FLANK MOVEMENT.
Miss Cynthia Badlam was in the habit of occasionally visiting the Widow Hopkins. Some said but then people will talk, especially in the country, where they have not much else to do, except in haying-time. She had always known the widow, long before Mr. Gridley came there to board, or any other special event happened in her family.
No matter what people said.
Miss Badlam called to see Mrs. Hopkins, then, and the two had a long talk together, of which only a portion is on record. Here are such fragments as have been preserved.
"What would I do about it? Why, I'd put a stop to such carry'n's on, mighty quick, if I had to tie the girl to the bedpost, and have a bulldog that world take the seat out of any pair of black pantaloons that come within forty rod of her,--that's what I'd do about it! He undertook to be mighty sweet with our Susan one while, but ever sence he's been talkin' religion with Myrtle Hazard he's let us alone. Do as I did when he asked our Susan to come to his study,--stick close to your girl and you 'll put a stop to all this business. He won't make love to two at once, unless they 're both pretty young, I 'll warrant. Follow her round, Miss Cynthy, and keep your eyes on her.""I have watched her like a cat, Mrs. Hopkins, but I can't follow her everywhere,--she won't stand what Susan Posey 'll stand. There's no use our talking to her,--we 've done with that at our house. You never know what that Indian blood of hers will make her do. She's too high-strung for us to bit and bridle. I don't want to see her name in the paper again, alongside of that" (She did not finish the sentence.) "I'd rather have her fished dead out of the river, or find her where she found her uncle Malachi!""You don't think, Miss Cynthy, that the man means to inveigle the girl with the notion of marryin' her by and by, after poor Mrs.
Stoker's dead and gone?"
"The Lord in heaven forbid!" exclaimed Miss Cynthia, throwing up her hands. "A child of fifteen years old, if she is a woman to look at!""It's too bad,--it's too bad to think of, Miss Cynthy; and there's that poor woman dyin' by inches, and Miss Bathsheby settin' with her day and night, she has n't got a bit of her father in her, it's all her mother,--and that man, instead of bein' with her to comfort her as any man ought to be with his wife, in sickness and in health, that's what he promised. I 'm sure when my poor husband was sick....
To think of that man goin' about to talk religion to all the prettiest girls he can find in the parish, and his wife at home like to leave him so soon,--it's a shame,--so it is, come now! Miss Cynthy, there's one of the best men and one of the learnedest men that ever lived that's a real friend of Myrtle Hazard, and a better friend to her than she knows of,--for ever sence he brought her home, he feels jest like a father to her,--and that man is Mr. Gridley, that lives in this house. It's him I 'll speak to about the minister's carry'in's on. He knows about his talking sweet to our Susan, and he'll put things to rights! He's a master hand when he does once take hold of anything, I tell you that! Jest get him to shet up them books of his, and take hold of anybody's troubles, and you'll see how he 'll straighten 'em out."There was a pattering of little feet on the stairs, and the two small twins, "Sossy" and "Minthy," in the home dialect, came hand in hand into the room, Miss Susan leaving them at the threshold, not wishing to interrupt the two ladies, and being much interested also in listening to Mr. Gifted Hopkins, who was reading some of his last poems to her, with great delight to both of them.
The good woman rose to take them from Susan, and guide their uncertain steps. "My babies, I call 'em, Miss Cynthy. Ain't they nice children? Come to go to bed, little dears? Only a few minutes, Miss Cynthy."She took them into the bedroom on the same floor, where they slept, and, leaving the door open, began undressing them. Cynthia turned her rocking-chair round so as to face the open door. She looked on while the little creatures were being undressed; she heard the few words they lisped as their infant prayer, she saw them laid in their beds, and heard their pretty good-night.
A lone woman to whom all the sweet cares of maternity have been denied cannot look upon a sight like this without feeling the void in her own heart where a mother's affection should have nestled.
Cynthia sat perfectly still, without rocking, and watched kind Mrs.
Hopkins at her quasi parental task. A tear stole down her rigid face as she saw the rounded limbs of the children bared in their white beauty, and their little heads laid on the pillow. They were sleeping quietly when Mrs. Hopkins left the room for a moment on some errand of her own. Cynthia rose softly from her chair, stole swiftly to the bedside, and printed a long, burning kiss on each of their foreheads.
When Mrs. Hopkins came back, she found the maiden lady sitting in her place just as she left her, but rocking in her chair and sobbing as one in sudden pangs of grief.
"It is a great trouble, Miss Cynthy," she said,--"a great trouble to have such a child as Myrtle to think of and to care for. If she was like our Susan Posey, now!--but we must do the best we can; and if Mr. Gridley once sets himself to it, you may depend upon it he 'll make it all come right. I wouldn't take on about it if I was you.
You let me speak to our Mr. Gridley. We all have our troubles. It is n't everybody that can ride to heaven in a C-spring shay, as my poor husband used to say; and life 's a road that 's got a good many thank-you-ma'ams to go bumpin' over, says he."Miss Badlam acquiesced in the philosophical reflections of the late Mr. Ammi Hopkins, and left it to his widow to carry out her own suggestion in reference to consulting Master Gridley. The good woman took the first opportunity she had to introduce the matter, a little diffusely, as is often the way of widows who keep boarders.
