One Way of Love (Lee)/Chapter 6
VI.
When the snow began melting from the partridge-berries the wood had been cut and hauled. Only scattered chips remained to tell the winter's work. And, although all the village knew that Richard was learning Greek, it did not know that in the woods he had learned something harder than Greek. No one but he and Seth knew that with every blow of the axe he had made a stroke at his trouble—and cut it, and sawed it, and split it, and piled it high, and sledded it to town, and sold it at so much a cord—till his heart was as sound as a drum.
And when one morning he passed Emily in her new spring array, tripping along the country road, he could lift his hat and smile at her proudly. And Emily, fingering the ribbons that fell from her throat, called him in her heart a fickle thing and rejoiced anew that she was to be Mrs. Edwards.
He was on his way to Uncle Eben's when he met her—carrying a message from his mother. He found the old man in the side garden, pottering about over the half-dried earth and warming his stiff back in the sun.
“Limy beans?” said Uncle Eben when he heard the request. “You'll have to go into the house and ask her. She hain't give me mine yet. It's time for 'em, too. She keeps 'em locked up in the secritary—ch'ice as gold.” He rose stiffly from his knees and led the way to the house.
Aunt Jerusha was buried in the depths of the Dutch oven, a long feather duster in her hand, with which she whisked its sides. She emerged, shining and surprised.
“Well, I declare, Richard; is that you!” She readjusted her spectacles and looked at him kindly. Her skirt was pinned safely up out of harm's way and her sleeves were rolled above the elbow. A sunbonnet protected her head. She beamed out of its depths.
“Want some of the Limas, do you, for plantin'? Well, I do' know how many we'll have. I hain't got 'em down for Pa yet.” She glanced at him suspiciously.
He shifted from one foot to the other. It might have been hope or it might have been impatience.
Aunt Jerusha's look changed to affection. “He wants some, dreadful,” she confided to Richard, “but it ain't time yet.”
She crossed the room and took from a high nail by the shelf a key. It was the key to the parlor-door. “You come with me, Richard,” she said mildly, as she waddled away.
Uncle Eben looked wistfully after them. He seated himself in a straight-backed chair and, lifting his feet to the front round, rubbed his fingers thoughtfully.
Aunt Jerusha opened the parlor-door into the dim light. “You can come right in,” she said proudly. “Never mind your feet. Women were made to sweep up dirt. I've got to clean here next week anyway.”
The room was speckless. Not a trace of dust rested on any object, though Aunt Jerusha gave an ostentatious puff to the plush album as she lifted it. She opened it with a little gesture of pride. It was half filled with pictures, and in the hole left vacant in the other half reposed a key. “I keep it in here,” she whispered. “He wouldn't ever think of looking in that.” She chuckled softly as she drew it out. She snapped the heavy clasps safely and returned the album to the table.
“I thought I might's well show you.” She stood in the dim light, watching him mysteriously out of her sunbonnet. “If anything should happen to me, somebody'd hev to know, and he wouldn't have no more care 'an a child.” She directed her nod towards the kitchen.
Uncle Eben looked up hopefully as they returned, the key to the secretary borne in Aunt Jerusha's palm.
Mounting a chair in front of the high secretary she inserted the key in the lock. The doors swung open. Uncle Eben feasted his eyes. There were packages of seeds and velvet bonnets and a string of gold beads and a high shell comb. She touched a package of papers that lay at the left. “That's my will,” she said significantly to Richard. “I've left everything to him.”
A glow of appreciation overspread Uncle Eben's face. “Why, Jerusha,”—his boot-heels came down with a clatter to the floor,—“why, Jerusha”
“Not a word!” she said sternly, turning on him. “I don't want to hear a word.”
She turned back to the open space and searched among the packages. “Here they be.” She gave a fat sigh and descended from the chair, closing the mysterious doors. She emptied the package in her lap, Uncle Eben eying it enviously from afar.
“I shall divide even,” she said with a calm air,—“just even.” She counted out the beans, one by one, each in its separate pile, and handed one of the piles to Richard. “There. Tell your mother I divided equal.”
“I'll tell her,” said Richard, stowing away the bag in his pocket. He knew better than to hurt Aunt Jerusha's feelings by refusing any proffered favor.
She sat leaning comfortably back in her chair, looking at him. “They say you're learning Greek, Richard,” she said at last, rocking a little.
Uncle Eben tipped eagerly forward in his chair.
She ignored him. “Are ye?”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
“And you're going to college?”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
“How's Amanda Derring going to pay for it?” she asked severely.
“I'm going to pay my own way,” said the boy.
She nodded slowly. “I thought like enough. But you can't do it.”
“I'm going to.”
She looked at him more approvingly. “The Lord helps them that helps themselves,” she said solemnly, “and I and the Lord do the same.”
She rose majestically and opened the secretary doors once more. She took down a broken-nosed teapot and extracted a roll of bills, holding it out to him. “There's one hundred dollars,” she said slowly. “I shall give you that every year till you get through. And if anything happens to me, Eben's to give it to you—same as if I was alive.”
“Of course I” began Uncle Eben from his chair.
She stopped him swiftly. “Don't say a word.”
His open mouth collapsed. He rubbed his fingers thoughtfully.
She turned to the boy. “Run along home, Richard. Don't forget to tell your mother I divided the beans with her—even.”