Jane Field

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Jane Field

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jane Field, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Jane Field A Novel
Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Release Date: February 18, 2006 [EBook #17790]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly

Jane Field
A Novel
By
Mary E. Wilkins
Author of "A Humble Romance, and other stories" "A New England Nun, and other stories" "Young Lucretia, and other stories"
Illustrated
New York
Harper & Brothers Publishers
Chapter I
Amanda Pratt's cottage-house was raised upon two banks above the road-level. Here and there the banks showed irregular patches of yellow-green, where a little milky-stemmed plant grew. It had come up every spring since Amanda could remember.
There was a great pink-lined shell on each side of the front door-step, and the path down over the banks to the road was bordered with smaller shells. The house was white, and the front door was dark green, with an old-fashioned knocker in the centre.
There were four front windows, and the roof sloped down to them; two were in Amanda's parlor, and two were in Mrs. Field's. She rented half of her house to Mrs. Jane Field.
There was a head at each of Amanda's front windows. One was hers, the other was Mrs. Babcock's. Amanda's old blond face, with its folds of yellow-gray hair over the ears and sections of the softly-wrinkled, pinky cheeks, was bent over some needle-work. So was Mrs. Babcock's, darkly dim with age, as if the hearth-fires of her life had always smoked, with a loose flabbiness about the jaw-bones, which seemed to make more evident the firm structure underneath.
Amanda was sewing a braided rug; her little veiny hands jerked the stout thread through with a nervous energy that was out of accord with her calm expression and the droop of her long slender body.
"It's pretty hard sewin' braided mats, ain't it?" said Mrs. Babcock.
"I don't care how hard 'tis if I can get 'em sewed strong," replied Amanda, and her voice was unexpectedly quick and decided. "I never had any feelin' that anything was hard, if I could only do it."
"Well, you ain't had so much hard work to do as some folks. Settin' in a rockin'-chair sewin' braided mats ain't like doin' the housework for a whole family. If you'd had the cookin' to do for four men-folks, the way I have, you'd felt it was pretty hard work, even if you did make out to fill 'em up." Mrs. Babcock smiled, and showed that she did not forget she was company, but her tone was quite fierce.
"Mebbe I should," returned Amanda, stiffly.
There was a silence.
"Let me see, how many mats does that make?" Mrs. Babcock asked, finally, in an amiable voice.
"Like this one?"
"Yes."
"This makes the ninth."
Mrs. Babcock scrutinized the floor. It was almost covered with braided rugs, and they were all alike.
"I declare I don't see where you'll put another in here," said she.
"I guess I can lay 'em a little thicker over there by the what-not."
"Well, mebbe you can; but I declare I shouldn't scarcely think you needed another. I shouldn't think your carpet would wear out till the day of judgment. What made you have them mats all jest alike?"
"I like 'em better so," replied Amanda, with dignity.
"Well, of course, if you do there ain't nothin' to say; it's your carpet an' your mats," returned Mrs. Babcock, with grim apology.
There were two curious features about Amanda Pratt's parlor: one was a gentle monotony of details; the other, a certain savor of the sea. It was like holding a shell to one's ear to enter Amanda's parlor. There was a faint suggestion of far-away sandy beaches, the breaking of waves, and the rush of salt winds. In the centre of the mantel-shelf stood a stuffed sea-gull; on either side shells were banked. The fire-place was flanked by great branches of coral, and on the top of the air-tight stove there stood always in summer-time, when there was no fire, a superb nautilus shell, like a little pearl vessel. The corner what-not, too, had its shelves heaped with shells and coral and choice bits of rainbow lava from volcanic islands. Between the windows, instead of the conventional mahogany cardtable, stood one of Indian lacquer, and on it was a little inlaid cabinet that was brought from over seas. The whole room in this little inland cottage, far beyond the salt fragrance of the sea, seemed like one of those marine fossils sometimes found miles from the coast. It indicated the presence of the sea in the lives of Amanda's