Life at High Tide | Page 3

the Poor
Farm ain't got a scrap of shade!--I wonder if he feels it, bein' sent

there?"
"I ain't seen, him, but Josh, told me he was terrible broke up over it.
Told me he just set and wrung his hands when Hiram Wells told him
he'd got to go. Josh said it was real pitiful. But what can you do? He's
'bout blind; and he ain't just right, either."
"How ain't he just right?"
"Well, you know, Nathaniel was always one of the dreamin' kind; a real
good man, but he wa'n't like folks."
Lizzie nodded.
"And if you remember, he was all the time inventin' things. Well, now
he's got set that he can invent a machine so as you can see the dead. I
mean spirits. Well, of course he's crazy. Josh says he's crazy as a
bluefish. But what's troublin' him now is that he can't finish his
machine. He says that if he goes to the Farm, what with him bein'
blindish and not able to do for himself, that his glasses and wheels--and
dear knows what all that he's got for ghost-seein'--will get all smashed
up. An' I guess he's 'bout right. They're terrible crowded, Mis' Dean
says. Nat allows that if he could stay at Dyer's, or some place, a couple
of months, where he could work, quiet, he'd make so much money that
he'd pay his board ten times over. Crazy. But then, I can't help bein'
sorry for him. Some folks don't mind the troubles of crazy folks, but I
don't know why they ain't as hard to bear as sensible folks' troubles."
"Harder maybe," Lizzie said.
"Josh said he just set and wrung his hands together, and he says to
Hiram Wells, he says, 'Gimme a month--and I'll finish it. For the sake,'
he says, 'of the blessed dead.' Gave you goose-flesh, Josh said."
"You can see that he believes in his machine."
"Oh, he's just as sure as he's alive!"
"But why can't he finish it at the Farm? I guess Mis' Dean would give
him a closet to keep it in."
"Closet? Mercy! He's got it all spread out on a table in his room at the
hotel. Them loafers go up and look at it, and bust right out laughin'.
Josh says it's all little wheels and lookin'-glasses, and they got to be
balanced just so. Mis' Dean ain't got a spot he could have for ten
minutes at a time."
They were silent for a few minutes, and then Lizzie Graham said:
"Does he feel bad at bein' a pauper? The Mays was always respectable.

Old Mis' May was real proud."
Mrs. Butterfield ruminated: "Well, he don't like it, course. But he said
(you know he's crazy)--'I am nothin',' he says, 'and my pride is less than
nothin'. But for the sake of the poor Dead, grant me time,' he says. Ain't
it pitiful? Almost makes you feel like lettin' him wait. But what's the
use?"
Lizzie Graham nodded. "But there's people would pay money for one
of them machines--if it worked."
"That's what he said; he said he'd make a pile of money. But he didn't
care about that, except then he could pay board to Dyer, if Dyer'd let
him stay."
"An' won't he?"
"No; and I don't see as he has any call to, any more 'an you or me."
Lizzie Graham plucked at the dry grass at her side. "That's so. 'Tain't
one person's chore more 'an another's. But--there! If this wa'n't
Jonesville, I believe I'd let him stay with me till he finishes up his
machine."
"Why, Lizzie Graham!" cried Mrs. Butterfield, "what you talkin' about?
You couldn't do it--you. You ain't got to spare, in the first place. And
anyway, him an unmarried man, and you a widow woman! Besides,
he'll never finish it."
Lizzie's face reddened angrily. "Guess I could have a visitor as well as
anybody."
"Oh, I didn't mean you wouldn't be a good provider," Mrs. Butterfield
said, turning red herself. "I meant folks would talk."
"Folks could find something better to talk about," Lizzie said;
"Jonesville is just nothin' but a nest o' real mean, lyin' gossip!"
"Well, that's so," Mrs. Butterfield agreed, placidly.
Lizzie Graham put on her sunbonnet. "Better be gettin' along," she said.
Mrs. Butterfield rose ponderously. "And they'd say you was a
spiritualist, too; they'd say you took him to get his ghost-machine
made."
"That's just what I would do," the other answered, sharply. "I ain't a
mite of a spiritualist, and I don't believe in ghosts; but I believe in bein'
kind."
"I believe in keepin' a good name," Mrs. Butterfield said, dryly.
They went on down the windy pasture slope in silence; the mullein

candles blossomed shoulder-high, and from underfoot came the warm,