Peace in Friendship Village

PEACE ⁸

When they went to South America for six months, the Henslows, that live across the street from me, wanted to rent their cottage. And of course, being a neighbor, I wanted them to get the fifteen dollars a month. But – being the cottage was my neighbor – I couldn't help, deep down in my inner head, feeling kind of selfish pleased that it stood vacant a while. It's a chore to have a new neighbor in the summer. They always want to borrow your rubber fruit-rings, and they forget to return some; and they come in and sit in the mornings when you want to get your work out of the way before the hot part of a hot day crashes down on you. I can neighbor agreeable when the snow flies, but summers I want my porch and my rocker and my wrapper and my palm-leaf fan, and nobody to call on. And – I don't want to sound less neighborly than I mean to sound – I don't want any real danger of being what you might say called-on – not till the cool of the day.

Then, on a glorious summer morning, right out of a clear blue sky, what did I see but two trunks plopped down on the Henslows' porch! I knew they were never back so soon. I knew the two trunks meant renters, and nothing but renters.

"I'll bet ten hundred thousand dollars one of them plays the flute and practices evenings," I says.

I didn't catch sight of them till the next morning, and then I saw him head for the early train into the city, and her stand at the gate and watch him. And, my land, she was in a white dress and she didn't look twenty years old.

So I went right straight over.

"My dear," I says, "I dunno what your name is, but I'm your neighbor, and I dunno what more we need than that."

She put out her hand – just exactly as if she was glad. She had a wonderful sweet, loving smile – and she smiled with that.

So I says: "I thought moving in here with trunks, so, you might want something. And if I can let you have anything – jars or jelly-glasses or rubber rings or whatever, why, just you – "

"Thank you, Miss Marsh," she says. "I know you're Miss Marsh – Mrs. Henslow told me about you."

"The same," says I, neat.

"I'm Mrs. Harry Beecher," she says. "I – we were just married last week," she says, neat as a biography.

"So you was!" I says. "Well, now, you just let me be to you what your folks would want me to be, won't you?" says I. "Feel," I says, "just like you could run in over to my house any time, morning, noon or night. Call on me for anything. Come on over and sit with me if you feel lonesome – or if you don't. My side porch is real nice and cool and shady all the afternoon – "

And so on. And wasn't that nice to happen to me, right in the middle of the dead of summer, with nothing going on?

If you have lived in the immediate neighborhood of a bride and groom, you know what I am going to tell about.

But if you haven't, try to rent your next house – if you rent – or try to buy your next home – if you buy – somewhere in the more-or-less neighborhood of a bride and groom. Because it's an education. It's an education in living. No – I don't believe I mean that the way you think I mean it at all. I mean it another way.

To be sure, there were the mornings, when I saw them come out from breakfast and steal a minute or two hanging round the veranda before he had to start off. That was as nice as a picture, and nicer. I got so I timed my breakfast so's I could be watering my flower-beds when this happened, and not miss it. He usually pulled the vines over better, or weeded a little near the step, or tinkered with the hinge of the screen, or fussed with the bricks where the roots had pushed them up. And she sat on the steps and talked with him, and laughed now and then with her little pretty laugh. (Not many women can laugh as pretty as she did – and we all ought to be able to do it. Sometimes I wish somebody would start a school to teach pretty laughing, and somebody else would make us all go to it.) And I knew how they were pretending that this was really their own home, and playing proprietor and householder, just like everybody else. And of course that was pleasurable to me to see – but that wasn't what I meant.

Nor I didn't mean times when she'd be out in the garden during the day, and the telephone bell would ring, and she would throw things and head for the house, running, because she thought it might be him calling her up from the city. Most usually it was. I always knew it had been him when she came back singing.

And then there were the late afternoons, say, almost an hour before the first train that he could possibly come on and that now and then he caught. Always before it was time for that she would open her front door that she'd had closed all day to keep her house cool, and she'd bring her book or her sewing out on the porch, and never pay a bit of attention to either, because she sat looking up the street. There was only a little bit of shade on her porch that time in the afternoon, and I used to want to ask her to come over on my cool, shady side porch, but I had the sense not to. I sort of understood how she liked to sit out there where she was, on their own porch, waiting for him. Then he'd come, and she'd sit out in the garden and read to him while he dug in the beds, or she'd sew on the porch while he cut the grass – well, now, it don't sound like much as I tell it, does it? – and yet it used to look wonderful sweet to me, looking across the street.

But as I said, it wasn't any of these times, nor yet the long summer evenings when I could just see the glimmer of her white dress on the porch or in the garden, or their shadows on the curtain, rainy evenings; no, it wasn't these times that made me wish for everybody in the world that they lived next door to a bride and groom. But the thing I mean came to me all of a sudden, when they hadn't been my neighbors for a week. And it came to me like this:

One night I'd had them over for supper. It had been a hot day, and ordinarily I'm opposed to company on a hot day; but some way having them was different. And then I didn't imagine she was so very used to cooking, and I got to thinking maybe a meal away from home would be a rest.

And after supper we'd been walking around my yard, looking at my late cosmos and wondering whether it would get around to bloom before the frost. And they had been telling me how they meant to plant their garden when they got one of their own. I liked to keep them talking about it, because his face lit up so young and boyish, and hers got all soft and bright; and they looked at each other like they could see that garden planted and up and growing and pretty near paid for. So I kept egging them on, asking this and that, just to hear them plan.

"One whole side of the wall," said he, "we'll have lilacs and forsythia."

She looked at him. "I thought we said hollyhocks there," she said.

"Well, don't you remember," he said, "we changed that when you said you'd planned, ever since you were a little girl to have lilacs and forsythia on the edge of your garden?"

"Well – so I did," she remembered. "But I thought you said you liked hollyhocks best?"

"Maybe I did," says he. "I forget. I don't know but I did for a while. But I think of it this way now."

She laughed. "Why," she said, "I was getting to prefer hollyhocks."

I noticed that particular. Then we came round the corner of the house. And the street looked so peaceful and lovely that I knew just how he felt when he said:

"Let's us three go and take a drive in the country. Can't we? We could get a carriage somewhere, couldn't we?"

And she says like a little girl, "Oh, yes, let's. But don't you s'pose we could rent a car here from somebody?"

I liked to look at his look when he looked at her. He done it now.

"A car?" he said. "But you're nervous when I drive. Wouldn't you rather have a horse?"

"Well, but you'd rather have a car," she said. "And I'd like to know you were liking that best! And, truly, I don't think I'd care much – now."

Then I took a hand. "You look here," I says. "I'd really ought to step down to Mis' Merriman's to a committee meeting. I've been trying to make myself believe I didn't need to go, but I know I ought to. And you two take your drive."

They fussed a little, but that was the way we arranged it. I went off to my meeting before I saw which they did get to go in. But that didn't make any difference. All the way to the meeting I kept thinking about lilacs and hollyhocks and horses and cars. And I saw what had happened to those two: they loved each other so much that they'd kind of lost track of the little things that they thought had mattered so much, and neither could very well remember which they had really had a leaning towards of all the things.

"It's a kind of each-otherness!" I says to myself. "It's a new thing. That ain't giving-upness. Giving-upness is when you still want what you give up. This is something else. It's each-otherness. And you can't get it till you care."

But then I thought of something else. It wasn't only them – it was me! It was like I had caught something from them. For of course I'd rather have gone driving with those two than to have gone to any committee meeting, necessary or not. But I knew now that I'd been feeling inside me that of course they didn't want an old thing like me along, and that of course they'd rather have their drive alone, horse or automobile. And so I'd kind of backed out according. Being with them had made me feel a sort of each-otherness too. It was wonderful. I thought about it a good deal.

And when I came home and see that they'd got back first, and were sitting on the porch with no lights in the house yet, except the one burning dim in the hall, I sat upstairs by my window quite a while. And I says to myself:

"If only there was a bride and groom in every single house all up and down the streets of the village – "

And I could almost think how it would be with everybody being decent to each other and to the rest, just sheer because they were all happy.

Picture how I felt, then, when not six weeks later, on a morning all yellow and blue and green, and tied onto itself with flowers, little Mrs. Bride came standing at my side door, knocking on the screen, and her face all tear-stained.

"Gracious, now," I says, "did breakfast burn?"

She came in. She always wore white dresses and little doll caps in the morning, and she sit down at the end of my dining-room table, looking like a rosebud in trouble.

"Oh, Miss Marsh," she says, "it isn't any laughing matter. Something's happened between us. We've spoke cross to each other."

"Well, well," I says, "what was that for?"

I s'posed maybe he'd criticized the popovers, or something equally universal had occurred.

"That was it," she says. "We've spoke cross to each other, Miss Marsh."

And then it came to me that it didn't seem to be bothering her at all what it was about. The only thing that stuck out for her was that they'd spoke cross to each other.

"So!" I says. "And you've got to wait all day long before you can patch it up. Why don't you call him up?" I ask her. "It's only twenty cents for the three minutes – and you can get it all in that."

She shook her head. "That's the worst of it," she says. "I can't do it. Neither can he. I'm not that sort – to be able to give in after I've been mad and spoke harsh. I'm – I'm afraid neither of us will, even when he gets home."

Then I sat up straight. This, I see, was serious – most as serious as she thought.

"What's the reason?" says I.

"I dunno," she says. "We're like that – both of us. We're awful proud – no matter how much we want to give in, we can't."

I sat looking at her.

"Call him up," I says.

She shook her head again and made her pretty mouth all tight.

"I couldn't," she says. "I couldn't."

She seemed to like to sit and talk it over, kind of luxurious. She told me how it began – some twopenny thing about screens in the parlor window. She told me how one thing led to another. I let her talk and I sat there thinking. Pretty soon she went home and she never sung once all day. It didn't seem as if anybody's screens were worth that.

I'm not one that's ashamed of looking at anything I'm interested in. When it came time for the folks from the afternoon local, I sat down in my parlor behind the Nottinghams. I saw she never came out to the gate. And when he came home I could see her white dress out in the back garden where she was pretending to work.

He sat down on the front porch and smoked, and seemed to read the paper. She came in the house after a while, and finally she appeared in the front door for three-fourths of a second.

"Your supper's ready for you," I heard her say. And then I knew, certain sure, how they were both sitting there at their table not speaking a word.

I ate my own supper, and I felt like a funeral was going on. It kills something in me to have young folks, or any folks, act like that. And when I went back in the parlor I saw him on the front porch again, smoking, and her on the side porch playing with the kitten.

"It's the first death," I says. "It's their first kind of death. And I can't stand it a minute longer."

So when I saw him start out pretty soon to go downtown alone – I went to my front gate and I called to him to come over. He came – a fine, close-knit chap he was, with the young not rubbed out of his face yet, and his eyes window-clear.

"The catch on my closet-door don't act right," I says. "I wonder if you'll fix it for me?"

He went up and done it, and I ran for the tools for him and tried to get my courage up. When he got through and came down I was sitting on my hall-tree.

"Mr. Groom," I says – that was my name for him – "I hope you won't think I'm interfering too much, but I want to speak to you serious about your wife."

"Yes," he says, short.

I went on, never noticing: "I dunno whether you've took it in, but there seems to be something wrong with her."

"Wrong with her?" he says.

"Yes, sir," I says. "And I dunno but awfully wrong. I've been noticing lately." (I didn't say how lately.)

"What do you mean?" says he, and sat down on the bottom step.

"Don't you see," I says, "that she don't look well? She don't act no more like herself than I do. She hasn't," says I, truthful, "half the spirit to her to-day that she had when you first came here to the village."

"Why – no," he says, "I hadn't noticed – "

"You wouldn't," says I. "You wouldn't be likely to. But it seems to me that you ought to be warned – and be on your guard."

"Warned!" he says, and I saw him get pale – I tell you I saw him get pale.

"I'm not easy alarmed," I told him. "And when I see anything serious, it ain't in my power to stand aside and not say anything."

"Serious," he says over. "Serious? But, Miss Marsh, can you give me any idea – "

"I've give you a hint," says I, "that it's something you'd ought to be mighty careful about. I dunno's I can do much more; I dunno's I ought to do that. But if anything should happen – "

"Good heavens!" he says. "You don't think she's that bad off?"

" – if anything should happen," I went on, calm, "I didn't want to have myself to blame for not having spoke up in time. Now," says I, brisk, "you were just going downtown. And I've got a taste of jell I want to take over to her. So I won't keep you."

He got up, looking so near like a tree that's had its roots hacked at that I 'most could have told him that I didn't mean the kind of death he was thinking of at all. But I didn't say anything more. And he thanked me, humble and grateful and scared, and went off downtown. He looked over to the cottage, though, when he shut my gate – I noticed that. She wasn't anywhere in sight. Nor she wasn't when I stepped up onto her porch in a minute or two with a cup-plate of my new quince jell that I wanted her to try.

"Hello," I says in the passage. "Anybody home?"

There was a little shuffle and she came out of the dining-room. There was a mark all acrost her cheek, and I judged she'd been lying on the couch out there crying.

"Get a teaspoon," says I, "and come taste my new receipt."

She came, lack-luster, and like jell didn't make much more difference than anything else. We sat down, cozy, in the hammock, me acting like I'd forgot everything in the world about what had gone before. I rattled on about the new way to make my jell and then I set the sample on the sill behind the shutter and I says:

"I just had Mr. Groom come over to fix the latch on my closet-door. I dunno what was wrong with it – when I shut it tight it went off like a gun in the middle of the night. Mr. Groom fixed it in just a minute."

"Oh, he did," says she, about like that.

"He's awful handy with tools," I says. And she didn't say anything. And then says I:

"Mrs. Bride, we're old friends by now, ain't we?"

"Why, yes," says she, "and good friends, I hope."

"That's what I hope," I says. "And now," I went on, "I hope you won't think I'm interfering too much, but I want to speak to you serious about your husband."

"My husband?" says she, short.

I went on, never noticing. "I don't know whether you've took it in, but there seems to be something wrong with him."

"What do you mean?" she says, looking at me.

"Well, sir," I says, "I ain't sure. I can't tell just how wrong it is. But something is ailing him."

"Why, I haven't noticed anything," she says, and come over to a chair nearer to me.

"You don't mean," I says, "that you don't notice the change there's been in him?" – I didn't say in how long – "the lines in his face and how different he acts?"

"Oh, no," she says. "Why, surely not!"

"Surely yes," says I. "It strikes me – it struck me over there to-night – that something is the matter —serious."

"Oh, don't say that," she says. "You frighten me."

"I'm sorry for that," says I. "But it's better to be frightened too soon than too late. And if anything should happen I wouldn't want to think – "

"Oh!" she says, sharp, "what do you think could happen?"

" – I wouldn't want to think," I went on, "that I had suspicioned and hadn't warned you."

"But what can I do – " she began.

"You can watch out," I says, "now that you know. Folks get careless about their near and dear – that's all. They don't notice that anything's the matter till it's too late."

"Oh, dear!" she says. "Oh, if anything should happen to Harry, why, Miss Marsh – "

"Exactly," says I.

We talked on a little while till I heard what I was waiting for – him coming up the street. I noticed that he hadn't been gone downtown long enough to buy a match.

"I'm going over to Miss Matey's for some pie-plant," I says. "Her second crop is on. Can I go through your back gate? Maybe I'll come back this way."

When I went around their house I saw that she was still standing on the porch and he was coming in the gate. And I never looked back at all – bad as I wanted to.

It was deep dusk when I came back. The air was as gentle as somebody that likes you when they're liking you most.

When I came by the end of the porch I heard voices, so I knew that they were talking. And then I caught just one sentence. You'd think I could have been contented to slip through the front yard and leave them to work it out. But I wasn't. In fact I'd only just got the stage set ready for what I meant to do.

I walked up the steps and laid my pie-plant on the stoop.

"I'm coming in," I says.

They got up and said the different things usual. And I went and sat down.

"You'll think in a minute," says I, "that I owe you both an apology. But I don't."

"What for, dear?" Mrs. Bride says, and took my hand.

I'm an old woman and I felt like their mother and their grandmother. But I felt a little frightened too.

"Is either of you sick?" I says.

Both of them says: "No, I ain't." And both of them looked furtive and quick at the other.

"Well," I says, "mebbe you don't know it. But to-day both of you has had the symptoms of coming down with something. Something serious."

They looked at me, puzzled.

"I noticed it in Mrs. Bride this morning," I says, "when she came over to my house. She looked white, and like all the life had gone out of her. And she didn't sing once all day, nor do any work. Then I noticed it in you to-night," I says to him, "when you walked looking down, and came acrost the street lack-luster, and like nothing mattered so much as it might have if it had mattered more. And so I done the natural thing. I told each of you about something being the matter with the other one. Something serious."

I stood up in front of them, and I dunno but I felt like a fairy godmother that had something to give them – something priceless.

"When two folks," I says, "speak cross to each other and can't give in, it's just as sure a disease as – as quinsy. And it'll be fatal, same as a fever can be. You can hate the sight of me if you want to, but that's why I spoke out like I done."

I didn't dare look at them. I began just there to see what an awful thing I had done, and how they were perfectly bound to take it. But I thought I'd get in as much as I could before they ordered me off the porch.

"I've loved seeing you over here," I says. "It's made me young again. I've loved watching you say good-by in the mornings, and meet again evenings. I've loved looking out over here to the light when you sat reading, and I could see your shadows go acrost the curtains sometimes, when I sat rocking in my house by myself. It's all been something I've liked to know was happening. It seemed as if a beautiful, new thing was beginning in the world – and you were it."

All at once I got kind of mad at the two of them.

"And here for a little tinkering matter about screens for the parlor, you go and spoil all my fun by not speaking to each other!" I scolded, sharp.

It was that, I think, that turned the tide and made them laugh. They both did laugh, hearty – and they looked at each other and laughed – I noticed that. For two folks can not look at each other and laugh and stay mad same time. They can not do it.

I went right on: "So," I says, "I told you each the truth, that the other one was sick. So you were, both of you. Sick at heart. And you know it."

He put out his hand to her.

"I know it," he says.

"I know too," says she.

"Land!" says I, "you done that awful pretty. If I could give in that graceful about anything I'd go round giving in whether I'd said anything to be sorry for or not. I'd do it for a parlor trick."

"Was it hard, dear?" he says to her. And she put up her face to him just as if I hadn't been there. I liked that. And it made me feel as much at home as the clock.

He looked hard at me.

"Truly," he says, "didn't you mean she looked bad?"

"I meant just what I said," says I. "She did look bad. But she don't now."

"And you made it all up," she says, "about something serious being the matter with him – "

"Made it up!" says I. "No! But what ailed him this morning doesn't ail him now. That's all. I s'pose you're both mad at me," I says, mournful.

He took a deep breath. "Not when I'm as thankful as this," he says.

"And me," she says. "And me."

I looked around the little garden of the Henslows' cottage, with the moon behaving as if everything was going as smooth as glass – don't you always notice that about the moon? What grand manners it's got? It never lets on that anything is the matter.

He threw his arm across her shoulder in that gesture of comradeship that is most the sweetest thing they do.

They got up and came over to me quick.

"We can't thank you – " she says.

"Shucks," I says. "I been wishing I had something to give you. I couldn't think of anything but vegetables. Now mebbe I've give you something after all – providing you don't go and forget it the very next time," I says, wanting to scold them again.

They walked to the gate with me. The night was black and pale gold, like a great soft drowsy bee.

"You know," I says, when I left them, "peace that we talk so much about – that isn't going to come just by governments getting it. If people like you and me can't keep it – and be it – what hope is there for the nations? We are 'em!"

I'd never thought of it before. I went home saying it over. When I'd put my pie-plant down cellar I went in my dark little parlor and sat down by the window and rocked. I could see their light for a little while. Then it went out. The cottage lay in that hush of peace of a hot summer night. I could feel the peacefulness of the village.

"If only we can get enough of it," I says. "If only we can get enough of it – "