Tiverton Tales | Page 5

the bread
soured over night, a pessimistic public, turning for relief to the local

drama, said that Amelia Titcomb had married a tramp. But as soon as
the heavens smiled again, it was conceded that she must have been
getting lonely in her middle age, and that she had taken the way of
wisdom so to furbish up mansions for the coming years. Whatever was
set down on either side of the page, Amelia did not care. She was
whole-heartedly content with her husband and their farm.
It had happened, one autumn day, that she was trying, all alone, to
clean out the cistern. This was while she was still Amelia Titcomb,
innocent that there lived a man in the world who could set his foot upon
her maiden state, and flourish there. She was an impatient creature. She
never could delay for a fostering time to put her plants into the ground,
and her fall cleaning was done long before the flies were gone. So,
to-day, while other house mistresses sat cosily by the fire, awaiting a
milder season, she was toiling up and down the ladder set in the cistern,
dipping pails of sediment from the bottom, and, hardy as she was,
almost repenting her of a too-fierce desire. Her thick brown hair was
roughened and blown about her face, her cheeks bloomed out in a
frosty pink, and the plaid kerchief, tied in a hard knot under her chin,
seemed foolishly ineffectual against the cold. Her hands ached, holding
the pail, and she rebelled inwardly against the inclemency of the time.
It never occurred to her that she could have put off this exacting job.
She would sooner have expected Heaven to put off the weather. Just as
she reached the top of the cistern, and lifted her pail of refuse over the
edge, a man appeared from the other side of the house, and stood
confronting her. He was tall and gaunt, and his deeply graven face was
framed by grizzled hair. Amelia had a rapid thought that he was not so
old as he looked; experience, rather than years, must have wrought its
trace upon him. He was leading a little girl, dressed with a very patent
regard for warmth, and none for beauty. Amelia, with a quick, feminine
glance, noted that the child's bungled skirt and hideous waist had been
made from an old army overcoat. The little maid's brown eyes were
sweet and seeking; they seemed to petition for something. Amelia's
heart did not respond at that time, she had no reason for thinking she
was fond of children. Yet she felt a curious disturbance at sight of the
pair. She afterwards explained it adequately to the man, by asserting
that they looked as odd as Dick's hatband.

"Want any farmwork done?" asked he. "Enough to pay for a night's
lodgin'?" His voice sounded strangely soft from one so large and
rugged. It hinted at unused possibilities. But though Amelia felt
impressed, she was conscious of little more than her own cold and
stiffness, and she answered sharply,--
"No, I don't. I don't calculate to hire, except in hayin' time, an' then I
don't take tramps."
The man dropped the child's hand, and pushed her gently to one side.
"Stan' there, Rosie," said he. Then he went forward, and drew the pail
from Amelia's unwilling grasp. "Where do you empt' it?" he asked.
"There? It ought to be carried further. You don't want to let it gully
down into that beet bed. Here, I'll see to it."
Perhaps this was the very first time in Amelia's life that a man had
offered her an unpaid service for chivalry alone. And somehow, though
she might have scoffed, knowing what the tramp had to gain, she
believed in him and in his kindliness. The little girl stood by, as if she
were long used to doing as she had been told, with no expectation of
difficult reasons; and the man, as soberly, went about his task. He
emptied the cistern, and cleansed it, with plentiful washings. Then, as if
guessing by instinct what he should find, he went into the kitchen,
where were two tubs full of the water which Amelia had pumped up at
the start. It had to be carried back again to the cistern; and when the job
was quite finished, he opened the bulkhead, set the tubs in the cellar,
and then, covering the cistern and cellar-case, rubbed his cold hands on
his trousers, and turned to the child.
"Come, Rosie," said he, "we'll be goin'."
It was a very effective finale, but still Amelia suspected no trickery.
The situation seemed to her, just as the two new actors did, entirely
simple, like the course of nature. Only, the day was a little