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Honey And Myrrh
by
“Every one,” said she.
She was a tall, large woman, well-knit, with no superfluous flesh. Her head was finely set, and she carried it with a simple unconsciousness better than dignity. Everybody in Tiverton thought it had been a great cross to Susan Peavey to be so overgrown. They conceded that it was a mystery she had not turned out “gormin’.” But that was because Susan had left her vanity behind with early youth, in the days when, all legs and arms, she had given up the idea of beauty. Her face was strong-featured, overspread by a healthy color, and her eyes looked frankly out, as if assured of finding a very pleasant world. The sick always delighted in Susan’s nearness; her magnificent health and presence were like a supporting tide, and she seemed to carry outdoor air in her very garments. The schoolmaster still watched her. She rested and fascinated him at once by her strength and homely charm.
“I shall call you the Orphans’ Friend,” said he.
She laid down her work.
“Don’t you say one word,” she answered, with an air of abject confession. “It don’t interest me a mite! I give because it’s my bounden duty, but I’ll be whipped if I want to knit warm mittens all my life, an’ fill poor barrels. Sometimes I wisht I could git a chance to provide folks with what they don’t need ruther’n what they do.”
“I don’t see what you mean,” said the schoolmaster. “Tell me.”
Miss Susan was looking at the hearth. A warmer flush than that of firelight alone lay on her cheek. She bent forward and threw on a pine knot. It blazed richly. Then she drew the cricket more securely under her feet, and settled herself to gossip.
“Anybody’d think I’d most talked myself out sence you come here to board,” said she, “but you’re the beatemest for tolin’ anybody on. I never knew I had so much to say. But there! I guess we all have, if there’s anybody ‘t wants to listen. I never’ve said this to a livin’ soul, an’ I guess it’s sort o’ heathenish to think, but I’m tired to death o’ fightin’ ag’inst poverty, poverty! I s’pose it’s there, fast enough, though we’re all so well on ‘t we don’t realize it; an’ I’m goin’ to do my part, an’ be glad to, while I’m above ground. But I guess heaven’ll be a spot where we don’t give folks what they need, but what they don’t.”
“There is something in your Bible,” began the schoolmaster hesitatingly, “about a box of precious ointment.” He always said “your Bible,” as if church members held a proprietary right.
“That’s it!” replied Miss Susan, brightening. “That’s what I al’ays thought. Spill it all out, I say, an’ make the world smell as sweet as honey. My! but I do have great projicks settin’ here by the fire alone! Great projicks!”
“Tell me some!
“Well, I dunno’s I can, all of a piece, so to speak; but when it gits along towards eight o’clock, an’ the room’s all simmerin’, an’ the moon lays out on the snow, it does seem as if we made a pretty poor spec’ out o’ life. We don’t seem to have no color in it. Why, don’t you remember ‘Solomon in all his glory’? I guess ‘t wouldn’t ha’ been put in jest that way if there wa’n’t somethin’ in it. I s’pose he had crowns an’ rings an’ purple velvet coats an’ brocade satin weskits, an’ all manner o’ things. Sometimes seems as I could see him walkin’ straight in through that door there.” She was running a knitting needle back and forth through her ball of yarn as she spoke, without noticing that some one had been stamping the snow from his feet on the doorstone outside. The door, after making some bluster of refusal, was pushed open, and on the heels of her speech a man walked in.