to have my house turned upsi' down an' all changed about; no, not to please nobody.I was the only one knew just how she liked to have things set, poor dear, an' I said I was goin' to make shift, and I have made shift.I'd rather tough it out alone." And he sighed heavily, as if to sigh were his familiar consolation.
We were both silent for a minute; the old man looked out the window, as if he had forgotten I was there.
"You must miss her very much?" I said at last.
"I do miss her," he answered, and sighed again."Folks all kep' repeatin' that time would ease me, but I can't find it does.
No, I miss her just the same every day."
"How long is it since she died?" I asked.
"Eight year now, come the first of October.It don't seem near so long.I've got a sister that comes and stops 'long o' me a little spell, spring an' fall, an' odd times if I send after her.
I ain't near so good a hand to sew as I be to knit, and she's very quick to set everything to rights.She's a married woman with a family; her son's folks lives at home, an' I can't make no great claim on her time.But it makes me a kind o' good excuse, when Ido send, to help her a little; she ain't none too well off.Poor dear always liked her, and we used to contrive our ways together.
'Tis full as easy to be alone.I set here an' think it all over, an' think considerable when the weather's bad to go outside.I get so some days it feels as if poor dear might step right back into this kitchen.I keep a-watchin' them doors as if she might step in to ary one.Yes, ma'am, I keep a-lookin' off an' droppin' o' my stitches; that's just how it seems.I can't git over losin' of her no way nor no how.Yes, ma'am, that's just how it seems to me."I did not say anything, and he did not look up.
"I git feelin' so sometimes I have to lay everything by an' go out door.She was a sweet pretty creatur' long's she lived," the old man added mournfully."There's that little rockin' chair o'
her'n, I set an' notice it an' think how strange 'tis a creatur'
like her should be gone an' that chair be here right in its old place.""I wish I had known her; Mrs.Todd told me about your wife one day," I said.
"You'd have liked to come and see her; all the folks did,"said poor Elijah."She'd been so pleased to hear everything and see somebody new that took such an int'rest.She had a kind o'
gift to make it pleasant for folks.I guess likely Almiry Todd told you she was a pretty woman, especially in her young days; late years, too, she kep' her looks and come to be so pleasant lookin'.There, 'tain't so much matter, I shall be done afore a great while.No; I sha'n't trouble the fish a great sight more."The old widower sat with his head bowed over his knitting, as if he were hastily shortening the very thread of time.The minutes went slowly by.He stopped his work and clasped his hands firmly together.I saw he had forgotten his guest, and I kept the afternoon watch with him.At last he looked up as if but a moment had passed of his continual loneliness.
"Yes, ma'am, I'm one that has seen trouble," he said, and began to knit again.
The visible tribute of his careful housekeeping, and the clean bright room which had once enshrined his wife, and now enshrined her memory, was very moving to me; he had no thought for any one else or for any other place.I began to see her myself in her home,--a delicate-looking, faded little woman, who leaned upon his rough strength and affectionate heart, who was always watching for his boat out of this very window, and who always opened the door and welcomed him when he came home.
"I used to laugh at her, poor dear," said Elijah, as if he read my thought."I used to make light of her timid notions.She used to be fearful when I was out in bad weather or baffled about gittin' ashore.She used to say the time seemed long to her, but I've found out all about it now.I used to be dreadful thoughtless when I was a young man and the fish was bitin' well.I'd stay out late some o' them days, an' I expect she'd watch an' watch an' lose heart a-waitin'.My heart alive! what a supper she'd git, an' be right there watchin' from the door, with somethin' over her head if 'twas cold, waitin' to hear all about it as I come up the field.
Lord, how I think o' all them little things!""This was what she called the best room; in this way," he said presently, laying his knitting on the table, and leading the way across the front entry and unlocking a door, which he threw open with an air of pride.The best room seemed to me a much sadder and more empty place than the kitchen; its conventionalities lacked the simple perfection of the humbler room and failed on the side of poor ambition; it was only when one remembered what patient saving, and what high respect for society in the abstract go to such furnishing that the little parlor was interesting at all.I could imagine the great day of certain purchases, the bewildering shops of the next large town, the aspiring anxious woman, the clumsy sea-tanned man in his best clothes, so eager to be pleased, but at ease only when they were safe back in the sailboat again, going down the bay with their precious freight, the hoarded money all spent and nothing to think of but tiller and sail.I looked at the unworn carpet, the glass vases on the mantelpiece with their prim bunches of bleached swamp grass and dusty marsh rosemary, and Icould read the history of Mrs.Tilley's best room from its very beginning.
"You see for yourself what beautiful rugs she could make; now I'm going to show you her best tea things she thought so much of,"said the master of the house, opening the door of a shallow cupboard."That's real chiny, all of it on those two shelves," he told me proudly."I bought it all myself, when we was first married, in the port of Bordeaux.There never was one single piece of it broke until-- Well, I used to say, long as she lived, there never was a piece broke, but long at the last I noticed she'd look kind o' distressed, an' I thought 'twas 'count o' me boastin'.
