The Brimming Cup

Life of Mrs. Neale

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table," she told the children, and ran across the side-yard to the hedge. She leaned over this, calling, "Mr. Welles! Mr. Welles!" and when he came to

ought them back to the porch, Paul and Elly had almost finished setting the table. Elly nodded a c

dship growing up between the ge

to sit by you?" asked Mar

e was setting on the table. "If

uired as only a child could acquire an accent, the exa

Marsh," she said laughingly. "You'll soon learn to trans

ling them over to herself to be sure she missed none. "Meat, macaroni, spinach, hot plates, bread, butter, water . . . a pre

d gone upstairs to wash his hands, ages ago, and was probably still fooli

of the stairs she called up, "Mark! Come along, dear. Lunch is serve

een gazing up at the mountain. "What is that gr

ld probably tell you why they are called that. I have known but I've forgotten. There's some sort of tradition, I believe . . . no, I see you are getting ready to hear it called the

end!" exclai

e been lectured to on local h

les, loyally. "Though perhaps he does try t

th his mouth full, "fishing

to have a rest from telling Paul not to ta

never gone fishing in his life,

aul. "Mother a

onfirmed fisherman. Some of the earliest and happiest recollectio

elles. "I thought y

my childhood and youth here with my dear old cousin. The place is full of associations for m

It tastes like a man's version of creamed chicken

e sure I learned to make it in one of the

, where is Mark? He'll be late

ten one used that phrase in response to one

is hands were wetly, pinkly, unnaturally clean, but his roun

fied reproach, "Oh, Mark! You never

my food," he said calmly. "And you bet there aren't any microbes left on my hands." He went on, lookin

," said Paul, putting

d not like the insipid phrase "very good" nor did she consider the way a fork was held so very essential to salvation. "H

mouthful. Evidently he had not taken the

as man to man, "do you think you ought to

another mouthful, an

d say what you pleased about the faults of American and French family life, but at any rate the children didn't hate each other, as English children seemed to,

on't know whether you're used to children. If you're not, you mus

aul. That first evening when you sent him over with the cake, as he stood

noticed that Mr. Marsh had made no comment on the children. He was perhaps one of the people wh

sked Mr. Marsh now. "I've sent to the city for an invaluable factotum of mine to co

them what time it was. In spite of this precaution, the clock advanced so relentlessly that they were obliged

ef. "Strenuous, three of them at once, aren't they?" she said. "A New York friend of mine a

ion-cure?" asked M

s in cures as Eugenia does. You may meet her there this summer, by the way. She us

uired Marsh casually. "May I smoke?

moment, you'd know why I laugh. She is the embodiment of sophisticated cosmopolitanism, an expert on all sorts of esoteric, aesthetic

herself?" inquired Mr. W

ose? No European could ever take culture so seriously. You know how any convert always ha

es, perhaps?" s

le who lived in the Basses-Pyrénées are any more cultivated or had any broader horizons than people who live in the Green Mountains. My own experience is that when you actually live with people, day after day, year after year, yo

t a too-intimate contact, to be looked at so intently, although she was quite aware that there was a good deal of admiration in the loo

f the same stuff. Mostly I find them perfectly negligible, too utterly without savor even to glance at. Once in a thousand years, it seems to me, you

eased, but in an instant a quick fear of being ridiculous had voiced itself and was saying to her, "Don't be countrified. It's only that I've had no contact with people-of-the-world for a year now. That's the sort of thing they get their amusement fro

used up all your energy on other things, from what Mrs. Powers

mitted. "But it's a generator of energy,

as I gather you do . . . heavens! You must pour out your energy and pe

ranite boulder. I don't know how many times I've dragged myself to a practice-evening dog-tired physically with work and care of the children, stale morally, sure that I had nothing in me that was profitable for any purpose, feelin

e wondered if she were mistaken in th

was afraid that she had been carried away to seem high-flown or pretentious, and added hastily and humorously, "You mustn't think that it's because I'm making anything wonderful out of my chorus of country boys and girls and thei

of what she was saying. He almost looked hostile. Why should he? When she stopped, a little abashed at having been carried along by her feelings, Mr. Marsh put in lightly, with no attempt at transition,

ng you want to go all round the globe to look for it. And when you've go

nal necessity to keep up the appearance of believing in an exploded religion. "You know where the big world is," he said firmly. "It's where there are only people who don't have to wo

used to looking deep into human lives out of a complete knowledge of them as we do up here, it's very tantalizing and tormenting and after a while gets boring, the superficial, incoherent glimpses you get in suc

king of some quite abstract topic, "It may also be possibl

ay! But the words were no sooner out of his mouth than she had felt a scared

like the concerts, anyho

it pawed over as it is among people who make their livings out of it; used as it so often is as a background for the personal vanity or greed of the performer. Take an ordinary afternoon

a hearty relish, "Yes, music

hestra and make chamber-music are the real thing. But the music you make yourself . . . the music we make up here . . . well, perhaps my taste for it is like one's liking (some people

Vermonters to make music?" protested

arishes of the Basque country, began to teach the people of his parish really to sing some of the church chants. I never knew much about the details of what he did, and never spoke to him in my life, but from across half the world he has reached out to touch this cornet of America. By the time I was a young lady, he had two or three big country choruses under his direction. We used to drive up fist to one and then to another of those hill-towns, all white-w

f music, myself," confessed Mr. Welles. "Per

ried Marise spiritedly.

e lively old lady w

s voice that is my joy. It's done something for him, too, I think, really and truly, without sentimental exaggeration at all. He suffered a great injustice some six

bbers have taken advantage of the vagueness of the titles to cheat farmers out of their inheritance. The Powers case is typical. There always have been Powerses living right there, where they do now; that big pine that towers up so over their house was planted by 'Gene's great-grandfather. And they always owned an immense tract of wild mountain land, up beyond the Eagle Rock range, along the side of the Red-Brook marsh. But after paying taxes on it for generations all during the time when it was too far away to make it profitable to lumber, it was snatched away from them, seven years ago, just as modern methods and higher prices for spruce would have made it very valuable. A lawyer from New Hampshire named Lowder turned the trick. I won't bother you going into the legal details-a question of a fake warranty deed, against 'Gene's quit-claim deed, which was all he had in absence of those missing pages from the town records. As a matter of fact, the lawyer

n the heat of sympathetic indignation she and Neale had felt, recognized again the poison which triumphant unrighteousness leaves behind. She shook her head impat

lively accent of bitterness. "You have to get used to it in business life. It's very likely that your wicked Mr. Lowde

ion of him as a pasty-face

r he now said, hiding a small yawn, with no effort to conceal the fact that he had been bored, "Mrs. Crittenden, I've heard from Mr. Welles' house the

y than was at all the habit of her maturity. She told herself, surprised, that she had not felt this little sharp sting of wounded personal vanity since she was a girl. What di

nd turned to the Sonata Pathétique. Beethoven of the early middle period was the safest guess with such entirely unknown listeners. For all that she really knew, they might want her to play Chaminade and Moskowsky. Mr. Welles, the nice old man, might find even them above his comp

nd worth of her old friend . . . was there ever such a friend as that rough old German who had died so long before she was born?

that thrilled and sang and lived a full harmonious life of its own. That first pearling down-dropping arabesque of treble notes, not only her fingers played those, but every fiber in her, answering like the

heard no sound or stir from the porch, she had only a quiet smile of tolerant amusement. App

and towards that world of high, purified beauty which miraculo

? The Largo in the Chopin Sonata. Th

after that, though you didn't go on quaking and bowing your head, though you were no longer surprised to find music still there, better than you could possibly remember it, though you took it for granted, how deeply and solidly and steadfastly you lived in it and on it! It made you like the child in the Wordsworth sonnet, "A beauteous eve

Then she knew that someone had come into the room behind her. She

other from the hawk-like, intent, boldly imperious countenance which she had seen before. Those piercing eyes were softened and q

each other with no more need for words. "Go on . . . go on!" was all he said, very gently and

nd exactly what M

pride, a glory, a new sympathy in her