Friendship Village Love Stories

something sweet and bright and long ago. It happened this last winter, but I cannot perceive any grave difference between th

mere clerk of a stair instead of a proprietor-like hall staircase. In the confusion which followed—the carnations had narrowly missed the blazing white gas burner high in the room—the bride ran away above stairs, her two bridesmaid

s closed there was a rap at i

wedding gown and the little bells of lilies unfaded in her blond hair became her who

said, "you ou

with mirth and with its new, deep note. "I'll never see yo

looked up from her v

lbum," she said to Allen plaintively. "Has he got anybo

mother with them,—as if there were abroad some secret Word of which they knew the meaning. For Miggy is suff

g

ered skirt box. And after all, he did not look

omin' in the parlour lookin' so differ'nt, I'm blessed

You use' to be afraid of me when we's first engaged, but you ai

tenderly, c

said. "Now

nswered seri

hly, "we're married! We

—the dishes, and the glass, and the ornaments. There won't be another dinin'

furnished and waiting, down the snowy s

as's—just us two by ourselves," A

im,[Pg 99] "that's what I want. The

d. "Right away?"

o many presents," she went on happily. "They's two water pitchers alike. Bess says I can change hers. We

y. "And I'll take you to the place I

Allen, the little stray child picked up on the streets of the City by that good woman whom Chris had never seen.

o his hands, closed over

ous wistfulness, "will you always,

gently. "They's nobody like you anywhere

g

you to say it?

like sayin' your own name over the teleph

said, "al

" he repeat

ween us, Allen—like they do, like with Bess and Opie,—busine

raid of each other, honey. I guess we're j

lien things, detached itself from the accompaniment in the next room, say

crisp muslin gown that had so terrified him. She rose and stood beside him, and he waited for a mo

hour done as quick as I c

other from the vague and indete

g

the doorway, with the bridesmaids laughing beside her. And th

indow into the dark. It was Jacob Ernestine, brother to the woman who had brought up Allen and had been kind to him when nobody else in the world was kind. For years Sarah Ernestine had been "West"—and with that awful inarticulacy of her class, mere distance had become an impassable

I see she didn't know nothin' 'bout your doin's. I didn't let her know. I jus' drove in, like split, to tell you, when the doctor went. H

," Allen said. "You

down at the bright figures of the carpet.

e?" Allen aske

old man answered, with a touch

were children, and their merrymaking did not impress him as wholly real. Neither, for that matter, did Allen's wedding. Besides, his own sister was dying—somehow putting an end to the time when he and she had been at home together. That was all he

shortly,[Pg 103] and went back to the

what had happened, Chris herself was on the threshold, already in sober brown, as one who has put aside rainbows and entered on li

to go, Chrissie,"

soft with sympathy for the

id quietly, "of cou

essly. That possibility

, dear. Twelve miles out in Caled

sympathy, she la

k I wouldn't?" she ask

two bridesmaids manifestly heard the Word

g

aying decisively. "You help father an

other and lifted his wi

nded. "Will you go—in the

drew away from him and set th

t signalling of his bells. It was a place, that rise by the Corner church on the edge of the village, where two others in such case might have drawn rein to look at Everything, stretching before, rhythmic c

ts. "So many folks's houses—homes, all started. I s'pose it was just as

g

. "And theirs ain't anything sid

she agree

, her eyes here and there on the valley lights, while Alle

she sai

swered. "I'm

n' Threat Hubbelthwait drunk all the time. An' Howells's, poor and can't pay, and don't care if they can't, and quarrels so folks can hear 'em from the road. And the Moneys', that's

it?" said Allen, looking at

t-coat pocket, and she suddenly snuggle

she said, "

ad?" he wanted to know

g

house, like us," she said, "and with their minds

en, reasonably,

ow can you tell? Folks just do get that w

, ain't it?" said A

slippers and bracelets, and him slick as a kitten's foot. Think of her now, Allen, with bracelets. And

s own against hers, glowing and

happy and keep ourse

ts and their shadows and drifted back to talk about the new house and the presents, and the dinners and suppers and breakfasts together. For these were the stuff of which the time was made. As

it?" Christopha exclaimed w

Allen answered, and gave the horse to

he drunkenness at the Hubbelthwaits', the poverty at the Howells', the ill nature at the Moneys'; and here, in Jacob's cottage, for death. There was no doubt of the quality of the hour in the cottage. The roo

at absence of curiosity at what was so vital to him gripped Allen's heart, and without his knowing the process, showed him the[Pg 108] nature of death. The neighbour

before the oven—that little stray boy whom Sarah Ernestine had picked up as she had once picked up Allen. He looked up at Christopha with big, soft eyes, na?ve as the first bird. Almost before she knew that she meant to do so, Chris

she said, "thi

And very likely because he had felt strange and lonely and now was taken some account of, he

h closed eyes, under

g

ttle John. You find him—a hom

We can do that, I guess. Don't you

But you be good to him, Allen, will you?" sh

e," All

k her he

ouldn't—do much. I just—thought I cou

, mother, I gues

opened

f I did! When I think how mebbe I

the frost of the pane, and settled himself at the bed's[Pg 110] foot to watch. And when, after a long time, the child fell asleep, Chris would not lay him down. Allen would have taken him, and Jacob came and tried to do so, but she shook her head and they let her be. She sat so still, hour after hour, that at last she herself dozed; and it seemed to her, in a manner of dreaming, that the carnation plant on the window-sill had lifted and

one were to pass into another chamber. And after that, as quickly as might be, Christop

cob's cottage. If Chris's mother would take him[Pg 111] for a little,—but Allen knew, without at all being able to define it, her plaintive, burdened manner, the burdened manner of the irresponsibl

e him to, Chrissie?" Al

we?" she answered. "I donno. I thought w

't it?" said Allen

the east. There was about the hour something primitive, as if, in this loneliest of all the hours

u'll miss her. I mean mi

id, "I'll miss kn

what to do with the little

ght. We've got to settle that,

g

aited their coming to Jacob's cottage. "But she'll hev to be over there lots to-day and to-mo

d, "I donno as

tle farther on, "but they ain't up yet.

do that, I guess." Christoph

ss thinkin' of her bein' somewheres

that," said

m, that she could no longer keep her hand warm in Allen's greatcoat pocket. But above the child's head her eyes and Allen's would meet, and in that hour th

uld not be well to knock at these, still and sombre-windowed. And though there were lights at the Moneys' and at the Howells' and at t

," Chris said of them vaguely, "and it don't s

ey called him that the child seemed suddenly a pers

!" Chr

is it?" he a

think—could we

wered, "I be

edge of the village. The village, rhythmic crest of wall and shallow of lawn,

him live with us?

ris said, "if we

y, "well, I guess t

g

'd of liked i

you heard what she said—that about keepin' him from bein'

d her face

raid," she

ther," her

d of fear than in the future which had sought

s as if they were the genii of their own mysterious future, a future whose solution trembled very near. For with the charge of the

if we could get like the Howells' an' the Hubbelthwa

"we couldn't. Th

betrothal, new marriage, new birth. But[Pg 115] when he w

re should be anybody—else. I mean for us. Would—

eyes brave

," she said, "of

laughed joyousl

For always an' always. An' here's this

e sleeping child, and drove on toward the villag