Evelinas Garden | Page 9

think mean consider'ble when they don't. Looks don't
count for much, and I want you to remember it, and not be upset by
'em."
Thomas gave a great start and colored high. "I'd like to know what you
mean, father," he cried, sharply.
"Nothin'. I don't mean nothin', only I'm older'n you, and it's come in my
way to know some things, and it's fittin' you should profit by it. A
young woman's looks at you don't count for much. I don't s'pose she
knows why she gives 'em herself half the time; they ain't like us. It's
best you should make up your mind to it; if you don't, you may find it
out by the hardest. That's all. I ain't never goin' to bring this up again."
"I'd like to know what you mean, father." Thomas's voice shook with
embarrassment and anger.
"I ain't goin' to say anything more about it," replied the old man. "Mary
Ann Pease and Arabella Mann are both in the settin'-room with your
mother. I thought I'd tell ye, in case ye didn't want to see 'em, and
wanted to go to work on your sermon."
Thomas made an impatient ejaculation as he strode off. When he
reached the large white house where he lived he skirted it carefully.
The chirping treble of girlish voices came from the open sitting-room

window, and he caught a glimpse of a smooth brown head and a high
shell comb in front of the candle-light. The young minister tiptoed in
the back door and across the kitchen to the back stairs. The
sitting-room door was open, and the candle-light streamed out, and the
treble voices rose high. Thomas, advancing through the dusky kitchen
with cautious steps, encountered suddenly a chair in the dark corner by
the stairs, and just saved himself from falling. There was a startled
outcry from the sitting-room, and his mother came running into the
kitchen with a candle.
"Who is it?" she demanded, valiantly. Then she started and gasped as
her son confronted her. He shook a furious warning fist at the
sitting-room door and his mother, and edged towards the stairs. She
followed him close. "Hadn't you better jest step in a minute?" she
whispered. "Them girls have been here an hour, and I know they're
waitin' to see you." Thomas shook his head fiercely, and swung himself
around the corner into the dark crook of the back stairs. His mother
thrust the candle into his hand. "Take this, or you'll break your neck on
them stairs," she whispered.
Thomas, stealing up the stairs like a cat, heard one of the girls call to
his mother--"Is it robbers, Mis' Merriam? Want us to come an' help
tackle 'em?"--and he fairly shuddered; for Evelina's gentle-lady speech
was still in his ears, and this rude girlish call seemed to jar upon his
sensibilities.
"The idea of any girl screeching out like that," he muttered. And if he
had carried speech as far as his thought, he would have added, "when
Evelina is a girl!"
He was so angry that he did not laugh when he heard his mother answer
back, in those conclusive tones of hers that were wont to silence all
argument: "It ain't anything. Don't be scared. I'm coming right back."
Mrs. Merriam scorned subterfuges. She took always a silent stand in a
difficulty, and let people infer what they would. When Mary Ann Pease
inquired if it was the cat that had made the noise, she asked if her
mother had finished her blue and white counterpane.

The two girls waited a half-hour longer, then they went home. "What
do you s'pose made that noise out in the kitchen?" asked Arabella
Mann of Mary Ann Pease, the minute they were out-of-doors.
"I don't know," replied Mary Ann Pease. She was a broad-backed
young girl, and looked like a matron as she hurried along in the dusk.
"Well, I know what I think it was," said Arabella Mann, moving ahead
with sharp jerks of her little dark body.
"What?"
"It was him."
"You don't mean--"
"I think it was Thomas Merriam, and he was tryin' to get up the back
stairs unbeknownst to anybody, and he run into something."
"What for?"
"Because he didn't want to see us."
"Now, Arabella Mann, I don't believe it! He's always real pleasant to
me."
"Well, I do believe it, and I guess he'll know it when I set foot in that
house again. I guess he'll find out I didn't go there to see him! He
needn't feel so fine, if he is the minister; his folks ain't any better than
mine, an' we've got 'nough sight handsomer furniture in our parlor."
"Did you see how the tallow had all run down over the candles?"
"Yes, I