14. Carpet-Rags And Ribbons
" It seems to me "
It was Mrs. Henrietta Hanks speaking to her faithful Jemima on the day after the events recorded in the previous chapter of this story. Jemima and her mistress were cutting up all manner of old garments and sewing them into carpet-rags, while' Bonaparte Hanks, whose name is better known to our readers in its foreshortened form as Bobo, was rolling the yellow balls of carpet-rags across the floor after the black ones, and clapping his hands in a silly delight.
" It seems to me," said Mrs. Hanks, " that Mark and Roxy will make a match of it."
" Umph," said Jemima. She did not say " umph," nobody says that ; but she gave forth one of those guttural utterances which are not put down in the dictionary. The art of alphabetic writing finds itself quite unequal to the task of grappling with such words, and so we write others which nobody ever uses, such as umph and eh and ugh, as algebraic signs to represent the unknown quantity of an expressive and perhaps unique objurgation. Wherefore, let " umph," which Jemima did not say, equal the intractable, nndefinable, not-to-be-spelled word which she did use. And that nndefinable word was in its turn an algebraic symbol for a whole sentence, a formula for general, contemptuous, and indescribable dissent.
" He goes there a good deal," replied Mrs. Hanks, a little subdued by Jemima's mysterious grunt.
" I thought he'd made a burnt sackerfice of hisself and laid all on the altar, and was agoin'off to missionate among the Texicans," said Jemima, prudently reserving her heavier shot to the last, and bent on teasing her opponent.
"Well, I don't imagine that'll come to anything," said Mrs. Hanks. " Young Christians in their first love, you know, always want to be better than they ought, and I don't think Mark ought to throw away his great opportunities. Think how much good he might do in Congress; and then, you know, a Christian congressman is such an ornament to to the church."
"An' to all his wife's relations besides," chuckled the wicked Jemima. " But for my part, I don't 'low he's more'n a twenty-'leventh part as good as Roxy. She's jam up all the time, and he's good by spells and in streaks one of the fifty and jerky kind."
" Jemima, you oughtn't to talk that way." Mrs. Hanks always pitted her anger and her slender authority against Jemima's rude wit. " You don't know but Mark 'll come to be my nephew, and you ought to have more respect for my feelings."
" They haint no immegiate danger of that" answered Jemima, with emphasis. " He may come to be your nephew to be sure, and the worl' may stop off short all to wunst and come to a eend by Christmas. But neither on 'em's likely enough to make it wuth while layin' awake to think about it."
" How do you know ? "
" Well. I went over arter Bobo yesterday evenin', an what d'ye think I see ? "
" Evening," in the Ohio valley and in the South, is used in its primary sense of the later afternoon, not aa in the eastern states, to signify the time just after dark.
Mrs. Hanks did not inquire, so Jemima was obliged to proceed on her own account.
" I see Mr. Whittaker a-comin' out of the house, with his face all in flash, like as ef he'd been a-talkin' siimpin perlikular, an' he spoke to me kinder shaky and trimblin like. An' when I come in, I see Roxy's face sort a red and white in spots, and her eyes lookin' down and to one sides, and anywheres but straight, kinder wander'n' rouu' onsartain, like's ef she wus afeared you'd look into 'em and see sumpin you hadn't orter."
"Well, I do declare ! " Whenever Mrs. Hanks found herself entirely at a loss for words and ideas she proceeded after this formula to declaim. She always declared that she did declare, but never declared what she declared.
" Well, I do declare ! " she proceeded after a pause. " Jemimy Dumbleton, if that don't beat the Dutch ! for you to go prying into people's houses, and peeping into their eyes and guessing their secrets, and then to run around tattling them all over town to everybody, and "
But the rest of this homily will never be known, for at this critical moment the lad with the ambitious name, who was engaged in developing his military geniusly firing carpet-rag cannon-balls in various directions and watching their rebound, made a shot which closed the squabble between Mrs. Hanks and her help. He bowled a bright red ball relic of an old flannel shirt through the middle of a screen which covered the fire-place in the summer. When he heard the crashing of the ball through the paper he set up a shout of triumph, clapping his hands together, but when he saw that his missile did not come back from its hiding-place, he stood looking in stupefied curiosity at the screen, the paper of which had almost closed over the rent. He was quite nimble to account for the sudden md total eclipse of his red ball.
Mrs. Hanks saw with terror the screen, which had cost the unskilled hands of herself and Jemima two or three hours of cutting and planning and pasting, destroyed at a blow. Mischief done by responsible hands has this cum pensation, that one has the great relief of scolding, but one would as well scold the wind as to rebuke so irresponsible an agent as Bobo. Mrs. Hanks seized him by the collar and shook him, then ran to the screen and put her hands behind it, holding the pieces in place as one is prone to do in such a case. It is the vague, instinctive expression of the wish that by some magic the injury might be recalled. Then she looked at her late antagonist, Jemima, for sympathy, and then she looked at the rent and uttered that unspellable interjection made by resting the tongue against the roof of the mouth and suddenly withdrawing it explosively. One writes it " tuttut-tut," but that is not it at all.
Bobo fretted a little, as he generally did after being shaken up in this way, but having recovered his red ball, he was on the point of dashing it through the screen again, when his mother prudently took it away from him, put on his cap, led him to the door and said :
" Go to Roxy."
" Go to Roxy ! " cried the little fellow, starting down the path, repeating the words over and over to himself as he went, as though he found it needful to revive instantly his feeble memory of his destination.
Having thus comfortably shed her maternal responsibilities, Mrs. Hanks proceeded to shed the carpet-rags also, by arraying herself to go out. This was a very simple matter, even for the wife of one of the principal men in the town, for in those good old days of simplicity nothing more elaborate than a calico dress and sun-bonnet waa needed to outfit a lady for shopping. Mrs. Hanks's sunbonnet was soon adjusted, and she gave Jemima a farewell look, expressive of her horror of gossiping propensities, and then proceeded to where the tin sign beside the door read, " Miss Moore, Millinery and Mantuamaker," for the purpose of verifying Jemima's reportMiss Moore was all attention. She showed Mrs. Hanks the latest novelty in scoop-shovel bonnets which she had just brought from Cincinnati, got out her box of ribbons and set it on the table, and assented to everything Mrs. Hanks said with her set formula of " very likely, Mrs. Hanks, very likely."
Miss Moore was not at all the conventional old maid. She was one of the mild kind, whose failure to marry came neither from flirting nor from a repellent temper, nor from mere chance, but, if it is needful to account for it at all, from her extreme docility. A woman who says "' indeed " and " very likely " to everything, is very flavorless. Adams had concluded to marry her now, perhaps, because he liked paradoxes and because Miss Moore with her ready assent, would be the sharpest possible contrast to his contradietoriness. Then, too, she was the only person he could think of witli whom he could live without quarreling. She never disputed anything he said, no natter how outrageous. He experimented on her one day by proving to her, conclusively, that polygamy was best and according to Scripture, and when he had done and looked to see her angry, she smiled and said, " Very likely very likely, indeed."
Now that the long-becalmed bark of Miss Moore was about to sail into the lookedfor haven, she set all her pennons flying. This call from Mrs. Hanks, who was the Bister of the first Mrs. Adams, seemed to her very significant. She became more complaisant than ever before, If Mrs. Hanks thought the orange ribbon a little toe bright, Miss Moore said, " very likely, indeed." If Mrs. Hanks thought the blue just the thing, Miss Moore was igain impressed and said, " very likely." JJut when Mrs. Hanks said that on the whole the blue would not do, Misa Moore thought so, too.
At last Mrs. Hanks pushed back her sun-bonnet, fingered the rolls of ribbon absently, and approached the point of attack.
" Well, Miss Moore, they do say you're not going to be Miss Moore always."
The milliner smiled and blushed and bridled a little, and then gave way and tittered. For when a woman's courtship comes late, the omitted emotions of her girlhood are all interpolated farther on, and it is no affectation for her to act like a young girl. Young girl she is in all the fluttering emotions of a young girl. Only the fluttering does not seem to us so pretty and fitting as it might have been twenty years earlier.
" Well, I suppose Roxy won't trouble you long."
Miss Moore looked mysterious.
"Yery likely, indeed," she replied, and then added with a blush, " I've heard she has a beau." Miss Moore had heard only of Mark's attentions, but the suspicious Mrs. Hanks was now on the track of Whittaker.
" Mr. Whittaker ? " she queried.
" Very likely." This was said partly from habit and partly to cover her real surprise at hearing the name oi Whittaker. But this mechanical assent did not satisfy the inquisitive lady.
"Now do you know anything about it, Miss Moore ? Don't say ' very likely ' but tell me plainly."
Miss Moore was cornered. She did not want to tell a lie, for Miss Moore was as truthful as a person of her mild temper could be. But she was very loth to confess her ignorance and thus lose something of her importance in the eyes of Mrs. Hanks.
" Well, being's it's you, Mrs. Hanks being's it's you " Miss Moore spoke as though she were going to sell a bonnet under price " I don't mind telling you the plain truth without any double-and-twisting. I tell you plainly 't I shouldn't be surprised 'f there was something in that, now I come to think of it. Very likely, indeed."
"With this Mrs. Hanks had to be content, for to all further inquiries Miss Moore returned only her stereotyped assent.
At last Mrs. Hanks turned away from the ribbons without buying and said :
" Well, I must be going."
" Yery likely," said Miss Moore from sheer habit. And then, too, she was turning over in her mind the intelligence Mrs. Hanks had given her, and what a nice morsel it would be to tell the wife of the ruling elder in Mr. Whittaker's church.