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A Second Spring
by
“Men is boys,” retorted Mrs. Martin. “The more you treat ’em like boys, the better they think you use ’em. They always want motherin’, an’ somebody to come to. I always tell folks I’ve got five child’n, counting Mr. Martin the youngest. The more bluster they have, the more boys they be. Now Marthy knew that about brother Isr’el, an’ she always ruled him by love an’ easin’ of him down from them high perches he was always settin’ upon. Everything was always right with her an’ all wrong with him when they was young, but she could always say the right word.”
“She was a good-feelin’ woman; she did make him a good wife, if I say it that shouldn’t o’ my own sister,” sighed Mrs. Stevens. “She was the best o’ housekeepers, was Marthy. I never went over so neat a house. I ain’t got the gift myself. I can clear up, Mis’ Martin, but I can’t remain cleared up.”
The two sisters turned to their pathetic work of looking over the orderly closets and making solemn researches into the suspected shelters of moths. Much talk of the past was suggested by the folding of blankets; and as they set back the chairs, and brushed the floors that were made untidy by the funeral guests of the day before, they wondered afresh what would become of Israel Haydon, and what plan he would make for himself; for Mrs. Martin could only stay with him for a few days, and Mrs. Stevens was obliged to return as soon as possible to her busy household and an invalid daughter. As long as they could stay the house went on as usual, and Israel Haydon showed no apprehension of difficulties ahead. He took up the routine of his simple fashion of life, and when William asked if he should bring his team to plough, he received the surprised answer that all those things were settled when they talked about them earlier in the spring. Of course he should want potatoes, and it was high time they were planted. A boy arrived from the back country who had lived at the farm the summer before,–a willing, thick-headed young person in process of growth,–and Israel Haydon took great exception to his laziness and inordinate appetite, and threatened so often to send him back where he came from that only William’s insistence that they had entered into an engagement with poor Thomas, and the women’s efforts toward reconciliation, prevailed.
When sister Martin finally departed, bag and baggage, she felt as if she were leaving her brother to be the prey of disaster. He was sternly self-reliant, and watched her drive away down the lane with something like a sense of relief. The offending Thomas was standing by, expecting rebuke almost with an air of interest; but the old man only said to him, in an apologetic and friendly way, “There! we’ve got to get along a spell without any women folks, my son. I haven’t heard of any housekeeper to suit me, but we’ll get along together till I do.”
“There’s a great sight o’ things cooked up, sir,” said Thomas, with shining eyes.
“We’ll get along,” repeated the old man. “I won’t have you take no liberties, but if we save the time from other things, we can manage just as well as the women. I want you to sweep out good, night an’ morning, an’ fetch me the wood an’ water, an’ I’ll see to the housework.” There was no idea of appointing Thomas as keeper of the pantry keys, and a shadow of foreboding darkened the lad’s hopeful countenance as the master of the house walked away slowly up the yard.
III.
It was the month of June; the trees were in full foliage; there was no longer any look of spring in the landscape, and the air and sky belonged to midsummer. Mrs. Israel Haydon had been dead nearly two months.