Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 17, March, 1859

"It looks as if you did, though!"

"Sam!" said his mother, with—emphasis.

Sam whistled, and, with his hands in his pockets, having shut his jack-knife with a click, and kicked his shavings into the fire, muttered something about feeding the pigs, and beat an ignominious retreat,—snubbed, as the race of Adam daily are, and daily will be, let us hope, for telling "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

For Lizzy certainly did look as if she cared. A pretty enough picture she made, too, flung down on the old black settle, one well-shaped hand pinching the arm as if it had been—John Boynton's!—the other as vigorously clenched on a harmless check-apron that showed no disposition to get away; her bright red lips trembling a little, and her gray eyes suspiciously shiny about the lashes, while her soft black hair had fallen from part of its restraints on to the gay calico dress she wore, and her foot beat time to some quick step that she didn't sing!

Mrs. Griswold did not care for the picturesque, just then; she cared much more for Lizzy, and her acute feminine instinct helped her to the right word.

"I don't believe it, dear!" said she; "you'd better finish straining that squash, or Widow Peters won't have her pies for Thursday."

Lizzy went to work,—work is a grand panacea, even for sentimental troubles,—and in doing battle with the obstinate squash,—which was not as well cooked as it might have been,—Lizzy, for the moment, looked quite bright, and forgot John, till her father came in to dinner.

Somebody once said that Mrs. Griswold was "a lesser Providence," and Lizzy thought so now; for scarce were they all seated at dinner, when she remarked, in a very unconcerned and natural way,—

"What keeps John in Roxbury so long, father?"

"He has business in Boston," curtly answered Mr. Griswold.—"Sam, did you go over to the Corners, yesterday, about those sheep?"

Sam answered, and the conversation went on, but John's name did not enter it, nor did Mr. Griswold offer to show his letter either to mother or Lizzy.

Now the latter lady, not being a perfect woman, had sundry small faults; she was proud, after a certain fashion of her own; slightly sentimental, which is rather a failing than a fault; but her worst trait was a brooding, fault-seeing, persevering tact at making herself miserable, scarce ever equalled. The smallest bit of vantage-ground was enough for a start, and on that foundation Lizzy took but a few hours of suspicion and imagination to build up a whole Castle Doubting. The cause she had to-day was even greater than was necessary; it was peculiar that her father should be so reserved; it was more strange that he so perseveringly withheld John's letter; and certainly he watched Lizzy at her work with unusually tender eyes, that sometimes filled with a sort of mist. All these things heaped up evidence for the poor girl; she brooded over each separate item all night, and added to the sum Polly Mariner's gossip, and looked forward to the day when everybody in Greenfield should say, "Lizzy Griswold's had a disapp'intment of John Boynton!" Poor, dear, Lizzy! as if that were an unheard-of pang! as if nine-tenths of her accusers were not "disapp'inted" themselves,—some before, some after marriage,—some in themselves, some in their children, some in their wretched, dreary lives! But there was only one John and only one heart-break present to her vision.

Polly Mariner came to breakfast next day, and pervaded the kitchen like a daily paper. Horrible murders, barn-burnings, failures, deaths, births, marriages, separations, lawsuits, slanders, and petty larcenies outran each other in her glib speech, and her fingers flew as fast on Sam's blue jacket as her tongue clappered above it.

Lizzy's pride kept her up before the old woman; she was in and out and everywhere, a pretty spot of crimson on either fair cheek, her eyes as sparkling and her step as light as any belle's in a ballroom, and her whole manner so gay and charming that Polly inwardly pronounced John Boynton a mighty fool, if he dodged such a pretty girl as that, and one with "means."

But night came, and Polly went. Lizzy went to bed with a bad headache,—convenient synonyme for aches of soul or body that one does not care to christen! Sleep she certainly did that night, for she dreamed John was married to a rich Boston girl with red hair and a yellow flannel dress, and that Polly Mariner was bridesmaid in the peculiar costume of a blue roundabout and pantaloons! But sleep with such dreams was scarcely a restorer; and Wednesday morning, when Mrs. Griswold asked Lizzy if she had put up her carpet-bag to go to Coventry, she received for answer a flood of tears, and a very earnest petition to be left at home.

"Leave you, Lizzy! Why, grandfather couldn't have Thanksgiving without you! And Uncle Boynton! And Aunt Lizzy is coming up from Stonington with the new baby;—and—John, too! You must go, Lizzy, dear!"

"I can't, mother! I can't!" said the poor girl, sobbing after every word; "please don't ask me. I can't! I've got a headache; oh, dear!" Here a fresh burst of tears followed, as Lizzy buried her head in her mother's lap.

Mrs. Griswold was both grieved and astonished; she sat speechless, stroking the soft hair that swept over her knee, till Lizzy's sobs quieted, and then said,—

"Well, dear, if you're set on staying at home, I won't oppose it, if your father thinks best; but I must ask him; only what will you do, Lizzy, here alone all night?"

"Chloe and Peter will be here, mother; and I'll make Chloe sleep in Sam's room, and leave the door open; and when they go down to Dinah's, I'll lock up, and I shan't feel afraid in broad day."

Mrs. Griswold shook her head doubtfully.

"I'll see what father says," said she. So Lizzy lifted her head, and smoothed her hair, while her mother went out to the barn to consult "father."

Here she was, if anything, more puzzled. Mr. Griswold heard the proposal with a rather misty look, as if he didn't see why, and when his wife finished, said, gravely,—

"What is it, Susan? Anybody 't has lived as long as I have knows pretty well that a woman's headache stands for a whole dictionary."

"Why, you see," said Mrs. Griswold, twisting a little lock of hay in her fingers, and faintly blushing, as if the question had been of herself rather than Lizzy, "she—well, the fact is, husband, she's kind of riled about John's not coming; you see we haven't been real particular about the children, and so"–

"You needn't spell it, Susan," said Mr. Griswold, with a half smile; "Polly Mariner's tongue helped on, I guess. You let Lizzy stay, if she wants to; 'twon't hurt her; when folks want to sulk, I generally let 'em. She can stay."

He began to whistle "Yankee Doodle" and pitch hay energetically, while "Susan" was within hearing; but how would that dear woman's soul have floundered deeper and deeper in the fog that clouded it now, had she seen her grave husband sit down on one end of the hay-mow and laugh till the tears stood in his keen eyes, and then, drawing his coat-sleeve across the shaggy lashes, say to himself, "Poor child!" and begin his work with fresh strength!

So matters were all arranged. After dinner, the rusty, dusty, old carriage appeared at the door, with the farm-horses harnessed thereto, jingling, and creaking, and snapping, as if oil and use were strange to its dry joints and stiff straps. Mrs. Griswold mounted to the back seat, after kissing Lizzy with hearty regret and tenderness,—her old gray pelisse and green winter bonnet harmonizing with the useful age of her conveyance. "Father," in a sturdy great-coat and buckskin mittens, took the reins; and Sam, whose blue jacket was at that moment crushing his mother's Sunday cap in a bandbox that sat where Lizzy should have been, clambered over the front wheel, to the great detriment of the despised butternut suit, and, seizing the whip, applied it so suddenly to Tom and Jerry that they started off down the Coventry road at a pace that threatened a solution of continuity to bones and sinews, as well as wood and leather.