Travel

“She didnt begin to age until two or three years ago, did she?” asked Mrs. Crowe. “I never saw anybody keep her looks as Tempy did. She looked young long after I begun to feel like an old woman. The doctor used to sayitwas her young heart, and I dont know but what he was right. How she did do for other folks! There was one spell she wasnt at home a day to a fortnight. She got most of her livin so, and that made her own potatoes and things last her through. None of the young folks could get married without her, and all the old ones was disap-pointed if she want round when they was down with sickness-and had to go. An cleanin, or tailorin for boys, or rug-hookin, there was nothin but what she could do as handy as most. I do love to work, – aint you heard her say that twenty times a week?”

Sarah Ann Binson nodded, and began to clear away the empty plates. “We may want a taste o somethin more towards mornin,” she said. “There` plenty in the closet here; and in case some comes from a distance to the funeral, well have a little table spread after we get back to the house.”

“Yes, I was busy all the mornin. Ive cooked up a sight of things to bring over,” said Mrs. Crowe. “I felt twas the last I could do for her.”
They drew their chairs near the stove again, and took up their work. Sister Binson` rocking-chair creaked as she rocked; the brook sounded louder than ever. It was more lonely when nobody spoke, and presently Mrs. Crowe returned to her thoughts of growing old.

“Yes, Tempy aged all of a sudden. I remember I asked her if she felt as well as common, one day, and she laughed at me good. There, when Mr. Crowe begun to look old, I couldnt help feeling as if somethin ailed him, and like as not twas somethin he was goin to git right over, and I dosed him for it stiddy, half of one summer.”

“How many things we shall be wanting to ask Tempy!” exclaimed Sarah Ann Binson, after a long pause. “I cant make up my mind to doin without her. I wish folks could come back just once, and tell us how tis where theyve gone. Seems then we could do without em better.”

Compassionately

The brook hurried on, the wind blew about the house now and then; the house itself was a silent place, and the supper, the warm fire, and an absence of any new topics for conversation made the watchers drowsy. Sister Binson closed her eyes first, to rest them for a minute; and Mrs. Crowe glanced at her compassionately, with a new sympathy for the hard-worked little woman. She made up her mind to let Sarah Ann have a good rest, while she kept watch alone; but in a few minutes her own knitting was dropped, and she, too, fell asleep. Overhead, the pale shape of Tempy Dent, the outworn body of that generous, loving- hearted, simple soul, slept on also in its white raiment. Perhaps Tempy herself stood near, and saw her own life and its surroundings with new understanding. Perhaps she herself was the only watcher.

Later, by some hours, Sarah Ann Binson woke with a start. There was a pale light of dawn outside the small windows. Inside the kitchen, the lamp burned dim. Mrs. Crowe awoke, too.

“I think Tempyd be the first to say twas just as well we both had some rest,” she said, not without a guilty feeling.

Her companion went to the outer door, and opened it wide. The fresh air was none too cold, and the brook` voice was not nearly so loud as it had been in the midnight darkness. She could see the shapes of the hills, and the great shadows that lay across the lower country. The east was fast growing bright.

“Twill be a beautiful day for the funeral,” she said, and turned again, with a sigh, to follow Mrs. Crowe up the stairs.

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“There never was a better man,” responded Mrs. Crowe, in a really cheerful tone. She had recovered from her feeling of nervous dread, the kitchen was so comfortable with lamplight and firelight; and just then the old clock began to tell the hour of twelve with leisurely whirring strokes.

Sister Binson laid aside her work, and rose quickly and went to the cupboard. “Wed better take a little to eat,” she explained. “The night will go fast after this. I want to know if you went and made some of your nice cupcake, while you was home to-day?” she asked, in a pleased tone; and Mrs. Crowe acknowledged such a gratifying piece of thoughtfulness for this humble friend who denied herself all luxuries.

Sister Binson

Sarah Ann brewed a generous cup of tea, and the watchers drew their chairs up to the table presently, and quelled their hunger with good country appetites. Sister Binson put a spoon into a small, old-fashioned glass of preserved quince, and passed it to her friend. She was most familiar with the house, and played the part of hostess. “Spread some o this on your bread and butter,“ she said to Mrs. Crowe. “Tempy wanted me to use some three or four times, but I never felt to. I know shed like to have us comfortable now, and would urge us to make a good supper, poor dear.”

“What excellent preserves she did make!” mourned Mrs. Crowe. “None of us has got her light hand at doin things tasty. She made the most of everything, too. Now, she only had that one old quince-tree down in the far corner of the piece, but shed go out in the spring and tend to it, and look at it so pleasant, and kind of expect the old thorny thing into bloomin.”

“She was just the same with folks,” said Sarah Ann. “And shed never git moren a little apernful of quinces, but shed have every mite of goodness out of those, and set the glasses up onto her best-room closet shelf, so pleased. Twant but a week ago to-morrow mornin I fetched her a little taste of jelly in a teaspoon; and she says Thank ye, and took it, and the minute she tasted it she looked up at me as worried as could be. Oh, I dont want to eat that,says she. I always keep that in case o sickness. You are goin to have the good of one tumbler yourself, says I. I d just like to know who` sick now, if you aint! And she couldnt help laughin, I spoke up so smart. Oh, dear me, how I shall miss talkinover things with her! She always sensed things, and got just the pint you meant.”

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“Tis a great thing for anybody to have got through, aint it?” said Mrs. Crowe softly, as she began to go down the stairs on tiptoe. The warm air from the kitchen beneath met them with a sense of welcome and shelter.
“I dont know why it is, but I feel as near again to Tempy down here as I do up there,” replied Sister Binson. “I feel as if the air was full of her, kind of. I can sense things, now and then, that she seems to say. Now I never was one to take up with no nonsense of sperits and such, but I declare I felt as if she told me just now to put some more wood into the stove.”

Mrs. Crowe preserved a gloomy silence. She had suspected before this that her companion was of a weaker and more credulous disposition than herself. “ Tis a great thing to have got through,” she repeated, ignoring definitely all that had last been said. “I suppose you know as well as I that Tempy was one that always feared death. Well, it` all put behind her now; she knows what tis.” Mrs. Crowe gave a little sigh, and Sister Binson` quick sympathies were stirred toward this other old friend, who also dreaded the great change.

Tempy spoke

“Id never like to forgit almost those last words Tempy spoke plain to me,” she said gently, like the comforter she truly was. “She looked up at me once or twice, that last afternoon after I come to set by her, and let Mi` Owen go home; and I says, Can I do anything to ease you, Tempy? and the tears come into my eyes so I couldnt see what kind of a nod she give me. No, Sarah Ann, you cant, dear, says she; and then she got her breath again, and says she, looking at me real meanin, Im only a-gettin sleepier and sleepier; that` all there is, says she, and smiled up at me kind of wishful, and shut her eyes. I knew well enough all she meant. Shed been lookin out for a chance to tell me, and I don know` she ever said much afterwards.”

Mrs. Crowe was not knitting; she had been listening too eagerly. “Yes, twill be a comfort to think of that sometimes,” she said, in acknowledgment.

“I know that old Dr. Prince said once, in eveni meetin, that hed watched by many a dyin bed, as we well knew, and enough of his sick folks had been scared o dyin their whole lives through; but when they come to the last, hed never seen one but was willin, and most were glad, to go. “Tis as natural as bein born or livin on, he said. I dont know what had moved him to speak that night. You know he want in the habit of it, and twas the monthly concert of prayer for foreign missions anyways,” said Sarah Ann; “but twas a great stay to the mind to listen to his words of experience.”

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This touched upon an exciting subject to active members of that parish. Miss Binson and Mrs. Crowe belonged to opposite parties and liad at one time come as near hard feelings as they could, and yet escape them. Each hastened to speak of other things and to show her untouched friendliness.

“I do agree with you,” said Sister Binson, “that few of us know what use to make of money, beyond everyday necessities. Youve seen more o the world than I have, and know what` expected. When it comes to taste and judgment about such things, I ought to defer to others”; and with this modest avowal the critical moment passed when there might have been an improper discussion.

In the silence that followed, the fact of their presence in a house of death grew more clear than before. There was something disturbing in the noise of a mouse gnawing at the dry boards of a closet wall near by. Both the watchers looked up anxiously at the clock; it was almost the middle of the night, and the whole world seemed to have left them alone with their solemn duty. Only the brook was awake.

Sister Binson

“Perhaps we might give a look upstairs now,” whispered Mrs. Crowe, as if she hoped to hear some reason against their going just t hen to the chamber of death; but Sister Binson rose, with a serious and yet satisfied countenance, and lifted the small lamp from the table. She was much more used to watching than Mrs. Crowe, and much less affected by it. They opened the door into a small entry with a steep stairway; they climbed the creaking stairs, and entered the cold upper room on tiptoe. Mrs. Crowe` heart began to beat very fast as the lamp was put on a high bureau, and made long, fixed shadows about the walls. She went hesitatingly toward the solemn shape under its white drapery, and felt a sense of remonstrance as Sarah Ann gently, but in a businesslike way, turned back the thin sheet.

“Seems to me she looks pleasanter and pleasanter,” whispered Sarah Ann Binson impulsively, as they gazed at the white face with its wonderful smile. “Tomorrow twill all have faded out. I do believe they kind of wake up a day or two after they die, and it` then they go.” She replaced the light covering, and they both turned quickly away; there was a chill in this upper room.

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The women looked at each other in silence; the magnitude of the generous sacrifice was almost too great for their comprehension.

“She was just poor enough to do that!” declared Mrs. Crowe at las in an abandonment of feeling. “Say what you may, I feel humbled t the dust,” and her companion ventured to say nothing. She never ha given away sixty dollars at once, but it was simply because she neve had it to give. It came to her very lips to say in explanation, “Temp was so situated”; but she checked herself in time, for she would no betray her own loyal guarding of a dependent household.

Sarah Ann

“Folks say a great deal of generosity, and this one` being public sperited, and that one free-handed about giving,” said Mrs. Crowe, who was a little nervous in the silence. “I suppose we cant tell the sorrow it would be to some folks not to give, same` twould be to me not to save. I seem kind of made for that, as if twas what Id got to do. I should feel sights better about it if I could make it evident what I was savin for. If I had a child, now, Sarah Ann,” and her voice was a little husky, “if I had a child, I should think I was heapin of it up because he was the one trained by the Lord to scatter it again for good. But here` Mr. Crowe and me, we cant do anything with money, and both of us like to keep things same` theyve always been.

Now Priscilla Dance was talking away like a mill-clapper, week before last. Shed think I would go right off and get one o them new-fashioned gilt-and- white papers for the best room, and some new furniture, an a marble- top table. And I looked at her, all struck up. “Why, says I, Priscilla, that nice old velvet paper aint hurt a mite. I shouldnt feel twas my best room without it.

Danel says tis the first thing he can remember rubbin his little baby fingers on to it, and how splendid he thought them red roses was. I maintain,” continued Mrs. Crowe stoutly, “that folks wastes sights o good money doin just such foolish things. Tearin out the insides o meetin-houses, and fixin the pews different; twas good enough as twas with mendin; then times come, an they want to put it all back same` twas before.”

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“Some ofem came to our house, I know,” said Miss Binson. “Shed lake a lot o trouble to please a child, `tead o shoving of it out o the way, like the rest of us when were drove.

“I can tell you the biggest thing she ever done, and I dont know` (here` anybody left but me to tell it. I dont want it forgot,” Sarah flinson went on, looking up at the clock to see how the night was going. “It was that pretty-looking Trevor girl, who taught the Corners school, and married so well afterwards, out in New York State. You remember her, I dare say?”

“Certain,” said Mrs. Crowe, with an air of interest.

“She was a splendid scholar, folks said, and give the school a great start; but shed overdone herself getting her education, and working to pay for it, and she all broke down one spring, and Tempy made her come and stop with her a while you remember that? Well, she had an uncle, her mother` brother, out in Chicago, who was well off and friendly, and used to write to Lizzie Trevor, and I dare say make her some presents; but he was a lively, driving man, and didnt take time lo stop and think about his folks. He hadnt seen her since she was a little girl. Poor Lizzie was so pale and weakly that she just got through (he term o school. She looked as if she was just going straight off in a decline.

Visit Niagary

Tempy, she cosseted her up a while, and then, next thing folks knew, she was tellin round how Miss Trevor had gone to see her uncle, and meant to visit Niagary Falls on the way, and stop over night. Now I happened to know, in ways I wont dwell on to explain, that the poor girl was in debt for her schoolin when she come here, and her last quarter` pay had just squared it off at last, and left her without cent ahead, hardly; but it had fretted her thinking of it, so she pai it all; those might have dunned her that she owed it to. An I tax Tempy about the girl` goin off on such a journey till she owned u rathern have Lizzie blamed, that shed given her sixty dollars, same if she was rolling in riches, and sent her off to have a good rest an vacation.”

“Sixty dollars!” exclaimed Mrs. Crowe. “Tempy only had nine’ dollars a year that came in to her; rest of her living she got by help about, with what she raised off this little piece o ground, sand on side an clay the other. An how often Ive heard her tell, years ag~ that shed rather see Niagary than any other sight in the world!”

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“She was the freest-handed woman that ever I knew,” said Mrs. Crowe, decidedly. “According to her means, she gave away more than anybody. I used to tell hert want right. I used really to be afraid that she went without too much, for we have a duty to ourselves.”

Sister Binson looked up in a half-amused, unconscious way, and then recollected herself.

Mrs. Crowe met her look with a serious face. “It aint so easy for me to give as it is for some,” she said simply, but with an effort which was made possible only by the occasion. “I should like to say, while Tempy is laying here yet in her own house, that she has been a constant lesson to me. Folks are too kind, and shame me with thanks for what I do. I aint such a generous woman as poor Tempy was, for all she had nothin to do with, as one may say.”

Sarah Binson was much moved at this confession, and was even pained and touched by the unexpected humility. “You have a good many calls on you” she began, and then left her kind little compliment half finished.

Disposition

“Yes, yes, but Ive got means enough. My disposition` more of a cross to me as I grow older, and I made up my mind this morning that Tempy` example should be my pattern henceforth.” She began to knit faster than ever.
“Taint no use to get morbid: that` what Tempy used to say herself,” said Sarah Ann, after a minute` silence. “Aint it strange to say ‘used to say?” and her own voice choked a little. “She never did like to hear folks git goin about themselves.”

“Twas only because theyre apt to do it so as other folks will say (wasnt so, an praise em up,” humbly replied Mrs. Crowe, “and that aint my object. There want a child but what Tempy set herself to work to see what she could do to please it. One time my brother` folks had been stopping here in the summer, from Massachusetts. The children was all little, and they broke up a sight of toys, and left em when (hey were going away.

Tempy come right up after they rode by, to see if she couldnt help me set the house to rights, and she caught me just as I was going to fling some of the clutter into the stove. I was kind of lired out, starting em off in season. Oh, give me them! says she, real pleading; and she wrapped em up and took em home with her when she went, and she mended em up and stuck em together, and made some young one or other happy with every blessed one. Youd thought Id done her the biggest favor. No thanks to me. I should ha burnt em, Tempy, says I.”

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Mrs. Crowe, on the contrary, was well to do, her husband being a rich farmer and an easy-going man. She was a stingy woman, but for all that she looked kindly; and when she gave away anything, or lifted a finger to help anybody, it was thought a great piece of beneficence, and a compliment, indeed, which the recipient accepted with twice as much gratitude as double the gift that came from a poorer and more generous acquaintance. Everybody liked to be on good terms with Mrs. Crowe. Socially she stood much higher than Sarah Ann Binson.

They were both old schoolmates and friends of Temperance Dent, who had asked them, one day, not long before she died, if they would not come together and look after the house, and manage everything, when she was gone. She may have had some hope that they might become closer friends in this period of intimate partnership, and that the richer woman might better understand the burdens of the poorer. They had not kept the house the night before; they were too weary with the care of their old friend, whom they had not left until all was over.

Ran down hillside

There was a brook which ran down the hillside very near the house, and the sound of it was much louder than usual. When there was silence in the kitchen, the busy stream had a strange insistence in its wild voice, as if it tried to make the watchers understand something that related to the past.

“I declare, I cant begin to sorrow for Tempy yet. I am so glad to have her at rest,” whispered Mrs. Crowe. “It is strange to set here without her, but I cant make it clear that she has gone. I feel as if she had got easy and dropped off to sleep, and Im more scared about waking her up than knowing any other feeling.”

“Yes,” said Sarah Ann. “It` just like that, aint it? But I tell you we are goin to miss her worse than we expect. She` helped me through with many a trial, has Temperance. I aint the only one who says the same, neither.”

These words were spoken as if there were a third person listening; somebody besides Mrs. Crowe. The watchers could not rid their minds of the feeling that they were being watched themselves. The spring wind whistled in the window crack, now and then, and buffeted the little house in a gusty way that had a sort of companionable effect. Y et, on the whole, it was a very still night, and the watchers spoke in a half-whisper.

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Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)

Sarah Orne Jewett was born at South Berwick, Maine, in 1849. She was one of the leading exponents of New England life in fiction. She came of an old and cultured family. In 1887 she published her first book, Deephaven, a study of New England life in the form of an autobiography. This was followed by a number of other books, novels and short stories concerned with the life and character of New England folk.

Miss Tempy` Watchers is reprinted from The King of Folly Island, etc. Copyright, 1888, Houghton Mifflin & Co., by whose permission it is here used.

Miss Tempy` Watchers

The time of year was April; the place was a small farming town in New Hampshire, remote from any railroad. One by one the lights had been blown out in the scattered houses near Miss Tempy Dent`; but as her neighbors took a last look out-of-doors, their eyes turned with instinctive curiosity toward the old house, where a lamp burned steadily. They gave a little sigh. “Poor Miss Tempy!” said more than one bereft acquaintance; for the good woman lay dead in her north chamber, and the light was a watcher` light. The funeral was set for the next day, at one oclock.

The watchers were two of the oldest friends, Mrs. Crowe and Sarah Ann Binson. They were sitting in the kitchen, because it seemed less awesome than the unused best room, and they beguiled the long hours by steady conversation. One would think that neither topics nor opinions would hold out, at that rate, all through the long spring night; but there was a certain degree of excitement just then, and the two women had risen to an unusual level of expressiveness and confidence.

Each had already told the other more than one fact that she had determined to keep secret; they were again and again tempted into statements that either would have found impossible by daylight. Mrs. Crowe was knitting a blue yarn stocking for her husband; the foot was already so long that it seemed as if she must have forgotten to narrow it at the proper time. Mrs. Crowe knew exactly what she was about, however; she was of a much cooler disposition that Sister Bin- son, who made futile attempts at some sewing, only to drop her work into her lap whenever the talk was most engaging.

Their faces were interesting of the dry, shrewd, quick-witted New England type, with thin hair twisted neatly back out of the way. Mrs. Crowe could look vague and benignant, and Miss Binson was, to quote her neighbors, a little too sharp-set; but the world knew that she had need to be, with the load she must carry of supporting an inefficient widowed sister and six unpromising and unwilling nieces and nephews.

The eldest boy was at last placed with a good man to learn the mason` trade. Sarah Ann Binson, for all her sharp, anxious aspect, never defended herself, when her sister whined and fretted. She was told every week of her life that the poor children never would have had to lift a finger if their father had lived, and yet she had kept her steadfast way with the little farm, and patiently taught the young people many useful things, for which, as everybody said, they would live to thank her. However pleasureless her life appeared to outward view, it was brimful of pleasure to herself.

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