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POPPEA OF THE POST-OFFICE
BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT (BARBARA)
AUTHOR OF "THE GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE," "PEOPLE OF THE WHIRLPOOL," "THE OPEN WINDOW," ETC.
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY THE KINNEYS
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1909 _All rights reserved_
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1909. Reprinted July, 1909.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To E. C. S. IN REMEMBRANCE
_Poppea glanced wistfully across the room and thenslipped out through one of the long windows_]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE TENTH OF MARCH 1
II. THE WRONG AT HIS DOOR 19
III. THE NEXT DAY 32
IV. THE FELTONS 50
V. THE NAMING 68
VI. AS IT WAS WRITTEN 83
VII. INTO THE DARK 101
VIII. SANCTUARY 116
IX. THE MYSTERY OF THE NAME 134
X. PHILIP 154
XI. INCOGNITA 172
XII. FRIENDSHIP? 192
XIII. THE TURNING 213
XIV. A PROPOSAL 231
XV. NIGHT AND MORNING 251
XVI. OUT OF THE ASHES 267
XVII. DADDY! 284
XVIII. THE SCAR ON THE HAND 305
XIX. JOHN ANGUS 318
XX. ON THE WINGS OF THE MORNING 337
POPPEA OF THE POST-OFFICE
CHAPTER I
THE TENTH OF MARCH
The six-thirty New York mail was late. So late that when the tall clockthat faced the line of letter-boxes boomed eight, the usual hour forclosing, Oliver Gilbert, the postmaster, ceased his halting tramp up anddown the narrow length of the office, head and ears thrown forward inthe attitude of a listening hunting-dog. Going to the door, he pulled itback with a nervous jerk and peered into the night.
As he did so, he was followed by a dozen men of various ages and socialconditions, who, in waiting for the evening mail, the final social eventof their day, had been standing about the stove, or, this choice spacebeing limited, overflowed into the open room at the back of thepost-office, with its work bench, chairs, and battered desk, topped bybook shelves; for, in addition to his official position, the postmasterwas a maker and mender of clocks and the Scribe for all those in thevillage of Harley's Mills who could not safely navigate the whirlpoolsof spelling.
In fact, a smattering of law, coupled with the taste for random browsingin every old book on which he could lay his hands, had given Gilbertthe ability to draw up a will, a promissory note, or round an ardent yetdecorous love-letter, with equal success.
It was nothing unusual that the men saw as they looked into the bleakMarch night, and yet they huddled together, listening spellbound andexpectant. A week before there had been a breath of spring in the air.In a single day the heavy ice left the Moosatuck with a rush, to be lostin the bay; a flock of migrant robins rested and plumed themselves inthe parsonage hedge; ploughing was possible in the fields that lay tothe southwest, and the wiseacres, one and all, predicted an earlyspring. But in a single night this vision had vanished and winterreturned in driving snow that, turning to rain, coated everythingheavily with ice. Roadway, fences, and the sedate white colonial housesthat flanked the elm-bordered main street absolutely glittered in suchlight as an occasional lantern on porch or fence post afforded. Itseemed almost mocking to the men in the door of the post-office; inevery way it had been a cruel season, this first winter of the War ofthe Rebellion. It was not yet a year since the entire North had beenbrought to its feet by the loss of Fort Sumter, and had sent forth anarmy of seventy-five thousand volunteers as its reply.
The gloom of repeated defeat settled heavy as a cloud of cannon smokeover New England, whose invincibility had given birth to the union ofstates that it now sought to preserve, the only recent glimmer of lighthaving been Grant's capture of Fort Donelson in February.
This was discounted on the east coast by the terrifying career of the_Merrimac_, beforetimes a United States cruiser, but now in Confederatehands, that, by closely sheathing the wooden vessel with metal plates,had converted her into a deadly ram which no wooden ship couldwithstand, and already having ran amuck through the waters of HamptonRoads, showed the possibility of putting every Union port in peril.
Then had come the news this very Monday morning, vague in detail andalmost unbelievable, that the _Monitor_, the mysterious invention ofEricsson, a craft that to the casual observer looked as harmless as anyharbor buoy, going from New York under tow, had, on Sunday morning, metand vanquished the great fire-spitting dragon that guarded the entranceto the James.
It was for confirmation or details of this news that the men of Harley'sMills were waiting and listening for the mail-train that did not come,in their unfeigned anxiety interpreting its unusual delay as a bad omen.
Presently, a faint whistle struggled up against the fierce gusts of eastwind; a locomotive headlight, gaining in power after everydisappearance, flashed across the rolling fields that lay towardWestboro. The train was coming at last.
"Here, take these lanterns, boys," cried Gilbert, "and do some of you godown to meet her and come back with the mail-bag. It's a tough walk forBinks's boy to bring it up alone in this storm."
"'Lisha Potts, do you unhook that red light from the horse-post yonder,and if the news is good (Binks will likely have it from the train crewor some passenger), wave the light above your head as you come back."This to a broad-shouldered, up-country giant, with a grim, square jaw,and hair the color and consistency of rye stubble.
"Good God! I can't stand this waiting and not knowing!" Gilbert almostshouted as he closed the door behind the crowd and found himself alonein the now dimly lighted post-office, except for old Selectman Morse,white-haired and fragile, who, not being able to go out into the stormwith the others, was groping his way towards the stove.
"If I had two sound legs," Gilbert continued, "my fifty years shouldn'tstand between me and seeing and helping do what must be done down theresouth of Washington; the bitter part of it is staying here. Next monthwhen the Felton ladies come back, I guess we'll have a telegraphoperator right at the station, at least that's what Wheeler theirforeman told me yesterday. You see, both Mr. Esterbrook and John Angusare directors in the Railroad Company, and what with one's wanting tohear the good news and the other the bad, we're likely to get it. Comeback into the workroom, neighbor Morse. After your long wait you'll finda chair easier sitting than the coal-box lid."
>
"There's more than you that has to fight it out at home to give thosethat's gone free minds," replied the old man, shivering as he settledback in a carpet-covered rocker of strange construction. "Dan had turnedforty when he went, and now little Dan has run off to follow him andhe's scarce sixteen, so my fight must be fit out to keep son's wife andgirl children in food meantime; but I hope the Lord'll understand andcount it all for the same cause."
Gilbert, who had seated himself at his desk and was fumbling among somepapers in an absent-minded way, wheeled toward the old man quickly.
"Of course He will, for that's what Lincoln wrote me, and he and theLord have got to be of one mind in this business if it's going throughas it must."
"Wrote _you_? Lincoln wrote you? When? How? Why didn't you tell theboys? They'd burst with pride to know a letter from Lincoln was in thetown, much less right here in the post-office that's public property, soto speak!" cried Morse, leaving his chair and stiff limbs together, andcoming toward the desk almost with a bound.
Gilbert started as he realized what secret had slipped past his lips,hesitated a moment, and then pulling a stool from under the desk,motioned his companion to sit beside him.
On the wall directly in front hung a very good engraving of Washington,in a home-made frame of charred wood; under it was suspended an oldflint-lock, worm-eaten in stock and rusty at trigger. Below it, at oneside of the desk so that it came face to face with the owner, a largecolored lithograph of Lincoln was tacked to the wall, framed only by awreath of shrivelled ground-pine and wax-berries.
Taking a key from his vest-pocket where it lay in company with bits ofsugared flag-root, Gilbert wiped it carefully and unlocking a drawer inthe desk that, to the casual glance, seemed merely an ornamental panel,took out two letters and a double daguerreotype case that held thepictures of a young woman and a little girl a year old. Placing thesethings before him, Gilbert leaned back, grasping the arms of his chairas if bracing himself for an effort.
"Last year when Curtis died and it was thought well to have thepost-office come up here in the centre of the town, the boys did allthey could to push me for the place in spite of John Angus's opposition,and Mr. Esterbrook drew up a nicely worded account of who I was and whyI should have the office, to go to Postmaster Blair by our Senator. Ofcourse it was done the right way I suppose, with this and that claim forconsideration, but I'd never known it was me it spoke of, and somehow itdidn't seem quite square, for I'm nobody. So I thought I'd just send afew words to the President, explaining things, if word of such smalloffices ever reached him; anyway it would ease my mind. I made it shortas I could: just told him that it wasn't all money need made me want theoffice, for I'd a trade, but I was lonesome with only the dead-and-gonepeople in books for company, and I wanted something to do that wouldkeep me near to my fellow-men, without which age is souring.
"Well, Morse, in due time my appointment came and in with it, this--"carefully opening and spreading out one of the letters:--
"'WASHINGTON, April 2, 1861.
"'MR. OLIVER G. GILBERT:
"'MY DEAR SIR:--
"'Your letter is in my hands. I have been lonely and have lived in books. I was once a postmaster and I understand.
"'Faithfully yours,
"'A. LINCOLN.'
"When a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of all this turmoil, his sonWillie died, I waked up in the night from dreaming of Mary and littleMarygold, and thought that Mary wanted me to write something. So I saysI guess I'll write Lincoln that I'm sorry, and that I understand histrouble because of Mary's leaving me ten years ago, and Marygold thenext year, and how the Lord, through my crooked leg, won't let me jointhem quick by way of battle. I put it down right then and there and sentit the next morning, never thinking of a reply.
"Saturday, this came," and Gilbert unfolded the second letter:--
"'WASHINGTON, March 3, 1862.
"'OLIVER G. GILBERT:
"'MY FRIEND:--
"'It seems that we understand each other. I thank you for your letter. If the Lord's Will has stayed your joining in this conflict, be sure that He will find some other wrong for you to right, by your own door.
"'Gratefully,
"'A. LINCOLN.'
"Now, Morse, you can see why I haven't spoken of these letters and why Ishouldn't brag of them, for they are not from the President, but fromman to man.
"My grandfather, whose musket hangs up there, fought through theRevolution. That picture of Washington is framed in a piece of oak woodfrom this house that was set on fire by Arnold's men. Grandsir' reveredWashington next to God, and later, when he saw him as President, hewrote a long letter, that cost eight shillings to deliver, to mygrandmother, telling her of his visit to Mt. Vernon. One part I'vealways remembered, I've heard it read so often; it ran thus: 'His wholedemeanor was so full of dignity that he assuredly is great enough tohold his own with kings, and be one in their company; yet though Idesired to have speech with him, as others did, I dared not take uponmyself to begin it. As he did not, I presently came away, muchdisappointed.'
"Don't shake your head, neighbor Morse, I'm drawing no comparisons, forthere's no man fit to pair with either of them; but, mind you, ifWashington was fit to match with kings, Abraham Lincoln is humble enoughto be a man, a brother of the Man of Sorrows, who well knew lonelinessin the midst of a multitude, saying, 'Foxes have holes and the birds ofthe air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.'"
A shout came down the street. Hastily pushing his treasures into theirdrawer, the postmaster locked it with fingers that trembled, and reachedthe door with his old friend, in time to see the little processioncrossing the road, the red lantern, held by a rake, swinging gaylyabove 'Lisha Potts's head.
"It's a true victory!" he called; "we've got the paper. Shouldn't wonderif next month saw the war end. Hey, Gilbert, now's the chance to runyour big flag up with the little one atop, unless the halyard's frozenfast."
"Now, boys, bunch the lamps," said Gilbert, presently, as he cleared aplace on his work table, adjusted his spectacles, and spread out thecoveted sheet. The newspaper being fully three feet in length, the printvery small, and the large captions of to-day lacking, it took Gilbertsome time to locate the desired news. Meanwhile the boys pressed closerand closer until, as he stopped for the second time to adjust hisglasses, 'Lisha Potts, peering over his shoulder, read at the top of hisvoice: "Naval Engagement in Hampton Roads--Loss of the Frigates_Cumberland_ and _Congress_--Great Success of the Ericsson Battery!"
"That'll do, 'Lisha," said Gilbert, with some asperity. "I believe thatI'm reading this paper--
"_First Edition_--Fortress Monroe, March 9.--The _Monitor_ arrived at 10P.M. yesterday and went immediately to the protection of the _Minnesota_lying aground just below Newport News. At 7 A.M. to-day the _Merrimac_,accompanied by two wooden steamers, the _Yorktown_ and _Jamestown_, andseveral tugs, stood out toward the _Minnesota_ and opened fire. The_Monitor_ met them at once and opened fire, when the enemies' vesselsreturned, except the _Merrimac_. The two ironclads fought part of thetime touching each other, from 8 A.M. until noon, when the _Merrimac_retreated--"
"Never mind the whole story now, get the finish first," chorused theaudience.
"Here on the next page," cried 'Lisha.
"_Second Edition_," read Gilbert, deliberately. "The side of the_Merrimac_ pierced by the _Monitor_! The Ericsson battery finallysucceeded in forcing a long hole in the port side of the _Merrimac_ andshe retired with the whole rebel fleet to Norfolk about one o'clock!"
Cheers drowned Gilbert's voice, and the paper passed from hand to hand,each man reading some particular phrase that pleased him, while SethMoore, one of the retired sea-captains of which every coast town at thisperiod had its quota, banging on the floor with his cane, cried: "Itisn't only a blow to the rebels but to wooden ships as well; I didn'tthink so much scrap-iron could keep afloat. Mark my words, first thingwe know
even the passenger liners will all want their iron trim, and theLord knows but what even the coastwise service'll come to it some day!"
It was after ten o'clock before, discussion ended, the men went theirvarious ways. The storm had ceased, and the intense blue black of thesky set with stars seemed only a degree less cold and burnished than theice-coated earth over which the "boys" went home, slipping and sliding;the younger making a frolic of the matter, the older clinging to thefence rails.
"It's going to be a mean walk for me to-night, three miles straight uphill and against the wind," said 'Lisha Potts to Gilbert, as he helpedhim fix the inside bars on the shutters, preparatory to closing theoffice.
"Then why not stop with me?" questioned the postmaster. "I couldn'tthink of sleeping for a couple of hours yet, and somehow, the idea ofreading don't come natural to-night, though I've been mighty interestedgetting into the workings of the wars of the ancients, all about the wayXenophon managed to get those ten thousand Greeks to retreat acrosscountry, without really skedaddling. Ever heard about it? Mebbe you'dlike I should read it to you."
'Lisha, a man of the remoter farming country and timber land, used tothe big open spaces of life that some call loneliness, shook his head inan emphatic denial that almost amounted to alarm, and began to buttonhis heavy frieze top-coat.
"Well, well, I won't, so don't get scared," laughed Gilbert,indulgently. "If folks don't thirst for knowledge, there's small usechoking it down their throats. Not that the best of learning comes outof books, for you learned your trade of reading the ground and theweather 'n' hunting and tracking all out o' doors."
"I tell you what we'll do, go over back into the house, light all thelamps I've got, and set them in the windows for a victory illumination.Then we'll cook up a nice little supper for our two selves and have asmoke by the fire. I don't often do it these days, haven't felt peartenough; but to-night, somehow, I feel skittish, like I did forty yearsago when a pair of yearling steers I'd trained got first premium at theOld Haven Fair. To-night a pipe between my teeth's not a bad habit asthe parsons preach, 'Lisha, but a necessity, yes, a bare, vitalnecessity."
This proposition being in the direct path of 'Lisha's own desires, hegave a cheerful whistle of consent and followed Gilbert through thepartly roofed grape arbor that made a passageway between the post-officeand the sloped roofed house of Gilbert's forefathers, that stood wellback in the garden with its porch facing the hill road.
"Nobody'll see the lights this time of night," criticised 'Lisha, asGilbert, mustering an array of six sperm-oil lamps and three sturdypewter candlesticks, proceeded to distribute them between the variousrooms, not forgetting the icy "spare chamber" upstairs, or the"foreroom" at the right of the front door with its scripturalengravings, bright three-ply carpet, and melodeon.
"That's as may be," Gilbert answered, while he regulated a wick, stifffrom lack of use, "but they'll be there all the same, and we'll know itanyhow. What'll you have? There's beans and brown bread been in the ovenall afternoon, besides apple pie, crullers, biscuits, and spice snaps inthe pantry. I think this time o' night when we're wakeful anyway, wemight as well have hot coffee to mix and blend the vittles and put someginger in us. Mebbe you'd prefer hard cider, but since I found the stuffwas tangling the feet of some good neighbors, I haven't kept any about.Yes, get a pail of fresh water while I grind the coffee; you can neverget the flavor, Mary always said, without fresh-drawn water come to itsfirst boil."
To have seen the neatness of the kitchen, pantry, and long, low bedroomthat ran across the back of both, no one would have supposed that thehouse had been without the touch of a woman's hand for nine years. To besure, at the critical periods of spring and fall cleaning thepostmaster's sister, Satira Pegrim, a bustling widow of forty, came downfrom her little hill farm to officiate. Why she did not stay on and keephouse for her brother had been a subject of much speculation during theyear after the baby Marygold had followed her young mother. But thoughGilbert said nothing, they came to understand that without the child tocare for there was not sufficient work to keep in check Mrs. Pegrim'snervous energy, which found vent in a species of incessant reminiscentsympathy that poor Gilbert could not bear.
When the only love of a silent man's life comes upon him when he isnearly forty, fairly sweeping him from his feet, and in less than threeyears wife and the child just forming her first words are snatched away,leaving him deaf at heart, work is the only consoler that can gain evenhis ear. So Gilbert had baked and swept and garnished, kept thegeraniums and the calla lilies and pink flowering "Gypsey" in thewindows, and a white spread upon the bed, and the hooded mahoganycradle-cover of pink and white basket-pattern patchwork, as it had beenduring those years.
As Gilbert added an armful of wood to the fire in the cooking stove thatwas set in the wide chimney place, and opened the iron door of thebrick oven at the side, the bright light threw against the opposite wallhis somewhat remarkable silhouette. He was fully six feet tall withclose-cut, iron-gray hair, bushy eyebrows, and long, gray beard thatreached his waist, and so frequently got in his way that he twisted itup and fastened it under his chin with an elastic band, or hairpin, asupon the present occasion. Gilbert had craved education, but lacked thestrength to force the opportunity, though his reading had nourished agentle sentiment in him, and better speech than is often found in NewEnglanders of his surroundings.
When 'Lisha had filled the kettle, the two men lighted their pipes, andslipping off their clumsy shoes, in unison, spread feet covered by blueyarn socks before the open front of the stove and, puffing comfortably,drifted into desultory talk.
"It's mighty queer that John Angus, leading man in this town and hisfolks Yankee all through after they stopped being Scotch, should standfor slavery," mused 'Lisha. "Do you suppose he's got any reason otherthan his usual one of taking the off side of things?"
"He has big cotton interests for one thing," said Gilbert; "otherwise,who can tell why he does this or that? Why does he hate me? Because hecan't drive me off the earth, I take it. We played together as boys, butI've never presumed on that. His father left him fully two hundred acresof land, mine left me three; but it stood something like a nose on theface of his holding, coming in the south front of it. He seemed tothink all he had to do was offer me money for my home; he thought I hadno right to love the place where I was born, but that he had. Once ortwice I've been on the point of yielding, but never since it became thehome of my wife and child."
"That's why, then, he did all he could to keep you from getting thepost-office?"
"I reckon so, and now I've got it, he has all his mail sent to Westboroto keep down the receipts."
"Whew--!" whistled 'Lisha. "I didn't think he'd spite himself that far."
"Well," replied Gilbert, "I don't know but at bottom I'm sorry for him.He's got a grand place here, a city home, and money; he's been senator,and, they say, could have been governor; but he's all alone up therewithout love or kin."
"He had a dreadful pretty wife, and pleasant spoken. I remember sellingher quail and partridge every fall of the year."
"Yes; when she first came home, she was not over twenty, and most aspretty as my Mary. He met her when he was travelling in Europe, the MissFeltons said. She was there learning to sing or something. I heard hersing once up where the end of their garden stops short and the grounddrops to my bit. It was just like the voice of the last wood robin thatkeeps singing till after dark, and then quits sudden as if he waslonesome. After living up there for ten years, she, that at first had alaughing face and skin like a peach, grew thin and white as marble, andthen all of a sudden, she left him and died away in England, they say,about a year ago. Some claim he was always reproaching her because shewas childless; others, that once when he was away, she went to themidsummer ball up at Felton Manor against his wish and danced with anephew of Mr. Esterbrook's so beautifully that folks spoke of it untilit got round to him. He'd never let her dance before, so nobody knew shecould. Then next Sabbath the young man walked from
church with her.
"I well remember the day she went, it's less than two years since. Therewas no running about it; she came down the hill in her carriage as ifshe was only going on a short journey. As she passed the shop, sheplucked the coachman by the coat to stop him and came in to ask me tofit a key to her watch. I remember the watch too, small and thin, with aflower on the back in diamonds. Oh, yes, Angus was generous enough, andkept her well in clothes and jewels.
"All of a sudden she said, 'Mr. Gilbert, I'm going away and never comingback, and there's nobody to miss me or be sorry.'
"I was struck all of a heap, for I'd always liked her and spoke my mind,which added to his dislike of me, but I knew by her face she meant whatshe said. She looked like a crumpled roseleaf, so young and frail, thatbefore I knew it, I had taken her cold little hands in mine and wastelling her that _I_ should miss her, and that I never should forget thesoft white slip made with her own hands she sent for Marygold to go tosleep in, or how she came to comfort me in face of John Angus'sdislike. 'If ever I can do you a good turn, it's all I'd ask,' I said toher.
"With that, she put her poor thin arms about my shoulders, looked mestraight in the face, and said, 'Yes, I believe you would,' and pullingmy head down, kissed me on the forehead as if I'd been her father.Before I got my wits again, she was in her carriage and away, and nowshe's dead and gone. They say that the Miss Feltons have heard that JohnAngus is to be married again this spring to a woman as rich as he is,the daughter of somebody high up in New York life. So I suppose he'llraise a grand family now, and poor little roseleaf is forgotten."
"Hi there! the water's biled over," cried 'Lisha, and soon the subtlearoma of good coffee filled the kitchen, and the men drew the tabletoward the stove before sitting down to their supper, for in spite ofthe rousing fire, the room was draughty.
Three clocks that hung in a row between dresser and chimney, which wereundergoing the delicate process of being regulated, struck twelve withdifferent emphases and in three different keys before Gilbert had made abed for his guest upon the wide lounge by the chimney-corner, and thetwo men went about the house to put out the lamps.
"What's that?" said Gilbert, pausing as they came down the creaking backstairs.
"Just a log of wood rolling off the heap on the stoop, I reckon,"answered 'Lisha.
"There isn't any wood there; I fetched it all in," said Gilbert, givinga decided start, as the noise was repeated and this time resolved itselfinto a rhythmic knocking on the outer door.
'Lisha strode through the kitchen, picking up the poker on his way, andthrew open the door. At first he saw nothing, the change from light todarkness was so sudden; then something white in the shadow beside thedoor caught his attention.
"It's only a dog," he thought; yet as training had made him cautious, hecalled, "Bring the lantern," to Gilbert, who had stopped to pull on hiscoat.