Tiverton Tales

								

soured over night, a pessimistic public, turning for relief to the local
drama, said that Amelia Titcomb had married a tramp. But as soon as the
heavens smiled again, it was conceded that she must have been getting
lonely in her middle age, and that she had taken the way of wisdom so to
furbish up mansions for the coming years. Whatever was set down on
either side of the page, Amelia did not care. She was whole-heartedly
content with her husband and their farm.
It had happened, one autumn day, that she was trying, all alone, to
clean out the cistern. This was while she was still Amelia Titcomb,
innocent that there lived a man in the world who could set his foot upon
her maiden state, and flourish there. She was an impatient creature. She
never could delay for a fostering time to put her plants into the
ground, and her fall cleaning was done long before the flies were gone.
So, to-day, while other house mistresses sat cosily by the fire,
awaiting a milder season, she was toiling up and down the ladder set in
the cistern, dipping pails of sediment from the bottom, and, hardy as
she was, almost repenting her of a too-fierce desire. Her thick brown
hair was roughened and blown about her face, her cheeks bloomed out in a
frosty pink, and the plaid kerchief, tied in a hard knot under her chin,
seemed foolishly ineffectual against the cold. Her hands ached, holding
the pail, and she rebelled inwardly against the inclemency of the time.
It never occurred to her that she could have put off this exacting job.
She would sooner have expected Heaven to put off the weather. Just as
she reached the top of the cistern, and lifted her pail of refuse over
the edge, a man appeared from the other side of the house, and stood
confronting her. He was tall and gaunt, and his deeply graven face was
framed by grizzled hair. Amelia had a rapid thought that he was not so
old as he looked; experience, rather than years, must have wrought its
trace upon him. He was leading a little girl, dressed with a very patent
regard for warmth, and none for beauty. Amelia, with a quick, feminine
glance, noted that the child's bungled skirt and hideous waist had been
made from an old army overcoat. The little maid's brown eyes were sweet
and seeking; they seemed to petition for something. Amelia's heart did
not respond at that time, she had no reason for thinking she was fond of
children. Yet she felt a curious disturbance at sight of the pair. She
afterwards explained it adequately to the man, by asserting that they
looked as odd as Dick's hatband.
"Want any farmwork done?" asked he. "Enough to pay for a night's
lodgin'?" His voice sounded strangely soft from one so large and rugged.
It hinted at unused possibilities. But though Amelia felt impressed, she
was conscious of little more than her own cold and stiffness, and she
answered sharply,--
"No, I don't. I don't calculate to hire, except in hayin' time, an' then
I don't take tramps."