Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Jerome, A Poor Man

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With the throng of excited men and boys came one pale-faced, elderly
woman, with her cap awry and her apron over her shoulders. She was
Miss Rachel Blodgett, Eliphalet Means's house-keeper.

She took up her position by the Means's gate, and the crowd gathered
about her as a nucleus. Other women came running out of neighboring
houses, and pressed close to her skirts. Cyrus Robinson's son pushed
before her, and, when she began to speak in a strained treble,
overpowered it with a coarse volume of bass. "Let me tell what I've
got to first," he ordered, importantly. "My part comes first, then
it's your turn. I've got to go back to the store. It was just about
noon that Simon Basset come in ag'in and asked for a piece of rope.
Said he wanted it to tie his cow with. I got out some rope, and he
tried to beat me down on it; asked me if I hadn't got some
second-hand rope I'd let him have a piece of. Finally I got mad, and
asked him why, if he wasn't willing to pay for rope what it was
worth, he didn't use a halter or his clothes-line.

"He whined out that his halter was broke, and he hadn't had a
clothes-line for years. That last I believed, quick enough, for I
knew he didn't ever have any washing done.

"Then I asked him why he didn't steal a rope if he was too poor to
pay for it, and he said he was too poor. He wasn't worth more than
five thousand dollars in the world, and he'd given away all he was
going to of that. When he got started on that, he ripped and raved
the way he did this morning; hang it, if I didn't begin to think he
was out of his mind. Then he went off, about ten minutes past twelve,
without his rope. I suppose there were pieces of rope enough around,
but I got mad, he acted so darned mean about it, and wouldn't hunt it
up for him, and I'm glad now I didn't."

Rachel Blodgett, who had been teetering with eagerness on her thin
old ankles, interposing now and then sharp quavers of abortive
speech, cut short Robinson's last words with the impetuosity of her
delivered torrent. "I washed to-day," said she. "I didn't wash
yesterday because it wasn't a good drying-day, and last week I had my
clothes around three days in the tub, and I made up my mind I
wouldn't do it again. So I washed to-day.

"I got my clothes all hung out before dinner. I had an uncommon heavy
wash to-day, an extra table-cloth--Mr. Means tipped his coffee over
yesterday morning--and the sheets of the spare chamber bed were in,
so I put up a little piece of line I had, between those two trees,
beside my regular clothes-line.

"About an hour ago I thought to myself the clothes ought to be dry,
and I'd just step out and look. So I run out, and there were the
clothes I'd hung on the little line--some dish-towels, and two of my
aprons, and one of Mr. Means's shirts--down on the ground in the
dirt, and the line was gone. Thinks I, 'Where's that line gone to?'

"I stood there gaping, I couldn't make head or tail of it. Then I see
the little Crossman boy out in the yard, and I hollered to
him--'Willy,' says I, 'come here a minute.'

"He come running over, and I asked him if he'd seen anybody in our
yard since noon. He said he hadn't seen anybody but Mr. Basset. He
saw him coming out of our yard tucking something under his coat.

"That put me on the track. If I do say it of the dead, and one that's
gone to his account in an awful way, Mr. Basset had been over here
time and time again, and helped himself. I ain't going to say he
stole; he helped himself. He helped himself to our kindling wood, and
our hammer, and our spade, and our rake. After the spade went, I made
a notch on the rake-handle so I could tell it, and when that went, I
slipped over to Mr. Basset's one day when I knew he wasn't there, and
there was our rake in his shed. I said nothing to nobody, but I just
brought our rake home again, and I hid it where he didn't find it
again. Mr. Means, though he's a lawyer, looks out sharper for other
folks' belongings than he does for his own. He'd never say anything;
he went and bought another spade and hammer, and he'd bought another
rake if I hadn't got that.

"When that little Crossman boy said he'd seen Mr. Basset coming out
of our yard tucking something under his coat, it put me right on the
track, though I couldn't think what he wanted with that little piece
of rope. I should have thought he wanted it to mend a harness with,
but his old horse died last winter; folks said he didn't have enough
to eat, but I ain't going to pass any judgment on that, and I knew he
sold his old harness, because the man he sold it to had been to Mr.
Means to get damages for being taken in. The harness had broke, and
his horse had run away, and the man declared that that harness had
been glued together in places.

"But I don't know anything about that. The poor man is dead, and if
he glued his harness, it's for him to give account of, not me. I
couldn't think what he wanted that rope for, but I felt mad. The rope
wasn't worth much, but it was his helping himself to it, without
leave or license, that riled me, and there were my clean clothes all
down in the dirt--there they are now, you can see 'em there--and I
knew I'd got to wash 'em over.

"So I made up my mind I'd got spunk enough, and I'd go right over
there and tell Simon Basset I wanted my rope. So I took off my apron
and clapped it over my shoulders--I've had a little rheumatism
lately, and the wind's kind of cold to-day--and I run over there.

"I--don't know what came over me. When I got to the house, a chill
struck all through my bones. I trembled like a leaf. I felt as if
something had happened. I thought, at first, I'd turn around and go
home, and then I thought I wouldn't be so silly, that it was just
nerves, and nothing had happened. I went round to the side door, and
I didn't see him puttering around anywhere, so I peeked into the
wood-shed. I thought if I saw my rope there I'd just take it, and run
home and say nothing to nobody.

"But I didn't see it, so I went back to the door and knocked. I
knocked three times, and nobody came. Then I opened the door a crack,
and hollered--'Mr. Basset!' says I, 'Mr. Basset!'

"I called a number of times, then I got out of patience. I thought
he'd gone away somewhere, and I might as well go in and see if I
couldn't find my rope. So I opened the door wide and stepped in.

"It was awful still in there--somehow the stillness seemed to hit my
ears. It was just like a tomb. That dreadful horror came over me
again. I felt the cold stealing down my back. I made up my mind I'd
just peek into the kitchen, and if I didn't see my rope, I wouldn't
look any farther; I'd go home.

"So--the kitchen door was ajar, and I pushed it, and it swung open,
and--I looked, and there--there!"

Suddenly the woman's shrill monologue was intensified by hysteria.
She pointed wildly, as if she saw again the awful sight which she had
seen through that open door.

"There, there!" she shrieked--"there! He was--there--oh--Willy--the
doctor--Jerome Edwards--Willy--oh, there, there!" She caught her
breath with choking sobs, she laughed, and the laugh ended in a
wailing scream; she clutched her throat, she struggled, she was
beside herself for the time, run off her track of reason by her
panic-stricken nerves.

Two pale, chattering women, nearly as hysterical as she, led her,
weeping shrilly all the way, into the house, and the crowd dispersed;
some, whose curiosity was not yet satisfied, to seek the scene of the
tragedy, some to return home with the news. Two men of the latter,
walking along the village street, discussed the amount of the
property left by the dead man. "It's as much as fifty thousand
dollars," said one.

"Every dollar of it," assented the other.

"It ain't likely he's made a will. Who's goin' to heir it? He 'ain't
got a relation that I know of. All the folks I ever heard of his
havin', since I can remember, was his step-father an' his brother
Sam, an' they died twenty odd years ago."

"Adoniram Judd's father was Simon Basset's mother's cousin."

"He wa'n't."

"Yes, he was. They both come from Westbrook, where I was born."

"Now they can pay off the mortgage, and get Henry's eyes fixed."

"Adoniram Judd ain't goin' to get all that money!"

"I wouldn't sell ye his chance on 't for forty thousand dollars."

Chapter XLI

During Jerome's absence at Simon Basset's, Squire Eben Merritt's wife
came across lots to the Edwardses' house. A little red shawl over her
shoulders stood out triangularly to the gusts of spring wind; a
forked end of red ribbon on her bonnet fluttered sharply. Abigail
Merritt moved with nervous impetus across the fields, like an erratic
thread of separate purpose through an even web. All the red of the
spring landscape was in the swift passing of her garments. All that
was not in straight parallels of accord with the universal yielding
of nature to the simplest law of growth was in her soul. She passed
on her own errand, cutting, as it were, a swath of spirit through the
soft influence of the spring. Abigail Merritt's mouth was tightly
shut, her eyes were narrow gleams of resolution, there were red spots
on her cheeks. She had left Lucina weeping on the bed in her little
chamber; she had said nothing to her, nor her husband, but she had
resolved upon her own course of action.

"It is time something was done," said Abigail Merritt, nodding to
herself in the glass as she tied on her bonnet, "and I am going to do
it."

When she reached the Edwardses' house, she stepped briskly up the
path, bowing to Mrs. Edwards in the window, and Elmira opened the
door before she knocked.

"Good-afternoon; I would like to see your brother a moment," Abigail
announced, abruptly.

"He isn't at home," said Elmira; "something has happened at Simon
Basset's--I don't know what. A boy came after Jerome, and he hurried
off. Father's gone too." Elmira blushed all over her face and neck
as she spoke. "Jerome will be sorry he wasn't at home," she added.
She had a curious sense of innocent confusion over the situation.

Mrs. Edwards blushed too, like an echo, though she gave her little
dark head an impatient toss.

"Then please ask your brother if he will be so kind as to come to the
Squire's after supper to-night," she returned, in her smart, prettily
dictatorial way, and took leave at once, though Elmira urged her
politely to come in and rest and wait for her brother's return.

She gave the message to Jerome when he came home. "What do you
suppose she wants of you?" she asked, wonderingly. Jerome shook his
head.

"Why, you look as white as a sheet!" said Elmira, staring at him.

"I've seen enough this afternoon to make any man look white," Jerome
replied, evasively.

"Well, I suppose you have; it is awful about Simon Basset," Elmira
assented, shudderingly.

Jerome had to force himself to his work after he had received Mrs.
Merritt's message. The tragedy of Simon Basset had given him a
terrible shock, and now this last set his nerves in a tumult in spite
of himself.

"What can she want?" he questioned, over and over. "Shall I see
Lucina? What can her mother have to say to me?"

One minute, thinking of Simon Basset, he stood convicted, to his
shame, of the utter despicableness of all his desires pertaining to
the earth and the flesh, by that clear apprehension of eternity which
often comes to one at the sight of sudden death. He settled with
himself that wealth and success and learning, and love itself even,
where as nothing beside that one surety of eternity, which holds the
sequence of good and evil, and is of the spirit.

Then, in a wild rebellion of honesty, he would own to himself that,
whether he would have it so or not, to his understanding, still
hampered by the conditions of the flesh, perhaps made morbid by
resistance to them, but that he could not tell, love was the one
truth and reality and source of all things; that life was because of
love, not love because of life.

Jerome set his mouth hard as he ploughed. The newly turned sods clung
to his feet and made them heavy, as the fond longings of the earth
clung to his soul. It seemed to Jerome that he had never loved Lucina
as he loved her then, that he had never wanted her so much. Also that
he had never been so firmly resolved to give her up. If Lucina had
seemed beyond his reach before, she seemed doubly so then, and her
new wealth loomed between them like an awful golden flood of
separation. "I have given away all my money," he said. "Shall I marry
a wife with money, to make good my loss?" He laughed at himself with
bitter scorn for the fancy.

After supper, he dressed himself in his best clothes, and set out for
Squire Merritt's, evading as much as he could his mother's questions
and surmises. Ann's bitterness at his disposal of his money was
softened to loquacity by her curiosity.

"I s'pose," said she, "that if that poor girl goes down on her knees
to you, an' tells you her heart is breakin', that you'll jest hand
her over to the town poor, the way you did your money."

"Don't, mother," whispered Elmira, as Jerome went out, making no
response.

"I'm goin' to say what I think 's best. I'm his mother," returned
Ann. But when Jerome was gone, she broke down and cried, and
complained that the poor boy hadn't eat any supper, and she was
afraid he'd be sick. Abel, sitting near her, snivelled softly for
sympathy, not fairly comprehending her cause for tears. When she
stopped weeping, and took up her knitting-work again, he drew a sigh
of relief and fell to eating an apple.

As for Elmira, she tried to comfort her mother, and she had an
anxious curiosity about Jerome and his call at the Merritts'; but
Lawrence Prescott was coming that evening.

Presently Ann heard her singing up-stairs in her chamber, whither she
had gone to curl her hair and change her gown.

"I'm glad somebody can sing," muttered Ann; but in the depths of her
heart was a wish that her son, instead of her daughter, could have
had the reason for song, if it were appointed to one only. "Women
don't take things so hard as men," reasoned Ann Edwards.

When Jerome knocked at Squire Merritt's door that evening, Mrs.
Merritt opened it. For a minute everything was dark before him; he
had thought that he might see Lucina. His voice sounded strange in
his own ears when he replied to Mrs. Merritt's greeting; he almost
reeled when he followed her into the parlor. It was a cool, spring
night, and there was a fire on the hearth. A silver branch of candles
on the mantel-shelf lit the room.

Mrs. Merritt looked anxiously at Jerome as she placed a chair. "I
hope you are well," she said, in her quick way, but her voice was
kind. Jerome thought it sounded like Lucina's. He stammered that he
was quite well.

"You look pale."

When he made no response to that, she added, with a motherly cadence,
that he had been through a great deal lately; that she had felt very
sorry about the loss of his mill.

Jerome thanked her. He sat opposite, in a great mahogany arm-chair,
holding himself very erect; but his pulses sang in his ears, and his
downcast eyes scanned the roses in the carpet. He did not understand
it, but he was for the moment like a school-boy before the aroused
might of feminity of this little woman.

"It is partly about your mill that I want to see you," said Abigail
Merritt. "The Squire has something which he wishes to propose, but he
has begged me to do so for him. He thinks my chances of success are
better. I don't know about that," she finished, smiling.

Jerome looked up then, with quick attention, and she came at once to
the point. Abigail Merritt, her mind once made up, was not a woman to
beat long about a bush. "The Squire has, as you know," she said, "a
legacy of five thousand dollars from poor Colonel Lamson. He wishes
to invest part of it. He would like to rebuild your mill."

Jerome colored high. "Thank him, and thank you," he said; "but--"

"He does not propose to give it to you," she interposed, quickly. "He
would not venture to propose that, however much he might like to do
so. His plan is to rebuild the mill, and for you to work it on
shares--you to have your share of the profits for your labor. You
could have the chance to buy him out later, when you were able."

Jerome was about to speak, but Abigail interrupted again. "I beg you
not to make your final decision now," she said. "There is no
necessity for it. I would rather, too, that you gave your answer to
the Squire instead of me. I have nothing to do with it. It is simply
a proposition of the Squire's for you to consider at your leisure.
You know how much my husband has always thought of you since you were
a child. He would be glad to help you, and help himself at the same
time, if you will allow him to do so; but that can pass over. I have
something else of more importance to me to say. Jerome Edwards," said
she, suddenly, and there was a new tone in her voice, "I want you to
tell me just how matters stand between you and my daughter, Lucina. I
am her mother, and I have a right to know."

Jerome looked at her. His handsome young face was very white.
"I--have been working hard to earn enough money to marry," he said,
speaking quick, as if his breath failed him. "I lost my mill. I will
not ask her to wait."

"You had a fortune, but you gave it away," returned Mrs. Merritt.
"Well, we will not discuss that; that is not between you and me, or
any human being, if you did what you thought right. Lucina has twenty
thousand dollars, you know that?"

Jerome nodded. "Yes," he replied, hoarsely.

"What difference will it make whether you have the money or your
wife?"

"It makes a difference to me," Jerome cried then, with that old flash
of black eyes which had intimidated the little girl Lucina in years
past.

"And yet you say you love my daughter," said Mrs. Merritt, looking at
him steadily.

"I love her so much that I would lay down my life for her!" Jerome
cried, fiercely, and there was a flare of red over his pale face.

"But not so much that you would sacrifice one jot or one tittle of
your pride for her," responded Abigail Merritt, with sharp scorn.
Suddenly she sprang up from her chair and stood before the young man,
every nerve in her slight body quivering with the fire of eloquence.
"Now listen, Jerome Edwards," said she. "I know who and what you are,
and I know who and what my daughter is. I give you your full due. You
have traits which are above the common, and out of the common; some
which are noble, and some which render you dangerous to the peace of
any one who loves you. I give you your full due, and I give my
daughter hers. I can say it without vanity--it is the simple
truth--Lucina has had her pick and choice among many. She could have
wedded, had she chosen, in high stations. She has a face and
character which win love for her wherever she goes. I am not here to
offer or force my daughter upon any unwilling lover. If I had not
been sure, from what she has told me, and from what I have observed,
that you were perfectly honest in your affection for her, I should
not have sent for you to-night. I--"

She stopped, for Jerome burst out with a passion which startled her.
"Honest! Oh, my God! I love her so that I am nothing without her. I
love her more than the whole world, more than my own life!"

"Then give up your pride for her, if you love her," said Abigail,
sharply.

"My pride!"

"Yes, your pride. You have given away everything else, but how dare
you think yourself generous when you have kept the thing that is
dearest of all? You generous--you! Talk of Simon Basset! You are a
miser of a false trait in your own character. You are a worse miser
than he, unless you give it up. What are you, that you should say, 'I
will go through life, and I will give, and not take?' What are you,
that you should think yourself better than all around you--that you
should be towards your fellow-creatures as a god, conferring
everything, receiving nothing? If you love my daughter, prove it.
Take what she has to give you, and give her, what is worth more than
money, if you had the riches of Croesus, the pride of your heart."

Jerome stood before her, looking at her. Then, without a word, he
went across the room to a window, and stood there, his back towards
her, his face towards the moonlight night outside.

"Is it pride or principle?" he said, hoarsely, without turning his
head.

"Pride."

Jerome stood silently at the window. Abigail watched him, her brows
contracted, her fingers twitching; there were red spots on her
cheeks. This had cost her dearly. She, too, had given up her pride
for love of Lucina.

Jerome, with a sudden motion of his shoulders, as if he flung off a
burden, left the window and crossed the room. He was very pale, but
his eyes were shining. He towered over Mrs. Merritt with his splendid
height, and she was woman enough, even then, to note how handsome he
was. "Will you give me Lucina for my wife?" said he.

Tears sprang to Abigail's eyes, her little face quivered. She took
Jerome's hand, pressed it, murmured something, and went out. Jerome
understood that she had gone to call Lucina.

It was not long before he heard Lucina's step on the stairs, and the
rustle of her skirts. Then there was a suspensive silence, as if she
hesitated at the door; then the latch was lifted and she came in.

Lucina, in a straight hanging gown of blue silk, stood still near the
door, looking at Jerome with a wonderful expression of love and
modest shrinking and trust and fear, and a gentle dignity and
graciousness withal, which only a maiden's face can compass. Lucina
did not blush nor tremble, though her steady poise seemed rather due
to the repression of tremors than actual calm of spirit. Though no
color came into Lucina's smooth, pale curves of cheek, and though her
little hands were clasped before her, like hands of marble, her blue
eyes were dilated, and pulses beat hard in her delicate throat and
temples.

Jerome, on his part, was for a minute unable to speak or approach
her. An awe of her, as of an angel, was over him, now that for the
first time the certainty of possession was in his heart. It often
happens that one receiving for the first time a great and
long-desired blessing, can feel, for the moment, not joy and triumph
so much as awe and fear at its sudden glory of fairness in contact
with his unworthiness.

But, all at once, as Jerome hesitated a soft red came flaming over
Lucina's face and neck, and tears of distress welled up in her eyes.
Far it was from her to understand how her lover felt, for awe of
herself was beyond her imagination, and a dreadful fear lest her
mother had been mistaken and Jerome did not want her after all, was
in her heart. She gave him a little look, at once proud and piteously
shamed, and put her hand on the door-latch; but with that Jerome was
at her side and his arms were around her.

"Oh, Lucina," he said, "I am poor--I am poorer than when I spoke to
you before. You must give all and I nothing, except myself, which
seems to me as nothing when I look at you. Will you take me so?"

Then Lucina looked straight up in his face, and her blushes were
gone, and her blue eyes were dark, as if from unknown depths of love
and faithfulness. "Don't you know," she said, with an authoritative
seriousness, which seemed beyond her years and her girlish
experience--"don't you know that when I give you all I give to
myself, and that if I did not give you all I could never give to
myself, but should be poor all my life?

"And, and--" continued Lucina, tremulously, for she was beginning to
falter, being nerved to such length of assertive speech only by her
wish to comfort and reassure Jerome, "don't you know--don't you know,
Jerome, that--a woman's giving is all her taking, and--you wouldn't
take the gingerbread, dear, and the money for the shoes, when we were
both children--but, maybe your--taking from--somebody who loves you
is your--best giving--"

With that Lucina was sobbing softly on Jerome's shoulder, and he was
leaning his face close to hers, whispering brokenly and kissing her
hair and her cheek.

"It doesn't matter, after all, because you lost your mill, dear,"
Lucina said, presently, "because we have money enough for everything,
now."

"It is your money, for your own needs always," Jerome returned,
quickly, and with a sudden recoil as from a touch upon a raw surface,
for the sensitiveness of a whole life cannot be hardened in a moment.

"No, it is yours, too; he meant it so," said Lucina, with a little
laugh. "You wait a minute and I will show you."

With that Lucina fumbled in the pocket of her silken gown and
produced a letter.

"Read this, dear," said she, "and you will see what I mean."

"What is it?" asked Jerome, wonderingly, staring at the
superscription, which was, "For Mistress Lucina Merritt, to be opened
and read by herself, at her pleasure and discretion, and to be read
by herself and Jerome Edwards jointly on the day of their betrothal."

"Come over to the light and we will read it together," said Lucina.

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