Jane Field | Page 9

looking at her.
Suddenly Lois opened her eyes wide and sat up. "What are you
standing there looking at me so for, mother?" she said, in her weak,
peevish voice.
"I ain't lookin' at you, child. I've jest come home from meetin'. I guess
you've been asleep."
"I haven't been asleep a minute. I heard you open the outside door."
Mrs. Field's hand verged toward the letter in her pocket. Then she
began untying her bonnet.
Lois arose, and lighted another lamp. "Well, I guess I'll go to bed," said
she.
"Wait a minute," her mother returned.
Lois paused inquiringly.

"Never mind," her mother said, hastily. "You needn't stop. I can tell
you jest as well to-morrow."
"What was it?"
"Nothin' of any account. Run along."
Chapter II
The next morning Lois had gone to her school and her mother had not
yet shown the letter to her. She went about as usual, doing her
housework slowly and vigorously. Mrs. Field's cleanliness was
proverbial in this cleanly New England neighborhood. It almost
amounted to asceticism; her rooms, when her work was finished, had
the bareness and purity of a nun's cell. There was never any bloom of
dust on Mrs. Field's furniture; there was only the hard, dull glitter of the
wood. Her few chairs and tables looked as if waxed; the paint was
polished in places from her doors and window-casings; her
window-glass gave out green lights like jewels; and all this she did with
infinite pains and slowness, as there was hardly a natural movement left
in her rheumatic hands. But there was in her nature an element of stern
activity that must have its outcome in some direction, and it took the
one that it could find. Jane had used to take in sewing before her hands
were diseased. In her youth she had learned the trade of a tailoress;
when ready-made clothing, even for children, came into use, she made
dresses. Her dresses had been long-waisted and stiffly boned, with high,
straight biases, seemingly fitted to her own nature instead of her
customers' forms; but they had been strongly and faithfully sewed, and
her stitches held fast as the rivets on a coat of mail. Now she could not
sew. She could knit, and that was all, besides her housework, that she
could do.
This morning, while dusting a little triangular what-not that stood in a
corner of her sitting-room, she came across a small box that held some
old photographs. The box was made of a kind of stucco-work--shells
held in place by a bed of putty. Amanda Pratt had made it and given it
to her. Mrs. Field took up this box and dusted it carefully; then she

opened it, and took out the photographs one by one.
After a while she stopped; she did not take out any more, but she
looked intently at one; then she replaced all but that one, got painfully
up from the low foot-stool where she had been sitting, and went out of
her room across the entry to Amanda's, with the photograph in her
hand.
Amanda sat at her usual window, sewing on her rug. The sunlight came
in, and her shadow, set in a bright square, wavered on the floor; the
clock out in the kitchen ticked. Amanda looked up when Mrs. Field
entered. "Oh, it's you?" said she. "I wondered who was comin'. Set
down, won't you?"
Mrs. Field went over to Amanda and held out the photograph. "I want
to see if you can tell me who this is."
Amanda took the photograph and held it toward the light. She
compressed her lips and wrinkled her forehead. "Why, it's you, of
course--ain't it?"
Mrs. Field made no reply; she stood looking at her.
"Why, ain't it you?" Amanda asked, looking from the picture to her in a
bewildered way.
"No; it's Esther."
"Esther?"
"Yes, it's Esther."
"Well, I declare! When was it took?"
"About ten years ago, when she was in Elliot."
"Well, all I've got to say is, if anybody had asked me, I'd have said it
was took for you yesterday. Why, Mis' Field, what's the matter?"

"There ain't anything the matter."
"Why, you look dreadfully."
Mrs. Field's face was pale, and there was a curious look about her
whole figure. It seemed as if shrinking from something, twisting itself
rigidly, as a fossil tree might shrink in a wind that could move it.
"I feel well 'nough," said she. "I guess it's the light."
"Well, mebbe 'tis," replied Amanda, still looking anxiously at her. "Of
course you know if you feel well, but you do look dreadful white to me.
Don't you want some water, or a swaller of cold tea?"
"No, I don't want a single thing; I'm well enough." Mrs. Field's tone