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Hildegarde's Holiday: A Story For Girls, a novel by Laura E. Richards |
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Chapter 17. Old Mr. Colt |
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_ CHAPTER XVII. OLD MR. COLT Supper was over. The girls had laughingly resisted their hostess's appeal, "Just one more fritter, with another on each side to keep it warm,--though I don't know as they _are_ fit to eat!" and on her positive refusal to let them help wash the dishes, had retired to the back doorstep, from which they could watch the sunset. Here they were joined by Bubble, who had found a lodging for himself, Dr. Abernethy, and the pony, in the family of Abner Colt, the mail-carrier. He took his place on the doorstep with the air of one who has fairly earned his repose. "Well, Bubble," said Hildegarde, "tell us how you have fared." "Oh, very well!" answered the boy,--"very well, Miss Hilda! They're a funny set over there at Mr. Colt's, but they seem very kind, and they have given me a nice little room in the stable-loft, so 't I can see to the Doctor any minute." "How is the dear beast?" asked Rose. "I thought he went a little lame, after he got that stone in his foot." "I have bathed the foot," said Bubble, "and it'll be all right to-morrow. Old Mr. Colt wanted to give me three different kinds of liniment to rub on it, but hot water is all it needs. He's a queer old fellow, old Mr. Colt!" he added meditatively. "Seems to live on medicine chiefly." "What do you mean?" asked the girls. "Why," said Bubble, "he came in to supper--I hadn't seen him before--with a big bottle under his arm, and a box of pills in his hand. He came shuffling in in his stocking-feet, and when he saw me he gave a kind of groan. 'Who's that?' says he. 'It's a boy come over from Bywood,' says Mrs. Abner, as they call her. 'He's goin' to stop here over night, Father. Ain't you glad to see him?--Father likes young folks real well!' she says to me. The old gentleman gave a groan, and sat down, nursing his big bottle as if it were a baby. 'D'ye ever have the dyspepsy?' he asked, looking at me. 'No, sir!' said I. 'Never had anything that I know of, 'cept the measles.' He groaned again, and poured something out of the bottle into a tumbler. 'You look kinder 'pindlin',' says he, shaking his head. 'I think likely you've got it on ye 'thout knowin' it. It's sub-tile, dyspepsy is,--dreadful sub-tile.'" "What did he mean?--subtle?" asked Hilda, laughing. "I suppose so!" replied the boy. "And then he took his medicine, groaning all the time and making the worst faces you ever saw. 'I reckon you'd better take a swallow o' this, my son!' he said. 'It's a pre-ventitative, as well 's a cure.'" "Bubble," cried his sister, "you are making this up. Confess, you monkey!" "I'm not!" said Bubble, laughing. "It's true, every word of it. I _couldn't_ make up old Mr. Colt! 'It's a pre-ventitative!' he says, and reaches out his hand for my tumbler. Then Abner, the young man, spoke up, and told him he guessed I'd be better without it, and that 't wasn't meant for young people, and so on. 'What is it, Mr. Colt?' I asked, seeing that he looked real--I mean very much--disappointed. He brightened up at once. 'It's Vino's Vegetable Vivifier!' he said. 'It's the greatest thing out for dyspepsy. How many bottles have I took, Leory?' 'I believe this is the tenth, Father!' said Mrs. Abner. 'And _I_ don't see as 't 's done you a mite o' good!' she said to herself, but so 't I could hear. 'Thar!' says the old man, nodding at me, as proud as could be, 'd' ye hear that? Ten bottles I've took, at a dollar a bottle. Ah! it's great stuff. Ugh!' and he groaned and took a great piece of mince-pie on his plate. 'Oh, Father!' says the young woman, '_do_ you think you ought to eat mince-pie, after as sick as you was yesterday?' He was just as mad as hops! 'Ef I'm to be grutched vittles,' he says, 'I guess it's time for me to be quittin'. I've eat mince-pie seventy year, man an' boy, and I guess I ain't goin' to leave off now. I kin go over to Joel's, if so be folks begrutches me my vittles here.' 'Oh, come, Father!' says Abner; 'you know Leory didn't mean nothing like that. Ef you've got to have the pie, why, you've _got_ to have it, that's all.' The old man groaned, and pegged away at the pie like a good one. 'Ah!' he said, 'I sha'n't be here long, anyway. Nobody needn't be afraid o' _my_ eatin' up their substance. Hand me them doughnuts, Abner. Nothin' seems to have any taste to it, somehow.'" "Did he eat nothing but pie and doughnuts?" asked Hilda. "I should be afraid he would die to-night." "Oh," said Bubble, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you all the things he ate. Pickles and hot biscuit and cheese--and groaning all the time, and saying nobody knowed what dyspepsy was till they'd had it. Then, when he'd finished, he opened the pill-box, which had been close beside his plate all the time, and took three great fat black pills. 'Have any trouble with yer liver?' says he, turning to me again; 'there is nothin' like these pills for yer liver. You take two of these, and you'll feel 'em all over ye in an hour's time,--all over ye!' I thought 't was about time for me to go, so I said I must attend to the horse's foot, and went out to the stable. It was then that he brought me the three kinds of liniment, and wanted me to rub them all on, 'so 's if one didn't take holt, another would.'" "What a dreadful old ghoul!" cried Hildegarde, indignantly. "I don't think it's safe for you to stay there, Bubble. I know he will poison you in some way." "You're talking about Cephas Colt, _I_ know," said the voice of Mrs. Brett; and the good woman appeared with her knitting, and joined the group on the doorstep. "He is a caution, Cephas is,--a caution! He's been dosing himself for the last thirty years, and it's a living miracle that he is alive to-day Abner and Leory have a sight o' trouble with him; but they're real good and patient, more so 'n I should be. Did he show you his collection of bottles?" she added, turning to Bubble. "No," replied the boy. "He did speak of showing me something; but I was in a hurry to get over here, so I told him I couldn't wait." "You'll see 'em to-morrow, then!" said the widow. "It's his delight to show 'em to strangers. Four thousand and odd bottles he has,--all physic bottles, that have held all the stuff he and his folks have taken for thirty years." "Four--thousand--bottles!" cried her hearers, in dismay. "And odd!" replied the widow, with emphasis. "He's adding new ones all the time, and hopes to make it up to five thousand before he dies. Large ones and small, of course, and lotions and all. He takes every new thing that comes along, reg'lar. He has his wife's bottles all arranged in a shape, kind o' monument-like. They do say he wanted to set them up on her grave, but I guess that's only talk." "How long ago did she die?" asked Rose. "Three year ago, it is now!" said Mrs. Brett. "Dosed herself to death, we all thought. She was just like him! Folks used to say they had pills and catnip-tea for dinner the day they was married. You know how folks will talk! It's a fact though"--here she lowered her voice--"and I'd ought not to gossip about my neighbors, nor I don't among themselves much, but strangers seem different somehow,--anyhow, it _is_ a fact that he wanted to put a scandalous inscription on her monument in the cemetery, and Abner wouldn't let him; the only time Abner ever stood out against his father, as I know of." "What was the inscription?" asked Hildegarde, trying hard to look as grave as the subject required. "Well,--you mustn't say I told you!" said the Widow Brett, lowering her voice still more, and looking about with an air of mystery,--"'t was
"Yes, we did want to see Bixby," answered straightforward Hildegarde; "but we came still more to see you, Mrs. Brett. Indeed, we have a very important message for you." And beginning at the beginning, Hildegarde unfolded the great scheme. Mrs. Brett listened, wide-eyed, following the recital with appreciative motions of lips and hands. When it was over, she seemed for once at a loss for words. "I--well, there!" she said; and she crumpled up her apron, and then smoothed it out again. "I--why, I don't know what _to_ say. Well! I'm completely, as you may say, struck of a heap. I don't know what Marthy's thinking of, I'm sure. It isn't _me_ you want, surely. You want a woman with faculty!" "Of course we do!" cried both girls, laughing. "That is why we have come to you." "Sho!" said Mrs. Brett, crumpling her apron again, and trying not to look pleased. "Why, young ladies, I couldn't do it, no way in the world. There's my chickens, you see, and my cow, let alone the house; not but what Joel (that's my nephew) would be glad enough to take keer of 'em. And goin' so fur away, as you may say--though 't would be pleasant to be nigh Marthy--we was always friends, Marthy and me, since we was girls--and preserves to make, and fall cleanin' comin' on, and help so skurce as 'tis--why, I don't know what Marthy's thinkin' of, really I don't. Children, too! why, I do love children, and I shouldn't never think I had things comfortable enough for 'em; not but that's a lovely place, pretty as ever I see. I helped Marthy clean it one spring, and such a fancy as I took to that kitchen,--why, there! and the little room over it; I remember of saying to Marthy, says I, a woman might live happy in those two rooms, let alone the back yard, with all that nice fine gravel for the chickens, I says. But there! I couldn't do it, Miss Grahame, no way in the world. Why, I ain't got more'n half-a-dozen aprons to my back; so now you see!" This last seemed such a very funny reason to give, that the three young people could not help laughing heartily. "Martha has dozens and dozens of aprons, Mrs. Brett," said Hildegarde. "She has a whole bureau full of them, because she is afraid her eyes may give out some day, and then she will not be able to make any more. And now, just think a moment!" She laid her hand on the good woman's arm, and continued in her most persuasive tones: "Think of living in that pleasant house, with the pretty room for your own, and the sunny kitchen, and the laundry, all under your own management." "Set tubs!" said Mrs. Brett, in a pathetic parenthesis. "If there's one thing I've allers hankered after, more 'n another, it's a set tub!" "And the dear little children playing about in the garden, and coming to you with flowers, and looking to you as almost a second mother--" "Little Joel,"--cried the widow, putting her apron to her eyes, and beginning to rock gently to and fro--"I've allus felt that blessed child would ha' lived, if he'd ha' been left with me. There! Joel's been a good nephew, there couldn't no one have a better; but his wife and me, we never conjingled. She took the child away, and it peaked and pined from that day. Well, there! the ways are mysterious!" "And you would take the chickens and the cow with you, of course," this artful girl went on; "for the children must have milk and eggs, and I never tasted more delicious milk than this of yours." "I've no cause to be ashamed of the cow!" said the widow, still rocking. "There isn't a cow equal to her round Marthy's way. I've heerd Marthy say so. Sixteen quarts she gives, and I do 'clare it's most half cream. Jersey! there isn't many Jerseys round Marthy's way." "And then the comfort you would be to Martha and to dear Miss Bond!" Rose put in. "Martha has a good deal of rheumatism in winter, you know, and she says you are such a good nurse. She told me how you rubbed her in her rheumatic fever. She thinks you saved her life, and I am sure you did." "If I rubbed Marthy Ellen Banks one foot, I rubbed her a hundred miles!" said Mrs. Brett, with a faint gleam in her moist eyes. "'From her tombstun back to a well woman is a good way,' Dr. Jones says to me, 'and that way you've rubbed Marthy Ellen, Mis' Brett!' says he. Good man Dr. Jones is,--none better! There isn't no one round Bixby can doctor my sciatica as he did when I was stayin' to Mis' Bond's last year. Mis' Bond, too,--well, there! she was a mother to me. Seemed like 't was more home there than Bixby was, since little Joel died. Mysterious the ways is! Mr. Rawlins well?" she added, after a moment's pause. "Mr.--Oh, Jeremiah!" cried Hildegarde, after a moment of bewilderment. "Jeremiah is very well, all except a cough; and, dear me! Mrs. Brett, I haven't given you his message. 'Tell Mrs. Brett,' he said, almost the last thing before we came away this morning,--'tell Mrs. Brett she'll _have_ to come, to make me a treacle-posset for my cough. Not even Martha can make treacle-posset like hers!' Those were Jeremiah's very words, Mrs. Brett." A faint color stole into the widow's thin cheeks. She sat up straight, and began to smooth out her apron. "Miss Grahame," she said emphatically, "I verily believe you could persuade a cat out of a bird's-nest. If it seems I'm really needed over to Bywood--I don't hardly know how I _can_ go--but--well, there! you've come so fur, and I do like to 'commodate; so--well, I don't really see how I can--but--I will!" _ |
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