrist, of course – but that she hadn’t come near. And when I stepped out to tell ’em what was going to happen, I was so glad in my throat that I couldn’t say a word only just —

“Friends – listen to me. What do you s’pose is goin’ to happen? Oh, they can’t none of you guess. So look. Look!”

Then I threw open the dining-room door and let ’em in – Hettie and Amos, with Doctor June. And patterns and recipes and lotions all just simmered down into one surprised and glad and loving buzz of wonder. And then Hettie and Amos were married, and the world begun all over again, Garden of Eden style.

There is one little thing more to tell. When the congratulations was most over, the dining-room door creaked a little bit, and Amos, that was standing by it, whirled around and see Mis’ Fire Chief Merriman peeking through the crack to her guests. And Amos swung open the door wide, and he grabbed her by the arm, and though she hung back with all her strength Amos pulled her right straight into the room and kissed her, there before them all.

“Aunt Hettie,” he says to her, ringing, “Uncle– Hettie’s uncle an’ mine an’ your husband, – wouldn’t want you stayin’ out there in the dinin’-room to-day on account o’ him!”

And when we all crowded around her, greeting her like guests should greet a hostess and like dear friends should greet dear friends, Mis’ Fire Chief she wipes her eyes, and she left ’em shake her hands; and though she wasn’t all converted, it was her and not me that ask’ ’em please to walk out into the dining-room and eat the lunch that was part wedding and part in memory of the Chief.

THE BIGGEST BUSINESS

I donno whether you’ve ever lived in a town that’s having a boom? That’s being a boom town, as they call it? There ain’t any more boom to Friendship Village than there is to a robin building a nest. There ain’t any more boom to Friendship Village than there is to growth. We just go along and go along, and behave ourselves like the year does: Little spurt of Spring now and then, when two-three folks build new houses and we get a new side-walk or two or buy a new sprinkling cart. Little dead time, here and there, when the tobacco or pickle factory closes down to wait for more to grow, and when somebody gets most built and boards up the windows till something else comes in to go on with. But most of the time Friendship Village keeps on pretty even, like the year, or the potato patch, or any of them common, growing things.

But now over to Red Barns it ain’t so. Red Barns is eight miles away, and from the beginning the two towns sort of set with their backs to each other, and each give out promiscuous that the other didn’t have a future. But, same time, the two towns looked out of the corners of their eyes enough to set quite a few things going for each other unconscious: Red Barns got a new depot, and Friendship Village instantly petitioned for one. Friendship Village set aside a little park, and Red Barns immediately appropriated for one, with a little edge more ground. Red Barns got a new post office, and Friendship Village started out for a new library. And so on. Just like a couple of boys seeing which could swim out farthest.

Then all of a sudden the Interurban come through Red Barns and left Friendship Village setting quiet out in the meadows eight miles from the track. And of course after that Red Barns shot ahead – Eppleby Holcomb said that on a still night you could hear Red Barns chuckle. Pretty soon a little knitting factory started up there, and then a big tobacco factory. And being as they had three motion-picture houses to our one, and band concerts all Summer instead of just through July, the folks in Silas Sykes’s Friendship Village Corn Canning Industry and in Timothy Toplady’s Enterprise Pickle Manufactory began to want to go over to Red Barns to work. Two left from Eppleby Holcomb’s Dry Goods Emporium. Even the kitchens of the few sparse ones that kept hired help begun to suffer. And the men begun to see that what was what had got to be helped to be something else – same as often happens in commercial circles.