New Chronicles of Rebecca | Page 5

see about a sick woman
over to North Riverboro. She's got to go to the poor farm."
This fragment of news speedily brought Miss Sawyer, and her sister
Jane as well, to the door, which commanded a view of Mr. Perkins and
his wagon. Mr. Perkins, the father of Rebecca's bosom friend, was
primarily a blacksmith, and secondarily a selectman and an overseer of
the poor, a man therefore possessed of wide and varied information.
"Who is it that's sick?" inquired Miranda.
"A woman over to North Riverboro."
"What's the trouble?"
"Can't say."
"Stranger?'
"Yes, and no; she's that wild daughter of old Nate Perry that used to
live up towards Moderation. You remember she ran away to work in
the factory at Milltown and married a do--nothin' fellow by the name o'
John Winslow?"
"Yes; well, where is he? Why don't he take care of her?"

"They ain't worked well in double harness. They've been rovin' round
the country, livin' a month here and a month there wherever they could
get work and house-room. They quarreled a couple o' weeks ago and he
left her. She and the little boy kind o' camped out in an old loggin'
cabin back in the woods and she took in washin' for a spell; then she
got terrible sick and ain't expected to live."
"Who's been nursing her?" inquired Miss Jane.
"Lizy Ann Dennett, that lives nearest neighbor to the cabin; but I guess
she's tired out bein' good Samaritan. Anyways, she sent word this
mornin' that nobody can't seem to find John Winslow; that there ain't
no relations, and the town's got to be responsible, so I'm goin' over to
see how the land lays. Climb in, Rebecca. You an' Emmy Jane crowd
back on the cushion an' I'll set forrard. That's the trick! Now we're off!"
"Dear, dear!" sighed Jane Sawyer as the sisters walked back into the
brick house. "I remember once seeing Sally Perry at meeting. She was a
handsome girl, and I'm sorry she's come to grief."
"If she'd kep' on goin' to meetin' an' hadn't looked at the men folks she
might a' be'n earnin' an honest livin' this minute," said Miranda. "Men
folks are at the bottom of everything wrong in this world," she
continued, unconsciously reversing the verdict of history.
"Then we ought to be a happy and contented community here in
Riverboro," replied Jane, "as there's six women to one man."
"If 't was sixteen to one we'd be all the safer," responded Miranda
grimly, putting the doughnuts in a brown crock in the cellar-way and
slamming the door.
II
The Perkins horse and wagon rumbled along over the dusty country
road, and after a discreet silence, maintained as long as human flesh
could endure, Rebecca remarked sedately:

"It's a sad errand for such a shiny morning, isn't it, Mr. Perkins?"
"Plenty o' trouble in the world, Rebecky, shiny mornin's an' all," that
good man replied. "If you want a bed to lay on, a roof over your head,
an' food to eat, you've got to work for em. If I hadn't a' labored early an'
late, learned my trade, an' denied myself when I was young, I might a'
be'n a pauper layin' sick in a loggin' cabin, stead o' bein' an overseer o'
the poor an' selectman drivin' along to take the pauper to the poor
farm."
"People that are mortgaged don't have to go to the poor farm, do they,
Mr. Perkins?" asked Rebecca, with a shiver of fear as she remembered
her home farm at Sunnybrook and the debt upon it; a debt which had
lain like a shadow over her childhood.
"Bless your soul, no; not unless they fail to pay up; but Sal Perry an'
her husband hadn't got fur enough along in life to BE mortgaged. You
have to own something before you can mortgage it."
Rebecca's heart bounded as she learned that a mortgage represented a
certain stage in worldly prosperity.
"Well," she said, sniffing in the fragrance of the new-mown hay and
growing hopeful as she did so; "maybe the sick woman will be better
such a beautiful day, and maybe the husband will come back to make it
up and say he's sorry, and sweet content will reign in the humble
habitation that was once the scene of poverty, grief, and despair. That's
how it came out in a story I'm reading."
"I hain't noticed that life comes out like stories very much," responded
the pessimistic blacksmith, who, as Rebecca privately thought, had read
less than half a dozen books in his long and prosperous career.
A drive of three or four miles brought the party to a patch of woodland
where many of the tall pines had been hewn the previous winter. The
roof