Across the Years
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
A Belated Honeymoon
The haze of a warm September day hung low over the house, the garden, and the dust-white road. On the side veranda a gray-haired, erect little figure sat knitting. After a time the needles began to move more and more slowly until at last they lay idle in the motionless, withered fingers.
“Well, well, Abby, takin’ a nap?” demanded a thin-chested, wiry old man coming around the corner of the house and seating himself on the veranda steps.
The little old woman gave a guilty start and began to knit vigorously.
“Dear me, no, Hezekiah. I was thinkin’.” She hesitated a moment, then added, a little feverishly: “--it’s ever so much cooler here than up ter the fair grounds now, ain’t it, Hezekiah?”
The old man threw a sharp look at her face. “Hm-m, yes,” he said. “Mebbe ‘t is.”
From far down the road came the clang of a bell. As by common consent the old man and his wife got to their feet and hurried to the front of the house where they could best see the trolley-car as it rounded a curve and crossed the road at right angles.
“Goes slick, don’t it?” murmured the man.
There was no answer. The woman’s eyes were hungrily devouring the last glimpse of paint and polish.
“An’ we hain’t been on ‘em ‘t all yet, have we, Abby?” he continued.
She drew a long breath.
“Well, ye see, I--I hain’t had time, Hezekiah,” she rejoined apologetically.
“Humph!” muttered the old man as they turned and walked back to their seats.
For a time neither spoke, then Hezekiah Warden cleared his throat determinedly and faced his wife.
“Look a’ here, Abby,” he began, “I’m agoin’ ter say somethin’ that has been ‘most tumblin’ off’n the end of my tongue fer mor’n a year. Jennie an’ Frank are good an’ kind an’ they mean well, but they think ‘cause our hair’s white an’ our feet ain’t quite so lively as they once was, that we’re jest as good as buried already, an’ that we don’t need anythin’ more excitin’ than a nap in the sun. Now, Abby, didn’t ye want ter go ter that fair with the folks ter-day? Didn’t ye?”
A swift flush came into the woman’s cheek.
“Why, Hezekiah, it’s ever so much cooler here, an’--” she paused helplessly.
“Humph!” retorted the man, “I thought as much. It’s always ‘nice an’ cool’ here in summer an’ ‘nice an’ warm’ here in winter when Jennie goes somewheres that you want ter go an’ don’t take ye. An’ when ‘t ain’t that, you say you ‘hain’t had time.’ I know ye! You’d talk any way ter hide their selfishness. Look a’ here, Abby, did ye ever ride in them ‘lectric-cars? I mean anywheres?”
“Well, I hain’t neither, an’, by ginger, I’m agoin’ to!”
“Oh, Hezekiah, Hezekiah, don’t--swear!”
“I tell ye, Abby, I will swear. It’s a swearin’ matter. Ever since I heard of ‘em I wanted ter try ‘em. An’ here they are now ‘most ter my own door an’ I hain’t even been in ‘em once. Look a’ here, Abby, jest because we’re ‘most eighty ain’t no sign we’ve lost int’rest in things. I’m spry as a cricket, an’ so be you, yet Frank an’ Jennie expect us ter stay cooped up here as if we was old--really old, ninety or a hundred, ye know--an’ ‘t ain’t fair. Why, we will be old one of these days!”
“I know it, Hezekiah.”
“We couldn’t go much when we was younger,” he resumed. “Even our weddin’ trip was chopped right off short ‘fore it even begun.”
A tender light came into the dim old eyes opposite.
“I know, dear, an’ what plans we had!” cried Abigail; “Boston, an’ Bunker Hill, an’ Faneuil Hall.”
The old man suddenly squared his shoulders and threw back his head.
“Abby, look a’ here! Do ye remember that money I’ve been savin’ off an’ on when I could git a dollar here an’ there that was extra? Well, there’s as much as ten of ‘em now, an’ I’m agoin’ ter spend ‘em--all of ‘em mebbe. I’m agoin’ ter ride in them ‘lectric-cars, an’ so be you. An’ I ain’t goin’ ter no old country fair, neither, an’ no more be you. Look a’ here, Abby, the folks are goin’ again ter-morrer ter the fair, ain’t they?”
Abigail nodded mutely. Her eyes were beginning to shine.
“Well,” resumed Hezekiah, “when they go we’ll be settin’ in the sun where they say we’d oughter be. But we ain’t agoin’ ter stay there, Abby. We’re goin’ down the road an’ git on them ‘lectric-cars, an’ when we git ter the Junction we’re agoin’ ter take the steam cars fer Boston. What if ‘tis thirty miles! I calc’late we’re equal to ‘em. We’ll have one good time, an’ we won’t come home until in the evenin’. We’ll see Faneuil Hall an’ Bunker Hill, an’ you shall buy a new cap, an’ ride in the subway. If there’s a preachin’ service we’ll go ter that. They have ‘em sometimes weekdays, ye know.”
“Oh, Hezekiah, we--couldn’t!” gasped the little old woman.
“Pooh! ‘Course we could. Listen!” And Hezekiah proceeded to unfold his plans more in detail.
It was very early the next morning when the household awoke. By seven o’clock a two-seated carryall was drawn up to the side-door, and by a quarter past the carryall, bearing Jennie, Frank, the boys, and the lunch baskets, rumbled out of the yard and on to the highway.
“Now, keep quiet and don’t get heated, mother,” cautioned Jennie, looking back at the little gray-haired woman standing all alone on the side veranda.
“Find a good cool spot to smoke your pipe in, father,” called Frank, as an old man appeared in the doorway.
There followed a shout, a clatter, and a cloud of dust--then silence. Fifteen minutes later, hand in hand, a little old man and a little old woman walked down the white road together.
To most of the passengers on the trolley-car that day the trip was merely a necessary means to an end; to the old couple on the front seat it was something to be remembered and lived over all their lives. Even at the Junction the spell of unreality was so potent that the man forgot things so trivial as tickets, and marched into the car with head erect and eyes fixed straight ahead.
It was after Hezekiah had taken out the roll of bills--all ones--to pay the fares to the conductor that a young man in a tall hat sauntered down the aisle and dropped into the seat in front.
“Going to Boston, I take it,” said the young man genially.
“Yes, sir,” replied Hezehiah, no less genially. “Ye guessed right the first time.”
Abigail lifted a cautious hand to her hair and her bonnet. So handsome and well-dressed a man would notice the slightest thing awry, she thought.
“Hm-m,” smiled the stranger. “I was so successful that time, suppose I try my luck again.--You don’t go every day, I fancy, eh?”
“Sugar! How’d he know that, now?” chuckled Hezekiah, turning to his wife in open glee. “So we don’t, stranger, so we don’t,” he added, turning back to the man. “Ye hit it plumb right.”
“Hm-m! great place, Boston,” observed the stranger. “I’m glad you’re going. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
The two wrinkled old faces before him fairly beamed.
“I thank ye, sir,” said Hezekiah heartily. “I call that mighty kind of ye, specially as there are them that thinks we’re too old ter be enj’yin’ of anythin’.”
“Old? Of course you’re not too old! Why, you’re just in the prime to enjoy things,” cried the handsome man, and in the sunshine of his dazzling smile the hearts of the little old man and woman quite melted within them.
“Thank ye, sir, thank ye sir,” nodded Abigail, while Hezekiah offered his hand.
“Shake, stranger, shake! An’ I ain’t too old, an’ I’m agoin’ ter prove it. I’ve got money, sir, heaps of it, an’ I’m goin’ ter spend it--mebbe I’ll spend it all. We’re agoin’ ter see Bunker Hill an’ Faneuil Hall, an’ we’re agoin’ ter ride in the subway. Now, don’t tell me we don’t know how ter enj’y ourselves!”
It was a very simple matter after that. On the one hand were infinite tact and skill; on the other, innocence, ignorance, and an overwhelming gratitude for this sympathetic companionship.
Long before Boston was reached Mr. and Mrs. Warden and “Mr. Livingstone” were on the best of terms, and when they separated at the foot of the car-steps, to the old man and woman it seemed that half their joy and all their courage went with the smiling man who lifted his hat in farewell before being lost to sight in the crowd.
“There, Abby, we’re here!” announced Hezekiah with an exultation that was a little forced. “Gorry! There must be somethin’ goin’ on ter-day,” he added, as he followed the long line of people down the narrow passage between the cars.
There was no reply. Abigail’s cheeks were pink and her bonnet-strings untied. Her eyes, wide opened and frightened, were fixed on the swaying, bobbing crowds ahead. In the great waiting-room she caught her husband’s arm.
“Hezekiah, we can’t, we mustn’t ter-day,” she whispered. “There’s such a crowd. Let’s go home an’ come when it’s quieter.”
“But, Abby, we--here, let’s set down,” Hezekiah finished helplessly.
Near one of the outer doors Mr. Livingstone--better known to his friends and the police as “Slick Bill”--smiled behind his hand. Not once since he had left them had Mr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Warden been out of his sight.
“What’s up, Bill? Need assistance?” demanded a voice at his elbow.
“Jim, by all that’s lucky!” cried Livingstone, turning to greet a dapper little man in gray. “Sure I need you! It’s a peach, though I doubt if we get much but fun, but there’ll be enough of that to make up. Oh, he’s got money--’heaps of it,’ he says,” laughed Livingstone, “and I saw a roll of bills myself. But I advise you not to count too much on that, though it’ll be easy enough to get what there is, all right. As for the fun, Jim, look over by that post near the parcel window.”
“Great Scott! Where’d you pick ‘em?” chuckled the younger man.
“Never mind,” returned the other with a shrug. “Meet me at Clyde’s in half an hour. We’ll be there, never fear.”
Over by the parcel-room an old man looked about him with anxious eyes.
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