Country Neighbors

								

himself by the gate, in drunken majesty, and addressed the
school-children in a ring, "but goin' through anybody's pockets. That's
more'n anybody ought to be called upon to bear."
Lydia smiled sorrowfully upon herself in the midst of her daze, at the
wonder whether she also should be tempted to go through her husband's
pockets, not thriftily, to save his purse, but to discover the portrait
of his first wife. Yet she had resolved to ask him nothing; and then, in
the way of womankind, she opened her lips one day and said the thing she
would not.
They were sitting in the garden under the pear tree, with beautiful old
borders, all a lovely neglect, on both sides. Lydia had been talking
about flowers, and getting up now and then to pull a weed,--an
ineffectual service where weeds were so plentiful,--and stopping to
speak a word to a late sweet-william, as if it were a child. Eben was
smoking his pipe contentedly and watching her.
"You like 'em, don't you?" he said fondly, as she came back and took her
chair again.
"I guess I do," said Lydia. That day she felt particularly well and
freed from the assaults of memory. The sun was on her face and she
welcomed it, and a light breeze stirred her hair. "Mother always said I
was bewitched over gardens."
"You shall have all the land you can take care of," he avowed, "an' you
shall have a hired man of your own. I can foretell his name. It's Eben
Jakes."
Lydia laughed, and he went on: "We used to have a few beds, but when
mother was taken away I kinder let it slip."
Suddenly Lydia felt her heart beating hard. Something choked her, and
her voice stuck in her throat.
"Eben, how'd your mother look?"
"What say?" asked Eben. He was shaking the ashes from his pipe, and the
tapping of the bowl against his chair had drowned her mild attempt.
"How did your mother look?"
He pursed his lips and gazed off into the distance of the orchard. Then
he laughed a little at his own incompetence.
"I dunno 's I can tell. I ain't much of a hand at that. She was just
kinder old an' pindlin' to other folks. But she looked pretty nice to
me."
"Ain't you got a photograph of her here with you?"
He shook his head.
"I thought mebbe you'd carry one round."
"Mother never had any real good picture," said Eben meditatively. "I
dunno 's she ever set for a photograph. She had an ambrotype taken when
she was young, with kinder full sleeves an' her hair brought down over
her ears. No, mother never had a picture that was any comfort to me."
Then Lydia dared her first approach.
"Ain't you got any photographs here with you, any of your other folks?
I'd like to know how they look."
He shook his head.
"No. They're all to home. You'll find 'em in the album on the
centre-table. Gee! I hope the house won't be all full o' dust. I never
thought, when I set out, I should bring the quality back with me."
But she could not answer by a lifted eyelash the veiled fondness of his