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"I sorter wish he would appear," he presently put in, between puffs at his pipe. "There was somethin' I wanted to ask him about that durn motor-boat." "You don't mean to say that boat's out of order again, do you, Zenas Henry?" questioned Abbie. "No, oh, no! 'Tain't out of order exactly. But the pesky propeller is kickin' up worse'n ordinary. It's awful taxin' on the patience.
She was dimly conscious of an agony of compunction on the wrinkled face before her, but it excited in her only a dull wonder. Why was Abbie looking so strangely at her? If only that tiresome clock would cease its muttering!
So she went over in detail everything which had occurred that day but persistently her thoughts returned to the question which had so startled her, coming from the lips of a stranger, and to the singleness of heart which seemed to possess her Cousin Abbie. "Was she a fellow-pilgrim after all?" she queried. If so, what caused the difference between Abbie and herself.
Her amazement reached its hight when she felt a little rustle beside her, and turned in time to see the eager light in Abbie's eyes as she said: "One of my class has decided for Christ." "Good news," responded the leader. "Don't let us forget this item of thanksgiving when we pray." As for Ester she was almost inclined not to believe her ears. Had her cousin Abbie actually "spoken in meeting?"
Captain Elisha, as he often said, did not "set much store" by clothes; but there was something about this young man which always made him conscious that his own trousers were a little too short, or his boots too heavy, or something. "I wouldn't wear a necktie like his," he wrote Abbie, after his first meeting with Malcolm, "but blessed if I don't wish I could if I would!"
"Indeed, Uncle Ralph, I beg you will not judge of any other person by my conduct in this matter. I am very sorry, and very much ashamed that I have been so weak and wicked. I think just as Abbie does, only I am not like her, and have been tempted to do wrong, for fear you would think me foolish."
Aunt Abbie, the cook, brought her a cup of tea, and Mary volunteered a question. "Do you know the Doctor's people, Auntie?" she asked hesitatingly. "Lord, child, he's a mystery to everybody! All we know is that he's the best man that ever walked the earth. He won't talk and the mountain folks are too polite to nose into his business.
And she stood as if riveted to the spot; stood in speechless, moveless horror and amaze and then the swift-coming thoughts shaped themselves into two woe-charged words: "Oh Abbie!" What a household was this into which death had so swiftly and silently entered!
The week before Hiram and I were to be called in church they struck each other, and when Hiram took my father's part his father drove him out of his house, and Hiram hadn't nothing, and went West; and I never heard from him nor saw him till the day he come in here last fall. Don't you see, child, you got to take him back his money?" Abbie squared her shoulders.
Or I would wander around the houses to see what was going on, meeting groups of promenaders by the way. At the cottage the piano would be playing, and likely as not Lucas and José or Willard and Charles were waltzing with Anna and Abbie or Katie and Agnes to Louisa's playing. Or it was singing school, and all joined it; or Mrs. Otherwise I was dreaming day-dreams to Fanny's piano playing.
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