THE TOWN POOR
by Sarah Orne Jewett
Mrs. William Trimble and Miss Rebecca Wright were driving along
Hampden east road, one afternoon in early spring. Their progress was
slow. Mrs. Trimble's sorrel horse was old and stiff, and the wheels
were clogged by clay mud. The frost was not yet out of the ground,
although the snow was nearly gone, except in a few places on the north
side of the woods, or where it had drifted all winter against a length
of fence.
"There must be a good deal o' snow to the nor'ard of us yet," said
weather-wise Mrs. Trimble. "I feel it in the air; 'tis more than
the ground-damp. We ain't goin' to have real nice weather till the
up-country snow's all gone."
"I heard say yesterday that there was good sleddin' yet, all up
through Parsley," responded Miss Wright. "I shouldn't like to live in
them northern places. My cousin Ellen's husband was a Parsley man, an'
he was obliged, as you may have heard, to go up north to his father's
second wife's funeral; got back day before yesterday. 'T was about
twenty-one miles, an' they started on wheels; but when they'd gone
nine or ten miles, they found 't was no sort o' use, an' left their
wagon an' took a sleigh. The man that owned it charged 'em four an'
six, too. I shouldn't have thought he would; they told him they was
goin' to a funeral; an' they had their own buffaloes an' everything."
"Well, I expect it's a good deal harder scratchin', up that way; they
have to git money where they can; the farms is very poor as you go
north," suggested Mrs. Trimble kindly. "'T ain't none too rich a
country where we be, but I've always been grateful I wa'n't born up
to Parsley."
The old horse plodded along, and the sun, coming out from the heavy
spring clouds, sent a sudden shine of light along the muddy road.
Sister Wright drew her large veil forward over the high brim of her
bonnet. She was not used to driving, or to being much in the open air;
but Mrs. Trimble was an active business woman, and looked after her
own affairs herself, in all weathers. The late Mr. Trimble had left
her a good farm, but not much ready money, and it was often said that
she was better off in the end than if he had lived. She regretted his
loss deeply, however; it was impossible for her to speak of him, even
to intimate friends, without emotion, and nobody had ever hinted that
this emotion was insincere. She was most warm-hearted and generous,
and in her limited way played the part of Lady Bountiful in the town
of Hampden.
"Why, there's where the Bray girls lives, ain't it?" she exclaimed,
as, beyond a thicket of witch-hazel and scrub-oak, they came in sight
of a weather-beaten, solitary farmhouse. The barn was too far away for
thrift or comfort, and they could see long lines of light between the
shrunken boards as they came nearer. The fields looked both stony and
sodden. Somehow, even Parsley itself could be hardly more forlorn.
"Yes'm," said Miss Wright, "that's where they live now, poor things.
I know the place, though I ain't been up here for years. You don't
suppose, Mis' Trimble--I ain't seen the girls out to meetin' all
winter. I've re'lly been covetin'"--
"Why, yes, Rebecca, of course we could stop," answered Mrs. Trimble
heartily. "The exercises was over earlier 'n I expected, an' you're
goin' to remain over night long o' me, you know. There won't be no tea
till we git there, so we can't be late. I'm in the habit o' sendin' a
basket to the Bray girls when any o' our folks is comin' this way, but
I ain't been to see 'em since they moved up here. Why, it must be a
good deal over a year ago. I know 't was in the late winter they had
to make the move. 'T was cruel hard, I must say, an' if I hadn't been
down with my pleurisy fever I'd have stirred round an' done somethin'
about it. There was a good deal o' sickness at the time, an'--well,
't was kind o' rushed through, breakin' of 'em up, an' lots o' folks
blamed the selec'men; but when 't was done, 't was done, an' nobody
took holt to undo it. Ann an' Mandy looked same's ever when they come
to meetin', 'long in the summer,--kind o' wishful, perhaps. They've
always sent me word they was gittin' on pretty comfortable."
"That would be their way," said Rebecca Wright. "They never was any
hand to complain, though Mandy's less cheerful than Ann. If Mandy 'd
been spared such poor eyesight, an' Ann hadn't got her lame wrist that
wa'n't set right, they'd kep' off the town fast enough. They both shed
tears when they talked to me about havin' to break up, when I went to
see 'em before I went over to brother Asa's. You see we was brought up
neighbors, an' we went to school together, the Brays an' me. 'T was a
special Providence brought us home this road, I've been so covetin' a
chance to git to see 'em. My lameness hampers me."
"I'm glad we come this way, myself," said Mrs. Trimble.
"I'd like to see just how they fare," Miss Rebecca Wright continued.
"They give their consent to goin' on the town because they knew
they'd got to be dependent, an' so they felt 't would come easier
for all than for a few to help 'em. They acted real dignified an'
right-minded, contrary to what most do in such cases, but they was
dreadful anxious to see who would bid 'em off, town-meeting day; they
did so hope 't would be somebody right in the village. I just sat down
an' cried good when I found Abel Janes's folks had got hold of 'em.
They always had the name of bein' slack an' poor-spirited, an' they
did it just for what they got out o' the town. The selectmen this
last year ain't what we have had. I hope they've been considerate
about the Bray girls."
"I should have be'n more considerate about fetchin' of you over,"
apologized Mrs. Trimble. "I've got my horse, an' you're lame-footed;
'tis too far for you to come. But time does slip away with busy folks,
an' I forgit a good deal I ought to remember."
"There's nobody more considerate than you be," protested Miss Rebecca
Wright.
Mrs. Trimble made no answer, but took out her whip and gently touched
the sorrel horse, who walked considerably faster, but did not think
it worth while to trot. It was a long, round-about way to the house,
farther down the road and up a lane.
"I never had any opinion of the Bray girls' father, leavin' 'em as he
did," said Mrs. Trimble.
"He was much praised in his time, though there was always some said
his early life hadn't been up to the mark," explained her companion.
"He was a great favorite of our then preacher, the Reverend Daniel
Longbrother. They did a good deal for the parish, but they did it
their own way. Deacon Bray was one that did his part in the repairs
without urging. You know 't was in his time the first repairs was
made, when they got out the old soundin'-board an' them handsome
square pews. It cost an awful sight o' money, too. They hadn't done
payin' up that debt when they set to alter it again an' git the walls
frescoed. My grandmother was one that always spoke her mind right out,
an' she was dreadful opposed to breakin' up the square pews where she'd
always set. They was countin' up what 't would cost in parish meetin',
an' she riz right up an' said 't wouldn't cost nothin' to let 'em
stay, an' there wa'n't a house carpenter left in the parish that could
do such nice work, an' time would come when the great-grandchildren
would give their eye-teeth to have the old meetin'-house look just as
it did then. But haul the inside to pieces they would and did."
"There come to be a real fight over it, didn't there?" agreed Mrs.
Trimble soothingly. "Well, 't wa'n't good taste. I remember the old
house well. I come here as a child to visit a cousin o' mother's, an'
Mr. Trimble's folks was neighbors, an' we was drawed to each other
then, young's we was. Mr. Trimble spoke of it many's the time,--that
first time he ever see me, in a leghorn hat with a feather; 't was
one that mother had, an' pressed over."
"When I think of them old sermons that used to be preached in that old
meetin'-house of all, I'm glad it's altered over, so's not to remind
folks," said Miss Rebecca Wright, after a suitable pause. "Them old
brimstone discourses, you know, Mis' Trimble. Preachers is far more
reasonable, nowadays. Why, I set an' thought, last Sabbath, as I
listened, that if old Mr. Longbrother an' Deacon Bray could hear the
difference they'd crack the ground over 'em like pole beans, an' come
right up 'long side their headstones."
Mrs. Trimble laughed heartily, and shook the reins three or four times
by way of emphasis. "There's no gitting round you," she said, much
pleased. "I should think Deacon Bray would want to rise, any way,
if 't was so he could, an' knew how his poor girls was farin'. A man
ought to provide for his folks he's got to leave behind him, specially
if they're women. To be sure, they had their little home; but we've
seen how, with all their industrious ways, they hadn't means to keep
it. I s'pose he thought he'd got time enough to lay by, when he give
so generous in collections; but he didn't lay by, an' there they be.
He might have took lessons from the squirrels: even them little wild
creatur's makes them their winter hoards, an' men-folks ought to know
enough if squirrels does. 'Be just before you are generous:' that's
what was always set for the B's in the copy-books, when I was to
school, and it often runs through my mind."
"'As for man, his days are as grass,'--that was for A; the two go well
together," added Miss Rebecca Wright soberly. "My good gracious, ain't
this a starved-lookin' place? It makes me ache to think them nice Bray
girls has to brook it here."
The sorrel horse, though somewhat puzzled by an unexpected deviation
from his homeward way, willingly came to a stand by the gnawed corner
of the door-yard fence, which evidently served as hitching-place. Two
or three ragged old hens were picking about the yard, and at last a
face appeared at the kitchen window, tied up in a handkerchief, as if
it were a case of toothache. By the time our friends reached the side
door next this window, Mrs. Janes came disconsolately to open it for
them, shutting it again as soon as possible, though the air felt more
chilly inside the house.
"Take seats," said Mrs. Janes briefly. "You'll have to see me just
as I be. I have been suffering these four days with the ague,
and everything to do. Mr. Janes is to court, on the jury. 'T was
inconvenient to spare him. I should be pleased to have you lay
off your things."
Comfortable Mrs. Trimble looked about the cheerless kitchen, and could
not think of anything to say; so she smiled blandly and shook her head
in answer to the invitation. "We'll just set a few minutes with you,
to pass the time o' day, an' then we must go in an' have a word with
the Miss Brays, bein' old acquaintance. It ain't been so we could git
to call on 'em before. I don't know's you're acquainted with Miss
R'becca Wright. She's been out of town a good deal."
"I heard she was stopping over to Plainfields with her brother's
folks," replied Mrs. Janes, rocking herself with irregular motion,
as she sat close to the stove. "Got back some time in the fall, I
believe?"
"Yes'm," said Miss Rebecca, with an undue sense of guilt and
conviction. "We've been to the installation over to the East Parish,
an' thought we'd stop in; we took this road home to see if 't was
any better. How is the Miss Brays gettin' on?"
"They're well's common," answered Mrs. Janes grudgingly. "I was put
out with Mr. Janes for fetchin' of 'em here, with all I've got to do,
an' I own I was kind o' surly to 'em 'long to the first of it. He gits
the money from the town, an' it helps him out; but he bid 'em off for
five dollars a month, an' we can't do much for 'em at no such price
as that. I went an' dealt with the selec'men, an' made 'em promise to
find their firewood an' some other things extra. They was glad to get
rid o' the matter the fourth time I went, an' would ha' promised 'most
anything. But Mr. Janes don't keep me half the time in oven-wood,
he's off so much, an' we was cramped o' room, any way. I have to store
things up garrit a good deal, an' that keeps me trampin' right through
their room. I do the best for 'em I can, Mis' Trimble, but 't ain't so
easy for me as 't is for you, with all your means to do with."
The poor woman looked pinched and miserable herself, though it was
evident that she had no gift at house or home keeping. Mrs. Trimble's
heart was wrung with pain, as she thought of the unwelcome inmates of
such a place; but she held her peace bravely, while Miss Rebecca again
gave some brief information in regard to the installation.
"You go right up them back stairs," the hostess directed at last.
"I'm glad some o' you church folks has seen fit to come an' visit 'em.
There ain't been nobody here this long spell, an' they've aged a sight
since they come. They always send down a taste out of your baskets,
Mis' Trimble, an' I relish it, I tell you. I'll shut the door after
you, if you don't object. I feel every draught o' cold air."
"I've always heard she was a great hand to make a poor mouth. Wa'n't
she from somewheres up Parsley way?" whispered Miss Rebecca, as they
stumbled in the half-light.
"Poor meechin' body, wherever she come from," replied Mrs. Trimble,
as she knocked at the door.
There was silence for a moment after this unusual sound; then one
of the Bray sisters opened the door. The eager guests stared into a
small, low room, brown with age, and gray, too, as if former dust and
cobwebs could not be made wholly to disappear. The two elderly women
who stood there looked like captives. Their withered faces wore a look
of apprehension, and the room itself was more bare and plain than was
fitting to their evident refinement of character and self-respect.
There was an uncovered small table in the middle of the floor, with
some crackers on a plate; and, for some reason or other, this added
a great deal to the general desolation.
But Miss Ann Bray, the elder sister, who carried her right arm in a
sling, with piteously drooping fingers, gazed at the visitors with
radiant joy. She had not seen them arrive.
The one window gave only the view at the back of the house, across the
fields, and their coming was indeed a surprise. The next minute she
was laughing and crying together. "Oh, sister!" she said, "if here
ain't our dear Mis' Trimble!--an' my heart o' goodness, 'tis 'Becca
Wright, too! What dear good creatur's you be! I've felt all day as
if something good was goin' to happen, an' was just sayin' to myself
'twas most sundown now, but I wouldn't let on to Mandany I'd give up
hope quite yet. You see, the scissors stuck in the floor this very
mornin' an' it's always a reliable sign. There, I've got to kiss ye
both again!"
"I don't know where we can all set," lamented sister Mandana. "There
ain't but the one chair an' the bed; t'other chair's too rickety; an'
we've been promised another these ten days; but first they've forgot
it, an' next Mis' Janes can't spare it,--one excuse an' another. I am
goin' to git a stump o' wood an' nail a board on to it, when I can git
outdoor again," said Mandana, in a plaintive voice. "There, I ain't
goin' to complain o' nothin', now you've come," she added; and the
guests sat down, Mrs. Trimble, as was proper, in the one chair.
"We've sat on the bed many's the time with you, 'Becca, an' talked
over our girl nonsense, ain't we? You know where 'twas--in the little
back bedroom we had when we was girls, an' used to peek out at our
beaux through the strings o' mornin'-glories," laughed Ann Bray
delightedly, her thin face shining more and more with joy. "I brought
some o' them mornin'-glory seeds along when we come away, we'd raised
'em so many years; an' we got 'em started all right, but the hens
found 'em out. I declare I chased them poor hens, foolish as 'twas;
but the mornin'-glories I'd counted on a sight to remind me o' home.
You see, our debts was so large, after my long sickness an' all, that
we didn't feel 'twas right to keep back anything we could help from
the auction."
It was impossible for any one to speak for a moment or two; the
sisters felt their own uprooted condition afresh, and their guests for
the first time really comprehended the piteous contrast between that
neat little village house, which now seemed a palace of comfort, and
this cold, unpainted upper room in the remote Janes farmhouse. It
was an unwelcome thought to Mrs. Trimble that the well-to-do town of
Hampden could provide no better for its poor than this, and her round
face flushed with resentment and the shame of personal responsibility.
"The girls shall be well settled in the village before another winter,
if I pay their board myself," she made an inward resolution, and took
another almost tearful look at the broken stove, the miserable bed,
and the sisters' one hair-covered trunk, on which Mandana was sitting
But the poor place was filled with a golden spirit of hospitality.
Rebecca was again discoursing eloquently of the installation; it
was so much easier to speak of general subjects, and the sisters had
evidently been longing to hear some news. Since the late summer they
had not been to church, and presently Mrs. Trimble asked the reason.
"Now, don't you go to pouring out our woes, Mandy!" begged little
old Ann, looking shy and almost girlish, and as if she insisted upon
playing that life was still all before them and all pleasure. "Don't
you go to spoilin' their visit with our complaints! They know well's
we do that changes must come, an' we'd been so wonted to our home
things that this come hard at first; but then they felt for us, I
know just as well's can be. 'Twill soon be summer again, an' 'tis
real pleasant right out in the fields here, when there ain't too hot
a spell. I've got to know a sight o' singin' birds since we come."
"Give me the folks I've always known," sighed the younger sister,
who looked older than Miss Ann, and less even-tempered. "You may
have your birds, if you want 'em. I do re'lly long to go to meetin'
an' see folks go by up the aisle. Now, I will speak of it, Ann,
whatever you say. We need, each of us, a pair o' good stout shoes
an' rubbers,--ours are all wore out; an' we've asked an' asked,
an' they never think to bring 'em, an'"--
Poor old Mandana, on the trunk, covered her face with her arms and
sobbed aloud. The elder sister stood over her, and patted her on the
thin shoulder like a child, and tried to comfort her. It crossed Mrs.
Trimble's mind that it was not the first time one had wept and the
other had comforted. The sad scene must have been repeated many times
in that long, drear winter. She would see them forever after in her
mind as fixed as a picture, and her own tears fell fast.
"You didn't see Mis' Janes's cunning little boy, the next one to the
baby, did you?" asked Ann Bray, turning round quickly at last, and
going cheerfully on with the conversation. "Now, hush, Mandy, dear;
they'll think you're childish! He's a dear, friendly little creatur',
an' likes to stay with us a good deal, though we feel's if it 't was
too cold for him, now we are waitin' to get us more wood."
"When I think of the acres o' woodland in this town!" groaned Rebecca
Wright. "I believe I'm goin' to preach next Sunday, 'stead o' the
minister, an' I'll make the sparks fly. I've always heard the saying,
'What's everybody's business is nobody's business,' an' I've come to
believe it."
"Now, don't you, 'Becca. You've happened on a kind of a poor time with
us, but we've got more belongings than you see here, an' a good large
cluset, where we can store those things there ain't room to have
about. You an' Miss Trimble have happened on a kind of poor day, you
know. Soon's I git me some stout shoes an' rubbers, as Mandy says, I
can fetch home plenty o' little dry boughs o' pine; you remember I
was always a great hand to roam in the woods? If we could only have a
front room, so 't we could look out on the road an' see passin', an'
was shod for meetin', I don' know's we should complain. Now we're just
goin' to give you what we've got, an' make out with a good welcome.
We make more tea 'n we want in the mornin', an' then let the fire
go down, since 't has been so mild. We've got a good cluset"
(disappearing as she spoke), "an' I know this to be good tea, 'cause
it's some o' yourn, Mis' Trimble. An' here's our sprigged chiny cups
that R'becca knows by sight, if Mis' Trimble don't. We kep' out four
of 'em, an' put the even half dozen with the rest of the auction
stuff. I've often wondered who'd got 'em, but I never asked, for
fear 't would be somebody that would distress us. They was mother's,
you know."
The four cups were poured, and the little table pushed to the bed,
where Rebecca Wright still sat, and Mandana, wiping her eyes, came and
joined her. Mrs. Trimble sat in her chair at the end, and Ann trotted
about the room in pleased content for a while, and in and out of
the closet, as if she still had much to do; then she came and stood
opposite Mrs. Trimble. She was very short and small, and there was no
painful sense of her being obliged to stand. The four cups were not
quite full of cold tea, but there was a clean old tablecloth folded
double, and a plate with three pairs of crackers neatly piled, and
a small--it must be owned, a very small--piece of hard white cheese.
Then, for a treat, in a glass dish, there was a little preserved
peach, the last--Miss Rebecca knew it instinctively--of the household
stores brought from their old home. It was very sugary, this bit of
peach; and as she helped her guests and sister Mandy, Miss Ann Bray
said, half unconsciously, as she often had said with less reason in
the old days, "Our preserves ain't so good as usual this year; this
is beginning to candy." Both the guests protested, while Rebecca added
that the taste of it carried her back, and made her feel young again.
The Brays had always managed to keep one or two peach-trees alive
in their corner of a garden. "I've been keeping this preserve for a
treat," said her friend. "I'm glad to have you eat some, 'Becca. Last
summer I often wished you was home an' could come an' see us, 'stead
o' being away off to Plainfields."
The crackers did not taste too dry. Miss Ann took the last of the
peach on her own cracker; there could not have been quite a small
spoonful, after the others were helped, but she asked them first if
they would not have some more. Then there was a silence, and in the
silence a wave of tender feeling rose high in the hearts of the four
elderly women. At this moment the setting sun flooded the poor plain
room with light; the unpainted wood was all of a golden-brown, and
Ann Bray, with her gray hair and aged face, stood at the head of the
table in a kind of aureole. Mrs. Trimble's face was all aquiver as
she looked at her; she thought of the text about two or three being
gathered together, and was half afraid.
"I believe we ought to've asked Mis' Janes if she wouldn't come up,"
said Ann. "She's real good feelin', but she's had it very hard, an'
gits discouraged. I can't find that she's ever had anything real
pleasant to look back to, as we have. There, next time we'll make
a good heartenin' time for her too."
The sorrel horse had taken a long nap by the gnawed fence-rail,
and the cool air after sundown made him impatient to be gone. The
two friends jolted homeward in the gathering darkness, through the
stiffening mud, and neither Mrs. Trimble nor Rebecca Wright said
a word until they were out of sight as well as out of sound of
the Janes house. Time must elapse before they could reach a more
familiar part of the road and resume conversation on its natural
level.
"I consider myself to blame," insisted Mrs. Trimble at last. "I
haven't no words of accusation for nobody else, an' I ain't one to
take comfort in calling names to the board o' selec'men. I make no
reproaches, an' I take it all on my own shoulders; but I'm goin' to
stir about me, I tell you! I shall begin early to-morrow. They're
goin' back to their own house,--it's been standin' empty all
winter,--an' the town's goin' to give 'em the rent an' what firewood
they need; it won't come to more than the board's payin' out now. An'
you an' me'll take this same horse an' wagon, an' ride an' go afoot by
turns, an' git means enough together to buy back their furniture an'
whatever was sold at that plaguey auction; an' then we'll put it all
back, an' tell 'em they've got to move to a new place, an' just carry
'em right back again where they come from. An' don't you never tell,
R'becca, but here I be a widow woman, layin' up what I make from my
farm for nobody knows who, an' I'm goin' to do for them Bray girls
all I'm a mind to. I should be sca't to wake up in heaven, an' hear
anybody there ask how the Bray girls was. Don't talk to me about the
town o' Hampden, an' don't ever let me hear the name o' town poor!
I'm ashamed to go home an' see what's set out for supper. I wish
I'd brought 'em right along."
"I was goin' to ask if we couldn't git the new doctor to go up an' do
somethin' for poor Ann's arm," said Miss Rebecca. "They say he's very
smart. If she could get so's to braid straw or hook rugs again, she'd
soon be earnin' a little somethin'. An' may be he could do somethin'
for Mandy's eyes. They did use to live so neat an' ladylike. Somehow
I couldn't speak to tell 'em there that 'twas I bought them six
best cups an' saucers, time of the auction; they went very low, as
everything else did, an' I thought I could save it some other way.
They shall have 'em back an' welcome. You're real whole-hearted, Mis'
Trimble. I expect Ann'll be sayin' that her father's child'n wa'n't
goin' to be left desolate, an' that all the bread he cast on the
water's comin' back through you."
"I don't care what she says, dear creatur'!" exclaimed Mrs. Trimble.
"I'm full o' regrets I took time for that installation, an' set there
seepin' in a lot o' talk this whole day long, except for its kind of
bringin' us to the Bray girls. I wish to my heart 't was to-morrow
mornin' a'ready, an' I a-startin' for the selec'men."
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