Part 26 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXVII.
AUNT BETSY GOES ON A JOURNEY.
Just through the woods, where Uncle Ephraim was wont to exercise old Whitey, was a narrow strip of land, extending from the highway to the pond, and fertile in nothing except the huckleberry bushes, where the large, dark fruit grew so abundantly, and the rocky ledges over which a few sheep roamed, seeking for the short gra.s.s and stunted herbs, which gave them a meager sustenance. As a whole it was comparatively valueless, but to Aunt Betsy Barlow it was of great importance, as it was her own--her property--her share--set off from the old estate--the land on which she paid taxes willingly--the real estate the deed of which was lying undisturbed in her hair trunk, where it had lain for years. Several dispositions the good old lady had mentally made of this property, sometimes dividing it equally between Helen and Katy, sometimes willing it all to the former, and again, when she thought of Mark Ray, leaving the interest of it to some missionary society in which she was greatly interested.
How then was the poor woman amazed and confounded when suddenly there appeared a claimant to her property; not the whole, but a part, and that part taking in the big sweet apple tree and the very best of the berry bushes, leaving her nothing but rocks and bogs, a pucker cherry tree, a patch of tansy, and one small tree, whose gnarly apples were not fit, she said, to feed the pigs.
Of course she was indignant, and all the more so because the claimant was prepared to prove that the line fence was not where it should be, but ran into his own dominions for the width of two or three rods, a fact he had just discovered by looking over a bundle of deeds, in which the boundaries of his own farm were clearly defined.
In her distress Aunt Betsy's first thoughts were turned to Wilford as the man who could redress her wrongs if any one, and a long letter was written to him in which her grievances were told in detail and his advice solicited. Commencing with ”My dear Wilford,” closing with ”Your respected ant,” sealed with a wafer, stamped with her thimble, and directed bottom side up, it nevertheless found its way to No. ---- Broadway, and into Wilford's hands. But with a frown and pish of contempt he tossed it into the grate, and vain were all Aunt Betsy's inquiries as to whether there was any letter for her when Uncle Ephraim came home from the office. Letters there were from Helen, and sometimes one from Katy, but none from Wilford, none for her, and her days were pa.s.sed in great perplexity and distress, until another idea took possession of her mind. She would go to New York herself! She had never traveled over half a dozen miles in the cars, it was true, but it was time she had, and now that she had a new bonnet and shawl, as good as anybody's, she could go to York as well as not!
Wholly useless were the expostulations of the family, for she would not listen to them, nor believe that she would not be welcome at that house on Madison Square, to which even Mrs. Lennox had never been invited since Katy was fairly settled in it. Much at first had been said of her coming, and of the room she was to occupy; but all that had ceased, and in the mother's heart there had been a painful doubt as to the reason of the silence, until Helen's letters enlightened her, telling her it was not Katy, for she was still unchanged--was still the loving, impulsive creature who, if she could, would take all Silverton to her arms. It was Wilford who had built so high a wall between Katy and her friends; Wilford who at first had endured Helen because he must, but who now kept her with him from choice, even though she was sometimes greatly in his way, especially when her will clashed with his and her stronger arguments for the right swept his own aside. Far better than she used, did Mrs. Lennox understand her son-in-law, and she shrank in horror from suffering her aunt to go where she would be so serious an annoyance, frankly telling her the reason for her objections, and asking if she wished to mortify the girls.
At this Aunt Betsy took umbrage at once.
”She'd like to know what there was about her to mortify anybody? Wasn't her black silk dress made long and full, and the old pongee fixed into a Balmoral, and hadn't she a bran-new cap with purple ribbon, and couldn't she travel in her delaine, and didn't she wear hoops always now, except at cleanin' house times? Didn't she nuss both the girls, especially Catherine, carrying her in her arms one whole night when she had the canker-rash, and everybody thought she'd die; and when she swallered that tin whistle didn't she spat her on the back and swing her in the air till she came to and blew the whistle clear across the room? Tell her that Catherine would be ashamed? she knew better!”
Then as a doubt began to cross her own mind as to Wilford's readiness to entertain her at his house, she continued:
”At any rate, the Tubbses, who moved from Silverton last fall, and who were living in such style on the Bowery, wouldn't be ashamed, and I can stop with them at first, till I see how the land lies. They have invited me to come, both Miss Tubbs and 'Tilda, and they are nice folks, who belong to the Orthodox Church. Tom is in town now, and if I see him I shall talk with him about it, even if I never go.”
Most devoutly did Mrs. Lennox and Aunt Hannah hope that Tom would return to New York without honoring the farmhouse with a call; but unfortunately for them he came that very afternoon, and instead of throwing obstacles in Aunt Betsy's way, urged her warmly to make the proposed visit.
”Mother would be so glad to see an old neighbor,” the honest youth said, ”for she did not know many folks in the city. 'Till had made some flashy acquaintances, of whom he did not think much, and they kept a few boarders, but n.o.body had called, and mother was real lonesome. He wished Miss Barlow would come; she would have no difficulty in finding them,”
and on a bit of paper he marked out the route of the Fourth Avenue cars, which pa.s.sed their door, and which Aunt Betsy would take after arriving at the New Haven depot. ”If he knew when she was coming he would meet her,” he said, but Aunt Betsy could not tell; she was not quite certain whether she should go at all, she was so violently opposed.
Still she did not give it up entirely, and when, a few days after Tom's return to New York, there came a pressing invitation from the daughter Matilda, or Mattie, as she signed herself, the fever again ran high, and this time with but little hope of its abating.
”We shall be delighted, both mother and me,” Mattie wrote. ”I will show you all the lions of the city, and when you get tired of us you can go up to Mrs. Cameron's. I know exactly where they live, and have seen her at the opera in full dress, looking like a queen.”
Over the last part of this letter Aunt Betsy pondered for some time.
That as good an orthodox as Miss Tubbs should let her girl go to the opera, pa.s.sed her. She had wondered at Helen's going, but then she was a 'Piscopal, and them 'Piscopals had queer notions about usin' the world and not abusin' it. Still, as Helen did not attend the theatre and did attend the opera, there must be a difference in the two places, and into the old lady's heart there slowly crept the thought that possibly she might try the opera too, if 'Tilda Tubbs would go, and promise never to tell the folks at Silverton! She should like to see what it was, and also what full dress meant, though she s'posed it was pilin' on all the clothes you had so as to make a show; but if she wore her black silk gown with her best bunnet and shawl, she guessed that would be dress enough for her.
This settled, Aunt Betsy began to devise the best means of getting off with the least opposition. Both Morris and her brother would be absent from town during the next week, and she finally resolved to take that opportunity for starting on her visit to New York, wisely concluding to keep her own counsel until she was quite ready. Accordingly, on the very day Morris and the deacon left Silverton, she announced her intention so quietly and decidedly that further opposition was useless, and Mrs.
Lennox did what she could to make her aunt presentable. And Aunt Betsy did look very respectable in her dark delaine, with her hat and shawl, both Morris' gift, and both in very good taste. As for the black silk and the new cap, they were carefully folded away, one in a box and the other in a satchel she carried on her arm, and in one compartment of which were sundry papers of fennel, caraway, and catnip, intended for Katy's baby, and which could be sent to it from New York. There was also a package of dried plums and peaches for Katy herself, and a few cakes of yeast of her own make, better than any they had in the city! Thus equipped she one morning took her seat in the Boston and New York train, which carried her swiftly on toward Springfield.
”If anybody can find their way in New York, it is Betsy,” Aunt Hannah said to Mrs. Lennox, as the day wore on and their thoughts went after the lone woman, who with satchel, umbrella and capbox, was felicitating in the luxury of a whole seat, and the near neighborhood of a very nice young man, who listened with well-bred interest while she told of her troubles concerning the sheep pasture, and how she was going to New York to consult a first-rate lawyer.
Once she thought to tell who the lawyer was, and perhaps enhance her own merits in the eyes of her auditors by announcing herself as aunt to Mrs.
Wilford Cameron, of whom she had no doubt he had heard--nay, more, whom he possibly knew, inasmuch as his home was in New York, though he spent much of his time at West Point, where he had been educated. But certain disagreeable remembrances of Aunt Hannah's parting injunction, ”not to tell everybody in the cars that she was Katy's aunt,” kept her silent on that point, and so Lieutenant Bob Reynolds failed to be enlightened with regard to the relations.h.i.+p existing between the fastidious Wilford Cameron of Madison Square, and the quaint old lady whose very first act on entering the car amused him vastly. At a glance he saw that she was unused to traveling, and as the car was crowded, he had kindly offered his seat near the door, taking the side one under the window, and so close to her that she gave him her capbox to hold while she adjusted her other bundles. This done and herself comfortably settled, she was just remarking that she liked being close to the door in case of a fire, when the conductor appeared, extending his hand officially toward her as the first one convenient. For an instant Aunt Betsy scanned him closely, thinking she surely had never seen him before, but as he seemed to claim acquaintance she could not find it in her kind heart to ignore him altogether, and so she grasped the offered hand, which she tried to shake, saying apologetically:
”Pretty well, thank you, but you've got the better of me, as I don't justly recall your name.”
Instantly the eyes of the young man under the window met those of the conductor with a look which changed the frown gathering in the face of the latter into a comical smile as he withdrew his hand and shouted:
”Ticket, madam, your ticket!”
”For the land's sake, have I got to give that up so quick, when it's at the bottom of my satchel,” Aunt Betsy replied, somewhat crestfallen at her mistake, and fumbling in her pocket for the key, which was finally produced, and one by one the paper parcels of fennel, caraway, and catnip, dried plums, peaches and yeast cakes, were taken out, until at the very bottom, as she had said, the ticket was found, the conductor waiting patiently, and advising her, by way of avoiding future trouble, to pin the card to her shawl, where it could be seen.
”A right nice man,” was Aunt Betsy's mental comment, but for a long time there was a red spot on her cheeks as she felt that she had made herself ridiculous, and hoped the girls would never hear of it.