Evelyn Raymond - Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life

"Has nobody ever lived here since that wicked old man?"

"Oh, yes. I think so. But nobody for long, nor could anybody make it a home."

"It looks as if it had been blue, up there by the roof."

"I believe it was. I've heard that every color possible was used in painting it, so as to make it the more annoying to a person of good taste, such as great-grandfather was."

"Heigho! Well, we've got to live here."

"Or die. It's hopeless. I can't see a ray of light in the whole situation."

"You dear old bat, you should wear specs. I can see several rays. I'll count them off. Ray one: the ugly all-sorts-of-paint has been washed away by the weather. Ray two: the air up here is as pure as it's sharp, and there's nothing to obstruct or keep it from blowing your 'hypo' away. Ray three: there are our own darling burros already helping to 'settle' by mowing the weeds with their mouths. What a blessing is hunger, rightly utilized! And, finally, there's that worth-her-weight-in-gold Goodsoul waving her pudding-stick, which in this new, unique life of ours must mean 'breakfast.' Come along. Heigho! Who's that? Our esteemed political friend, 'Rep-Dem-Prob.' I'd forgotten him. Now, by the lofty bearing with which he ascends to our castle of discontent, I believe he's been out 'marching.'"

It was, indeed, Fayette whom they saw climbing over the rocks. He wore his oilcloth blouse and his gay helmet, and soon they could hear his rude voice singing and see the waving of his broom.

"He? Coming back again? Why, we can't keep him. We can't even 'keep' ourselves."

"Yet never a doubt I doubt he means to tarry," quoted Amy, laughing at her brother's rueful countenance.

"Sure, I thought ye had lost yourself or been ate by the rats!" cried Cleena, as Fayette rather timidly peered in at the open kitchen door. "But all rogues is fond o' good atin', so I suppose you've come for your breakfast, eh?"

"No. I've et."

"Must ha' been up with the lark then. No, hold on. Don't go in there. They're master Hallam an' Miss Amy still, an' always will be. They eats by themselves, as the gentry should. If there's ought left when they're done, time enough for you an' me."

"I've had my breakfast, I told you."

"Didn't seem to set well on your stummick either, by the way your temper troubles ye. Are ye as ready to work as ye was yesterday?"

"Yes. What I come back for."

Cleena paused and studied the ill-shaped, vacant, though not vicious, face of the unfortunate waif. Something drew her sympathy toward him, and she pitied him for the mother whom he had never known. In the adjoining room she could hear the voices of her own "childer," with their cultured inflection and language, which was theirs by inheritance and as unconsciously as were "Bony's" harsh tones and rude speech his own.

"Arrah musha! but it's a queer world, I d'know. There's them an' there's him, an' the Lord made 'em both. Hear me, me gineral. Take a hold o' that broom o' yours, an' show me what it's made for. If you're as clean as you're homebly, I might stand your good friend. What for no?"

Fayette had returned Cleena's cool stare with another as steady. He liked her far better and more promptly than she liked him, yet in that moment of scrutiny each had measured the other and formed a tacit partnership. "For the family," was Cleena's watchword, and it had already become the half-wit's.

Cleena went to the well, tied her clothesline to the leaky old bucket and lowered it. On the night before she had obtained a pail of spring water from the cottage at the foot of the knoll, from the same friendly neighbor who had sold her the milk. But their own well must be fixed. To her dismay she found that it was very deep, and that the bit of water which remained in the bucket when it was drawn up was quite unfit even for cleaning purposes.

This worried her. A scarcity of water was one of the few trials which she had been spared, and she could hardly have met a heavier. As she turned toward the house she saw that Fayette had carefully set out of doors the old chairs and the other movable furniture which the kitchen had contained, and that, before sweeping, he was using his broom to brush the cobwebs from the ceiling. The sight filled her with joy and amazement.

"Saints bless us! That's the first man body I ever met that had sense like that!" and she lifted up her voice in a glad summons: —

"You, Napoleon Gineral Bonyparty, come by!"

"Before I finish here?"

"Before the wag o' dog's tail. Hurry up!"

"The wind'll blow it all over again."

"Leave it blow. Come by. Here's more trouble even nor cobwebs, avick! First need is first served."

This summoned Hallam and Amy out to see what was going on, and after learning the difficulty and peering into the depths of the old pit they offered their suggestions. Said Amy: —

"We might draw it up, bucket by bucket, and throw it away. Then I suppose it would fill with clean water, wouldn't it?"

"If we did, 'twould break all our backs an' there's more to do than empty old wells. Master Hal, what's your say?"

"Hmm, we might rig up some sort of machinery and stir it all up, and with chemicals we could clear it and – "

"Troth we could, if we'd a month o' Sundays to do it in an' slathers o' time an' money spoilin' to be spent."

Hallam was disgusted. Already he had blamed himself for his haughty refusal of Mr. Wingate's offer, on the previous day, to send a practical man to look over the premises and "set them going," as any landlord would.

But the lad had replied, as one in authority to decide for his absent parents: "We won't trouble you, sir. What happens to us, after we leave Fairacres, is our own affair. If you get your rent, that should be sufficient for you."

After that the offer was not renewed; for Mr. Wingate was not the man to waste either money or service, and the lad's tone angered him.

Regrets were now, as always, useless, and Cleena's open disdain of Hallam's suggestion sent him limping angrily away; though Amy laughed over her own "valuable contribution to the solution of the dilemma," and by her intentional use of the longest words at hand caused Fayette to regard her with a wonderment that was ludicrous in itself.

"Well, Goodsoul, we've helped a lot. Ask our 'Rep-Dem-Prob' what his 'boys' would do."

"What for no? Sure, he's more sense nor the whole of us. Say, me gineral, what's the way out?"

Fayette colored with pride. He had an inordinate vanity, and, like most of his sort, he possessed an almost startling keenness of intelligence in some respects, as contrasted with his foolishness in others. Moreover, he had been disciplined by poverty, and had always lived among working people and, for a long time, about the carpet mills.

"Well, the 'Supe's' force-pump."

"Hmm, I know, I know. But what's the 'Supe' an' his pump? Is he fish, flesh, or fowl, eh?"

"He's the 'Supe' to the mill. Ain't ye any sense?"

"No. None left after botherin' with you. What's it, Miss Amy?"

"I know. You mean Mr. Metcalf, don't you?"

"Yes."

"What would he do? How could he help us?"

"Lend me the donkey. I'll ride and tell him. All them houses – see them mill cottages, down yonder?"

"Certainly. They look very pretty from here, with all the trees about them."

"They've got wells. Once in six months the wells has to be cleared out. That's orders. Me an' another fellow goes down 'em, after the pump's drawed out all it can. We bail 'em out. I clean cisterns, too. Ain't another fellow in the village as good at a cistern as me. See, I'm slim. I can get down a man-hole 't nobody else can. Shall I go?"