Flower of the Dusk. Reed Myrtle

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      Roger managed to force a laugh. "You have your own peculiar way of putting things, Mother. Is supper ready? I'm as hungry as a bear."

      "I suppose you are. When it ain't readin', it's eatin'. Work all day to get a meal that don't last more'n fifteen minutes, and then see readin' goin' on till long past bedtime, and oil goin' up every six months. Which'll you have—fresh apple sauce, or canned raspberries?"

      "It doesn't matter."

      "Then I'll get the apple sauce, because the canned raspberries can lay over as long as they're kept cool."

      Miss Mattie's Personal Appearance

      Miss Mattie shuffled back into the kitchen. During the Winter she wore black knitted slippers attached to woollen inner soles which had no heels. She was well past the half-century mark, but her face had few lines in it and her grey eyes were sharp and penetrating. Her smooth, pale brown hair, which did not show the grey in it, was parted precisely in the middle. Every morning she brushed it violently with a stiff brush dipped into cold water, and twisted the ends into a tight knot at the back of her head. In militant moments, this knot seemed to rise and the protruding ends of the wire hairpins to bristle into formidable weapons of offence.

      She habitually wore her steel-bowed spectacles half-way down her nose. They might have fallen off had not a kindly Providence placed a large wart where it would do the most good. On Sundays, when she put on shoes, corsets, her best black silk, and her gold-bowed spectacles, she took great pains to wear them properly. When she reached home, however, she always took off her fine raiment and laid her spectacles aside with a great sigh of relief. Miss Mattie's disposition improved rapidly as soon as the old steel-bowed pair were in their rightful place, resting safely upon the wart.

      Second-hand Things

      When they sat down to supper, she reverted to the original topic. "As I was sayin'," she began, "there ain't no sense in the books you and your pa has always set such store by. Where he ever got 'em, I dunno, but they was always a comin'. Lots of 'em was well-nigh wore out when he got 'em, and he wouldn't let me buy nothin' that had been used before, even if I knew the folks.

      "I got a silver coffin plate once at an auction over to the Ridge for almost nothin' and your pa was as mad as a wet hen. There was a name on it, but it could have been scraped off, and the rest of it was perfectly good. When you need a coffin plate you need it awful bad. While your pa was rampin' around, he said he wouldn't have been surprised to see me comin' home with a second-hand coffin in the back of the buggy. Who ever heard of a second-hand coffin? I've always thought his mind was unsettled by so much readin'.

      "I ain't a-sayin' but what some readin' is all right. Some folks has just moved over to the Ridge and the postmaster's wife was a-showin' me some papers they get, every week. One is The Metropolitan Weekly, and the other The Housewife's Companion. I must say, the stories in those papers is certainly beautiful.

      "Once, when they come after their mail, they was as mad as anything because the papers hadn't come, but the postmaster's wife was readin' one of the stories and settin' up nights to do it, so she wa'n't to blame for not lettin' 'em go until she got through with 'em. They slip out of the covers just as easy, and nobody ever knows the difference.

      The Doctor's Darling

      "She was tellin' me about one of the stories. It's named Lovely Lulu, or the Doctor's Darling. Lovely Lulu is a little orphant who has to do most of the housework for a family of eight, and the way they abuse that child is something awful. The young ladies are forever puttin' ruffled white skirts into her wash, and makin' her darn the lace on their blue silk mornin' dresses.

      "There's a rich doctor that they're all after and one day little Lulu happens to open the front-door for him, and he gets a good look at her for the first time. As she goes upstairs, Arthur Montmorency—that's his name—holds both hands to his heart and says, 'She and she only shall be my bride.' The conclusion of this highly fascinatin' and absorbin' romance will be found in the next number of The Housewife's Companion."

      "Mother," suggested Roger, "why don't you subscribe for the papers yourself?"

      Miss Mattie dropped her knife and fork and gazed at him in open-mouthed astonishment. "Roger," she said, kindly, "I declare if sometimes you don't remind me of my people more'n your pa's. I never thought of that myself and I dunno how you come to. I'll do it the very first time I go down to the store. The postmaster's wife can get the addresses without tearin' off the covers, and after I get 'em read she can borrow mine, and not be always makin' the people at the Ridge so mad that she's runnin' the risk of losin' her job. If you ain't the beatenest!"

      Basking in the unaccustomed warmth of his mother's approval, Roger finished his supper in peace. Afterward, while she was clearing up, he even dared to take up the much-criticised book and lose himself once more in his father's beloved Emerson.

      Childish Memories

      All his childish memories of his father had been blurred into one by the mists of the intervening years. As though it were yesterday, he could see the library upstairs, which was still the same, and the grave, silent, kindly man who sat dreaming over his books. When the child entered, half afraid because the room was so quiet, the man had risen and caught him in his arms with such hungry passion that he had almost cried out.

      "Oh, my son," came in the deep, rich voice, vibrant with tenderness; "my dear little son!"

      The Priceless Legacy

      That was all, save a few old photographs and the priceless legacy of the books. The library was not a large one, but it had been chosen by a man of discriminating, yet catholic, taste. The books had been used and were not, as so often happens, merely ornaments. Page after page had been interlined and there was scarcely a volume which was not rich in marginal notes, sometimes questioning in character, but indicating always understanding and appreciation.

      As soon as he learned to read, Roger began to spend his leisure hours in this library. When he could not understand a book, he put it aside and took up another. Always there were pictures and sometimes many of them, for in his later years Laurence Austin had contracted the baneful habit of extra-illustration. Never maternal, save in the limited physical sense, Miss Mattie had been glad to have the child out of her way.

      Day by day, the young mind grew and expanded in its own way. Year by year, Roger came to an affectionate knowledge of his father, through the medium of the marginal notes. He wondered, sometimes, that a pencil mark should so long outlive the fine, strong body of the man who made it. It seemed pitiful, in a way, and yet he knew that books and letters are the things that endure, in a world of transition and decay.

      The underlined passages and the marginal comments gave evidence of an extraordinary love of beauty, in whatever shape or form. And yet—the parlour, which was opened only on Sunday—was hideous with a gaudy carpet, stuffed chairs, family portraits done in crayon and inflicted upon the house by itinerant vendors of tea and coffee, and there was a basket of wax flowers, protected by glass, on the marble-topped "centre-table."

      The pride of Miss Mattie's heart was a chair, which, with incredible industry, she had made from an empty flour barrel. She had spoiled a good barrel to make a bad chair, but her thrifty soul rejoiced in her achievement. Roger never went near it, so Miss Mattie herself sat in it on Sunday afternoons, nodding, and crooning hymns to herself.

      An Awful Chasm

      "How did father stand it?" thought Roger, intending СКАЧАТЬ