The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909)The Passing of Sister Barsett
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For a lover of society, such a life must have had its difficulties at times, except that the Ridge road was more traveled than any other in the township, and Mrs. Crane had invented a system of signals, to which she always resorted in case of wishing to speak to some one of her neighbors.
The afternoon was wearing late, one day toward the end of summer, and Mercy Crane sat in her doorway dressed in a favorite old-fashioned light calico and a small shoulder-shawl figured with large palm-leaves. She was making some tatting of a somewhat intricate pattern; she believed it to be the prettiest and most durable of trimmings, and having decorated her own wardrobe in the course of unlimited leisure, she was now making a few yards apiece for each of her more intimate friends, so that they might have something to remember her by. She kept glancing up the road as if she expected some one, but the time went slowly by, until at last a woman appeared to view, walking fast, and carrying a large bundle in a checked handkerchief.
Then Mercy Crane worked steadily for a short time without looking up, until the desired friend was crossing the grass between the dusty road and the steps. The visitor was out of breath, and did not respond to the polite greeting of her hostess until she had recovered herself to her satisfaction. Mrs. Crane made her the kind offer of a glass of water or a few peppermints, but was answered only by a shake of the head, so she resumed her work for a time until the silence should be broken.
“I have come from the house of mourning,” said Sarah Ellen Dow at last, unexpectedly.
“You don’t tell me that Sister Barsett——”
“She’s left us this time; she’s really gone,” and the excited news-bringer burst into tears. The poor soul was completely overwrought; she looked tired and wan, as if she had spent her forces in sympathy as well as hard work. She felt in her great bundle for a pocket-handkerchief, but was not successful in the search, and finally produced a faded gingham apron with long, narrow strings, with which she hastily dried her tears. The sad news appealed also to Mercy Crane, who looked across to the apple-trees, and could not see them for a dazzle of tears in her own eyes. The spectacle of Sarah Ellen Dow going home with her humble workaday possessions, from the house where she had gone in haste only a few days before to care for a sick person well known to them both, was a very sad sight.
“You sent word yesterday that you should be returnin’ early this afternoon, and would stop. I presume I received the message as you gave it?” asked Mrs. Crane, who was tenacious in such matters; “but I do declare I never looked to hear she was gone.”
“She’s been failin’ right along sence yisterday about this time,” said the nurse. “She’s taken no notice to speak of, an’ been eatin’ the vally o’ nothin’, I may say, sence I went there a-Tuesday. Her sisters both come back yisterday, an’ of course I was expected to give up charge to them. They’re used to sickness, an’ both havin’ such a name for bein’ great housekeepers!”
Sarah Ellen spoke with bitterness, but Mrs. Crane was reminded instantly of her own affairs. “I feel condemned that I ain’t begun my own fall cleanin’ yet,” she said, with an ostentatious sigh.
“Plenty o’ time to worry about that,” her friend hastened to console her.
“I do desire to have everything decent about my house,” resumed Mrs. Crane. “There’s nobody to do anything but me. If I was to be taken away sudden myself, I shouldn’t want to have it said afterward that there was wisps under my sofy or— There! I can’t dwell on my own troubles with Sister Barsett’s loss right before me. I can’t seem to believe she’s really passed away; she always was saying she should go in some o’ these spells, but I deemed her to be troubled with narves.”
Sarah Ellen Dow shook her head. “I’m all nerved up myself,” she said brokenly. “I made light of her sickness when I went there first, I’d seen her what she called dreadful low so many times; but I saw her looks this morning, an’ I begun to believe her at last. Them sisters o’ hers is the master for unfeelin’ hearts. Sister Barsett was a-layin’ there yisterday, an’ one of ’em was a-settin’ right by her tellin’ how difficult ’twas for her to leave home, her niece was goin’ to graduate to the high school, an’ they was goin’ to have a time in the evening, an’ all the exercises promised to be extry interesting. Poor Sister Barsett knew what she said an’ looked at her with contempt, an’ then she give a glance at me an’ closed up her eyes as if ’twas for the last time. I know she felt it.”
Sarah Ellen Dow was more and more excited by a sense of bitter grievance. Her rule of the afflicted household had evidently been interfered with; she was not accustomed to be ignored and set aside at such times. Her simple nature and uncommon ability found satisfaction in the exercise of authority, but she had now left her post feeling hurt and wronged, besides knowing something of the pain of honest affliction.
“If it hadn’t been for esteemin’ Sister Barsett as I always have done, I should have told ’em No, an’ held to it, when they asked me to come back an’ watch to-night. ’Tain’t for none o’ their sakes, but Sister Barsett was a good friend to me in her way.” Sarah Ellen broke down once more, and felt in her bundle again hastily, but the handkerchief was again elusive, while a small object fell out upon the doorstep with a bounce.
“’Tain’t nothin’ but a little taste-cake I spared out o’ the loaf I baked this mornin’,” she explained, with a blush. “I was so shoved out that I seemed to want to turn my hand to somethin’ useful an’ feel I was still doin’ for Sister Barsett. Try a little piece, won’t you, Mis’ Crane? I thought it seemed light an’ good.”
They shared the taste-cake with serious enjoyment, and pronounced it very good indeed when they had finished and shaken the crumbs out of their laps. “There’s nobody but you shall come and do for me at the last, if I can have my way about things,” said Mercy Crane impulsively. She meant it for a tribute to Miss Dow’s character and general ability, and as such it was meekly accepted.
“You’re a younger person than I be, an’ less wore,” said Sarah Ellen, but she felt better now that she had rested, and her conversational powers seemed to be refreshed by her share of the little cake. “Doctor Bangs has behaved real pretty, I can say that,” she continued presently in a mournful tone.
“Heretofore, in the sickness of Sister Barsett, I have always felt to hope certain that she would survive; she’s recovered from a sight o’ things in her day. She has been the first to have all the new diseases that’s visited this region. I know she had the spinal mergeetis months before there was any other case about,” observed Mrs. Crane with satisfaction.
“An’ the new throat troubles, all of ’em,” agreed Sarah Ellen; “an’ has made trial of all the best patent medicines, an’ could tell you their merits as no one else could in this vicinity. She never was one that depended on herbs alone, though she considered ’em extremely useful in some cases. Everybody has their herb, as we know, but I’m free to say that Sister Barsett sometimes done everything she could to kill herself with such rovin’ ways o’ dosin’. She must see it now she’s gone an’ can’t stuff down no more invigorators.” Sarah Ellen Dow burst out suddenly with this, as if she could no longer contain her honest opinion.
“There, there! you’re all worked up,” answered placid Mercy Crane, looking more interested than ever.
“An’ she was dreadful handy to talk religion to other folks, but I’ve come to a realizin’ sense that religion is somethin’ besides opinions. She an’ Elder French has been mostly of one mind, but I don’t know’s they’ve got hold of all the religion there is.”
“Why, why, Sarah Ellen!” exclaimed Mrs. Crane, but there was still something in her tone that urged the speaker to further expression of her feelings. The good creature was much excited, her face was clouded with disapproval.
“I ain’t forgettin’ nothin’ about their good points either,” she went on in a more subdued tone, and suddenly stopped.
“Preachin’ ’ll be done away with soon or late—preachin’ o’ Elder French’s kind,” announced Mercy Crane, after waiting to see if her guest did not mean to say anything more. “I should like to read ’em out that verse another fashion: ‘Be ye doers o’ the word, not preachers only,’ would hit it about right; but there, it’s easy for all of us to talk. In my early days I used to like to get out to meetin’ regular, because sure as I didn’t I had bad luck all the week. I didn’t feel pacified ’less I’d been half a day, but I was out all day the Sabbath before Mr. Barlow died as he did. So you mean to say that Sister Barsett’s really gone?”
Mrs. Crane’s tone changed to one of real concern, and her manner indicated that she had put the preceding conversation behind her with decision.
“She was herself to the last,” instantly responded Miss Dow. “I see her put out a thumb an’ finger from under the spread an’ pinch up a fold of her sister Deckett’s dress, to try an’ see if ’twas all wool. I thought’t wa’n’t all wool, myself, an’ I know it now by the way she looked. She was a very knowin’ person about materials; we shall miss poor Mis’ Barsett in many ways, she was always the one to consult with about matters o’ dress.”
“She passed away easy at the last, I hope?” asked Mrs. Crane with interest.
“Why, I wa’n’t there, if you’ll believe it!” exclaimed Sarah Ellen, flushing, and looking at her friend for sympathy. “Sister Barsett revived up the first o’ the afternoon, an’ they sent for Elder French. She took notice of him, and he exhorted quite a spell, an’ then he spoke o’ there being need of air in the room, Mis’ Deckett havin’ closed every window, an’ she asked me of all folks if I hadn’t better step out; but Elder French come too, an’ he was very reasonable, an’ had a word with me about Mis’ Deckett an’ Mis’ Peak an’ the way they was workin’ things. I told him right out how they never come near when the rest of us was havin’ it so hard with her along in the spring, but now they thought she was re’lly goin’ to die, they come settlin’ down like a pair o’ old crows in a field to pick for what they could get. I just made up my mind they should have all the care, if they wanted it. It didn’t seem as if there was anything more I could do for Sister Barsett, an’ I set there in the kitchen within call an’ waited, an’ when I heard ’em sayin’, ‘There, she’s gone, she’s gone!’ an Mis’ Deckett a-weepin’, I put on my bunnit and stepped myself out into the road. I felt to repent after I had gone but a rod, but I was so worked up, an’ I thought they’d call me back, an’ then I was put out because they didn’t, an’ so here I be. I can’t help it now.” Sarah Ellen was crying again; she and Mrs. Crane could not look at each other.
“Well, you set an’ rest,” said Mrs. Crane kindly, and with the merest shadow of disapproval. “You set an’ rest, an’ by an’ by, if you’d feel better, you could go back an’ just make a little stop an’ inquire about the arrangements. I wouldn’t harbor no feelin’s, if they be inconsiderate folks. Sister Barsett has often deplored their actions in my hearin’ an’ wished she had sisters like other folks. With all her faults she was a useful person an’ a good neighbor,” mourned Mercy Crane sincerely. “She was one that always had somethin’ interestin’ to tell, an’ if it wa’n’t for her dyin’ spells an’ all that sort o’ nonsense, she’d make a figger in the world, she would so. She walked with an air always, Mis’ Barsett did; you’d ask who she was, if you hadn’t known, as she passed you by. How quick we forget the outs about anybody that’s gone! but I always feel grateful to anybody that’s friendly, situated as I be. I shall miss her runnin’ over. I can seem to see her now, comin’ over the rise in the road. But don’t you get in a way of takin’ things too hard, Sarah Ellen! You’ve worked yourself all to pieces since I saw you last; you’re gettin’ to be as lean as a meetin’-house fly. Now, you’re comin’ in to have a cup o’ tea with me, an’ then you’ll feel better. I’ve got some new molasses gingerbread that I baked this mornin’.”
“I do feel beat out, Mis’ Crane,” acknowledged the poor little soul, glad of a chance to speak, but touched by this unexpected mark of consideration. “If I could ha’ done as I wanted to I should be feelin’ well enough; but to be set aside an’ ordered about, where I’d taken the lead in sickness so much, an’ knew how to deal with Sister Barsett so well! She might be livin’ now, perhaps——”
“Come; we’d better go in, ’tis gettin’ damp,” and the mistress of the house rose so hurriedly as to seem bustling. “Don’t dwell on Sister Barsett an’ her foolish folks no more; I wouldn’t, if I was you.”
They went into the front room, which was dim with the twilight of the half-closed blinds and two great syringa bushes that grew against them. Sarah Ellen put down her bundle and bestowed herself in the large, cane-seated rocking-chair. Mrs. Crane directed her to stay there a while and rest, and then come out into the kitchen when she got ready.
A cheerful clatter of dishes was heard at once upon Mrs. Crane’s disappearance. “I hope she’s goin’ to make one o’ her nice shortcakes, but I don’t know’s she’ll think it quite worth while,” thought the guest humbly. She desired to go out into the kitchen, but it was proper behavior to wait until she should be called. Mercy Crane was not a person with whom one could venture to take liberties. Presently Sarah Ellen began to feel better. She did not often find such a quiet place, or the quarter of an hour of idleness in which to enjoy it, and was glad to make the most of this opportunity. Just now she felt tired and lonely. She was a busy, unselfish, eager-minded creature by nature, but now, while grief was sometimes uppermost in her mind, and sometimes a sense of wrong, every moment found her more peaceful, and the great excitement little by little faded away.
“What a person poor Sister Barsett was to dread growin’ old so she couldn’t get about. I’m sure I shall miss her as much as anybody,” said Mrs. Crane, suddenly opening the kitchen door, and letting in an unmistakable and delicious odor of shortcake that revived still more the drooping spirits of her guest. “An’ a good deal of knowledge has died with her,” she added, coming into the room and seeming to make it lighter.
“There, she knew a good deal, but she didn’t know all, especially o’ doctorin’,” insisted Sarah Ellen from the rocking-chair, with an unexpected little laugh. “She used to lay down the law to me as if I had neither sense nor experience, but when it came to her bad spells she’d always send for me. It takes everybody to know everything, but Sister Barsett was of an opinion that her information was sufficient for the town. She was tellin’ me, the day I went there, how she disliked to have old Mis’ Doubleday come an’ visit with her, an’ remarked that she called Mis’ Doubleday very officious. ‘Went right down on her knees an’ prayed,’ says she. ‘Anybody would have thought I was a heathen!’ But I kind o’ pacified her feelin’s, an’ told her I supposed the old lady meant well.”
“Did she give away any of her things?—Mis’ Barsett, I mean,” inquired Mrs. Crane.
“Not in my hearin’,” replied Sarah Ellen Dow. “Except one day, the first of the week, she told her oldest sister, Mis’ Deckett—’twas that first day she rode over—that she might have her green quilted petticoat; you see it was a rainy day, an’ Mis’ Deckett had complained o’ feelin’ thin. She went right up an’ got it, and put it on an’ wore it off, an’ I’m sure I thought no more about it, until I heard Sister Barsett groanin’ dreadful in the night. I got right up to see what the matter was, an’ what do you think but she was wantin’ that petticoat back, and not thinkin’ any too well o’ Nancy Deckett for takin’ it when ’twas offered. ‘Nancy never showed no sense o’ propriety,’ says Sister Barsett. I just wish you’d heard her go on!
“If she had felt to remember me,” continued Sarah Ellen, after they had laughed a little, “I’d full as soon have some of her nice crockery-ware. She told me once, years ago, when I was stoppin’ to tea with her an’ we were havin’ it real friendly, that she should leave me her Britannia tea-set, but I ain’t got it in writin’, an’ I can’t say she’s ever referred to the matter since. It ain’t as if I had a home o’ my own to keep it in, but I should have thought a great deal of it for her sake,” and the speaker’s voice faltered. “I must say that, with all her virtues, she never was a first-class housekeeper, but I wouldn’t say it to any but a friend. You never eat no preserves o’ hers that wa’n’t commencin’ to work, an’ you know as well as I how little forethought she had about puttin’ away her woolens. I sat behind her once in meetin’ when I was stoppin’ with the Tremletts and so occupied a seat in their pew, an’ I see between ten an’ a dozen moth-millers come workin’ out o’ her fitch-fur tippet. They was flutterin’ round her bonnet same’s ’twas a lamp. I should be mortified to death to have such a thing happen to me.”
“Every housekeeper has her weak point. I’ve got mine as much as anybody else,” acknowledged Mercy Crane with spirit, “but you never see no moth-millers come workin’ out o’ me in a public place.”
“Ain’t your oven beginnin’ to get overhet?” anxiously inquired Sarah Ellen Dow, who was sitting more in the draft, and could not bear to have any accident happen to the supper. Mrs. Crane flew to a shortcake’s rescue, and presently called her guest to the table.
The two women sat down to deep and brimming cups of tea. Sarah Ellen noticed with great gratification that her hostess had put on two of the best tea-cups and some citron-melon preserves. It was not an every-day supper. She was used to hard fare, poor, hard-working Sarah Ellen, and this handsome social attention did her good. Sister Crane rarely entertained a friend, and it would be a pleasure to speak of the tea-drinking for weeks to come.
“You’ve put yourself out quite a consid’able for me,” she acknowledged. “How pretty these cups is! You oughtn’t to use ’em so common as for me. I wish I had a home I could really call my own to ask you to, but ’tain’t never been so I could. Sometimes I wonder what’s goin’ to become o’ me when I get so I’m past work. Takin’ care o’ sick folks, an’ bein’ in houses where there’s a sight goin’ on an’ everybody in a hurry, kind of wears on me now I’m most a-gittin’ in years. I was wishin’, the other day, that I could get with some comfortable kind of a sick person, where I could live right along quiet as other folks do, but folks never sends for me ’less they’re drove to it. I ain’t laid up anything to really depend upon.”
The situation appealed to Mercy Crane, well-to-do as she was and not burdened with responsibilities. She stirred uneasily in her chair, but could not bring herself to the point of offering Sarah Ellen the home she coveted.
“Have some hot tea,” she insisted in a matter-of fact tone, and Sarah Ellen’s face, which had been lighted by a sudden eager hopefulness, grew dull and narrow again.
“Plenty, plenty, Mis’ Crane,” she said sadly, “’tis beautiful tea—you always have good tea;” but she could not turn her thoughts from her own uncertain future. “None of our folks has ever lived to be a burden,” she said presently, in a pathetic tone, putting down her cup. “My mother was thought to be doin’ well until four o’clock an’ was dead at ten. My Aunt Nancy came to our house well at twelve o’clock an’ died that afternoon; my father was sick but ten days. There was dear sister Betsy, she did go in consumption, but ’twa’n’t an expensive sickness.”
“I’ve thought sometimes about you, how you’d get past rovin’ from house to house one o’ these days. I guess your friends will stand by you.” Mrs. Crane spoke with unwonted sympathy, and Sarah Ellen’s heart leaped with joy.
“You’re real kind,” she said simply. “There’s nobody I set so much by. But I shall miss Sister Barsett, when all’s said an’ done. She’s asked me many a time to stop with her when I wasn’t doin’ nothin’. We all have our failin’s, but she was a friendly creeter. I sha’n’t want to see her laid away.”
“Yes, I was thinkin’ a few minutes ago that I shouldn’t want to look out an’ see the funeral go by. She’s one o’ the old neighbors. I s’pose I shall have to look, or I shouldn’t feel right afterward,” said Mrs. Crane mournfully. “If I hadn’t got so kind of housebound,” she added with touching frankness, “I’d just as soon go over with you an’ offer to watch this night.”
“’Twould astonish Sister Barsett so I don’t know but she’d return.” Sarah Ellen’s eyes danced with amusement; she could not resist her own joke, and Mercy Crane herself had to smile.
“Now I must be goin’, or ’twill be dark,” said the guest, rising, and sighing after she had eaten her last crumb of gingerbread. “Yes, thank ye, you’re real good; I will come back if I find I ain’t wanted. Look what a pretty sky there is!” and the two friends went to the side door and stood together in a moment of affectionate silence, looking out toward the sunset across the wide fields. The country was still with that deep rural stillness which seems to mean the absence of humanity. Only the thrushes were singing far away in the walnut woods beyond the orchard, and some crows were flying over and cawed once loudly, as if they were speaking to the women at the door.
Just as the friends were parting, after most grateful acknowledgments from Sarah Ellen Dow, some one came driving along the road in a hurry and stopped.
“Who’s that with you, Mis’ Crane?” called one of their near neighbors.
“It’s Sarah Ellen Dow,” answered Mrs. Crane. “What’s the matter?”
“I thought so, but I couldn’t rightly see. Come, they are in a peck o’ trouble up to Sister Barsett’s, wonderin’ where you be,” grumbled the man. “They can’t do nothin’ with her; she’s drove off everybody an’ keeps a-screechin’ for you. Come, step along, Sarah Ellen, do!”
“Sister Barsett!” exclaimed both the women. Mercy Crane sank down upon the doorstep, but Sarah Ellen stepped out upon the grass all of a tremble, and went toward the wagon. “They said this afternoon that Sister Barsett was gone,” she managed to say. “What did they mean?”
“Gone where?” asked the impatient neighbor. “I expect ’twas one of her spells. She’s come to. They say she wants somethin’ hearty for her tea. Nobody can’t take one step till you get there, neither.”
Sarah Ellen was still dazed; she returned to the doorway, where Mercy Crane sat shaking with laughter. “I don’t know but we might as well laugh as cry,” she said in an aimless sort of way. “I know you too well to think you’re going to repeat a single word. Well, I’ll get my bonnet an’ start; I expect I’ve got consid’able to cope with, but I’m well rested. Good night, Mis’ Crane; I certain did have a beautiful tea, whatever the future may have in store.”
She wore a solemn expression as she mounted into the wagon in haste and departed, but she was far out of sight when Mercy Crane stopped laughing and went into the house.