Keziah Coffin | Page 4

of the Rev. John Ellery, the young divinity student, who was to take the place of old Parson Langley, minister in the parish for over thirty years. Discussion in the village had now reached a critical point, for the Reverend John was expected by almost any coach. In those days, the days of the late fifties, the railroad down the Cape extended only as far as Sandwich; passengers made the rest of their journey by stage. Many came direct from the city by the packet, the little schooner, but Mr. Ellery had written that he should probably come on the coach.
"They say he's very nice-looking," remarked Miss Van Horne soberly, but with a MISCHIEVOUS glance under her dark lashes at Keziah. The lady addressed paused long enough to transfer several tacks from the floor to the saucer, and then made answer.
"Humph!" she observed. "A good many years ago I saw a theater show up to Boston. Don't be shocked; those circumstances we hear so much tell of--the kind you can't control--have kept me from goin' to theaters much, even if I wanted to. But I did see this entertainment, and a fool one 'twas, too, all singin' instead of talkin'--op'ra, I believe they called it. Well, as I started to say, one of the leadin' folks in it was the Old Harry himself, and HE was pretty good-lookin'."
Grace laughed, even though she had been somewhat shocked.
"Why, Aunt Keziah!" she exclaimed--those who knew Keziah Coffin best usually called her aunt, though real nephews and nieces she had none--"why, Aunt Keziah! What do you mean by comparing the-- the person you just mentioned with a MINISTER!"
"Oh, I wasn't comparin' 'em; I'll leave that for you Come-Outers to do. Drat this carpet! Seems's if I never saw such long tacks; I do believe whoever put 'em down drove 'em clean through the center of the earth and let the Chinymen clinch 'em on t'other side. I haul up a chunk of the cellar floor with every one. Ah, hum!" with a sigh, "I cal'late they ain't any more anxious to leave home than I am. But, far's the minister's concerned, didn't I hear of your Uncle Eben sayin' in prayer meetin' only a fortni't or so ago that all hands who wa'n't Come-Outers were own children to Satan? Mr. Ellery must take after his father some. Surprisin', ain't it, what a family the old critter's got."
The girl laughed again. For one brought up, since her seventh year, in the strictest of Come-Outer families, she laughed a good deal. Many Come-Outers considered it wicked to laugh. Yet Grace did it, and hers was a laugh pleasant to hear and distinctly pleasant to see. It made her prettier than ever, a fact which, if she was aware of it, should have been an additional preventive, for to be pretty smacks of vanity. Perhaps she wasn't aware of it.
"What do you think Uncle Eben would say if he heard that?" she asked.
"Say I took after my father, too, I presume likely. Does your uncle know you come here to see me so often? And call me 'aunt' and all that?"
"Of course he does. Aunt Keziah, you mustn't think Uncle Eben doesn't see the good in people simply because they don't believe as he does. He's as sweet and kind as--"
"Who? Eben Hammond? Land sakes, child, don't I know it? Cap'n Eben's the salt of the earth. I'm a Regular and always have been, but I'd be glad if my own society was seasoned with a few like him. 'Twould taste better to me of a Sunday." She paused, and then added quizzically: "What d'you s'pose Cap'n Elkanah and the rest of our parish committee would say if they heard THAT?"
"Goodness knows! Still, I'm glad to hear you say it. And uncle says you are as good a woman as ever lived. He thinks you're misled, of course, but that some day you'll see the error of your ways."
"Humph! I'll have to hurry up if I want to see 'em without spectacles. See my errors! Land sakes! much as I can do to see the heads of these tacks. Takin' up carpets is as hard a test of a body's eyesight as 'tis of their religion."
Her companion put down the tablecloth she was folding and looked earnestly at the other woman. To an undiscerning eye the latter would have looked much as she always did--plump and matronly, with brown hair drawn back from the forehead and parted in the middle; keen brown eyes with a humorous twinkle in them--this was the Keziah Coffin the later generation of Trumet knew so well.
But Grace Van Horne, who called her aunt and came to see her so frequently, while her brother was alive and during the month following his death,