Mrs. Tree

Excerpt

"Well, they're gone!" said Direxia Hawkes.

"H'm!" said Mrs. Tree.

Direxia had been to market, and, it was to be supposed, had brought home, beside the chops and the soup-piece, all the information the village afforded. She had now, after putting away her austere little bonnet and cape, brought a china basin, and a mystic assortment of white cloths, and was polishing the window-panes, which did not need polishing. From time to time she glanced at her mistress, who sat bolt upright in her chair, engaged on a severe-looking piece of knitting. Mrs. Tree detested knitting, and it was always a bad sign when she put away her book and took up the needles.

"Yes'm; they're gone. I see 'em go. Ithuriel Butters drove 'em over to the Junction; come in yesterday o' purpose, and put up his team at Doctor Stedman's. Ithuriel thinks a sight of Doctor Strong. Yes'm; folks was real concerned to see him go, and her too. They made a handsome couple, if they be both light-complected."

"What are you doing to that window, Direxia Hawkes?" demanded Mrs. Tree, looking up from her knitting with a glittering eye.

"I was cleanin' it."

"I'm glad to hear it. I never should have supposed so from looking at it. Perhaps you'd better let it alone."

"You're a terrible tedious woman to live with, Mis' Tree!" said Direxia.

"You're welcome to go any minute," replied Mrs. Tree.

"Yes'm," said Direxia. "What kind of sauce would you like for tea?"

"Any kind except yours," said Mrs. Tree; and then both smiled grimly, and felt better.

Direxia polished away, still with an anxious eye on the old woman whom she loved fiercely.

"He sent a message to you, last thing before he drove off. He wanted I should tell you—what's this now he said? 'Tell her to keep on growing young till I come back,' that was it. Well, he's a perfect gentleman, that's what he is."

Something clicked in Mrs. Tree's throat, but she said nothing. Mrs. Tree was over ninety, but apart from an amazing reticulation of wrinkles, netted fine and close as a brown veil, she showed little sign of her great age. As she herself said, she had her teeth and her wits, and she did not see what more any one wanted. In her morning gown of white dimity, with folds of soft net about her throat, and a turban of the same material on her head, she was a pleasant and picturesque figure. For the afternoon she affected satin, either plum-colored, or of the cinnamon shade in which some of my readers may have seen her elsewhere, with slippers to match, and a cap suggesting the Corinthian order. In this array, majesty replaced picturesqueness, and there were those in Elmerton who quailed at the very thought of this tiny old woman, upright in her ebony chair, with the acanthus-leaf in finest Brussels nodding over her brows. The last touch of severity was added when Mrs. Tree was found knitting, as on the present occasion.

"Ithuriel Butters is a sing'lar man!" Direxia went on, investigating with exquisite nicety the corner of a pane. "He gave me a turn just now, he did so."

She waited a moment, but no sign coming, continued....