Country Neighbors

								

when we was in the Third Reader old lady Knowles an' Ann harnessed up
one day in the year an' drove over to Wareham to spend the day."
"Yes," Amelia sparkled back at him, "'tis so. They look pretty much the
same, both of 'em."
"They must be well along in years?"
Amelia had begun putting up the leaves of the mahogany dining-table. She
laughed, a pretty ripple.
"Well, anyway," she qualified, "old Pomp ain't gone with 'em. He's
buried out under the August sweet. They've got an old white now. 'Twas
the colt long after you left here." She had gone to the dresser and
pulled open a drawer. Those were the every-day tablecloths, fine and
good; but in the drawer above, she knew, was the best damask, snowdrops
and other patterns more wonderful, with birds and butterflies. She
debated but a moment, and then pulled out a lovely piece that shone with
ironing. "I'll tell you what it is, Jared," she said, returning to
spread it on the table with deft touches, "it's we that change, as well
as other folks. Ever think o' that? Ever occur to you old lady Knowles
wa'n't much over sixty them days when we used to call her old? 'Twas
because we were so young ourselves. She don't seem much different to me
now from what she did then."
"There's a good deal in that," said Jared, rising. "Want I should draw
you up some water out o' the old well?"
"Yes. I shall want some in a minute. I'll make us a cup o' coffee. You
like that."
Jared drew the water, and after he had brought it to her he went out
into the back garden; and, while she moved back and forth from pantry to
table, she caught glimpses of him through the window as he went about
from the bees to the flower-beds, in a reminiscent wandering. Once he
halted under the sweet-bough and gave one branch a shake, and then, with
an unerring remembrance, he crossed the sward to the "sopsy-vine" by the
wall.
Amelia could not get over the wonder of having him there. Strangely, he
had not changed. Even his speech had the old neighborly tang. Whether he
had returned to it as to a never-forgotten tune, she could not know; but
it was in her ears, awakening touches of old harmony. Yet these things
she dared not dwell upon. She put them aside in haste to live with after
he should be gone.
Her preparations were swiftly made, lest she should lose a moment of his
stay, and presently she went to the door and summoned him.
"Dinner's ready, Jared!"
It sounded as if she had said it every day, and she knew why; the words
and others like them, sweet and commonplace, were inwoven with the
texture of her dreams.
Jared came in, an eager look upon his face, as if he also were in a
maze, and they sat down at the table, where the viands were arranged in
a beautiful order. Jared laid down his knife and fork.
"Well," said he, "old Ann ain't lost her faculty. This tastes for all
the world just as old lady Knowles's things used to when I come over
here to weed the garden an' stayed to dinner."