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"Put them down on the door-step, Fanny," said Ben, "so that we can see them better." "I'm afraid you'll frighten them," replied Fanny; "Miss Gertrude doesn't like to have them frightened." "No, we won't," said Ben; "we're disposed to be very friendly to Miss Gertrude's birds. Where did she get them? Do you know, Fanny?" "Why, they are Indian birds; Mr. Sullivan sent them to her." "Who is he?"
She came straight to the kitchen and sat down on the door-step, looking worried and preoccupied. "How comes it you ain't singin'?" asked Mrs. Wiggs. "If I had a voice like yourn, folks would have to stop up their years with cotton. I jes find myself watchin' fer you to come home, so's I can hear you singin' them pretty duets round the house."
She had a calm, motherly face, gray hair combed smoothly down over her ears, a plain old-fashioned gray dress and an air of being perfectly at home. It was the serene, unconscious manner one would have in sitting on the door-step at home. She did not seem to belong in the midst of this seething curious mass, or to realize that she was a part of the show.
Her mind was so full of the past that she had no heart to swallow the devices of the present, but upon persuasion she yielded; and when the coffee was drunk, pipes were lighted and comfortably back they sat and talked about the neighbors. After a while an old carryall wobbled up to the gate and out got Mrs. Spencer. By the time she reached the door-step fresh tears were falling.
There was no answer, for the children did not know what to say. But the man seemed to know what to do; he seated himself on the door-step, and wiped his face with a cotton handkerchief. Little Katie, the girl with flying hair, who was sometimes called 'Flyaway, looked at him with surprise as he puffed at every breath. "When um breeves," said she to Dotty, "seems's um whissils."
'For the Lord's sake, stand o' one side, I prayed en; 'do'ee now, that's a dear! But he wudn' budge; no, not though I said several holy words out of the Mornin' Service. "'Drabbet it! says I, 'let's try the back door. Why didn' I think 'pon that afore? And around I runs. "There 'pon the back door-step was a woman! an' pretty well as gashly as the man.
On the Mount Washington range and on Mount Lafayette it is easy enough to hear his music, but one rarely gets more than a flying glimpse of the bird. Here, as I say, he was never out of hearing, and seldom long out of sight, even from the door-step.
To see him splitting away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and knocking up against the posts, and starting on again as if he was made of iron, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out arter him oh, my eye!" The vivid imagination of Master Bates presented the scene before him in too strong colours, and he rolled upon a door-step and laughed louder than before.
He got the great Radical on the door-step, just setting out for church. The two men had not met before, but Andrew was a disciple in the school in which the other taught. Between man and man formal introductions are humbug. Andrew explained in a few words the nature of his visit, and received a cordial welcome. "But I could call again," he said, observing the hymn-book in the other's hand.
He groaned inwardly: "Odd that I must pay for his landlady being a vixen!" The note was changed; the debt liquidated. On the door-step, as he was going to lunch, old Anthony waylaid him, and was almost noisily persistent in demanding his one pound three and his five pound ten. Algernon paid the sums, ready to believe that there was a suspicion abroad of his intention to become a colonist.
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