But after that stop--for they were well into the country now--there was no keeping Sister on the wagon-seat. She had learned to drop down and mount again as lively as a cricket.
She tore along the edge of the road, with her hair flying, and her hat hanging by its ribbons. She chased a rabbit, and squirrels, and picked certain green branches, and managed to get her hands and the front of her dress all "stuck up" with spruce gum in trying to get a piece big enough to chew.
"Drat the young'un!" exclaimed Mother Atterson. "I can see plainly I'd never ought to brought her, but should have sent her back to the institution. She'll be as wild as Mr. March's hare--whoever he was--out here in the country."But Old Lem Camp gave her no trouble. He effaced himself just as he had at the boarding house supper table. He seldom spoke--never unless he was spoken to; and he lay up under the roof of the furniture wagon, whether asleep, or no, Mrs. Atterson could not tell.
"He's as odd as ****'s hat-band," the ex-boarding house mistress confided to the driver. "But, bless you! the easiest critter to get along with--you never saw his beat. If I'd a house full of Lem Camps to cook for, I'd think I was next door to heaven."It was dusk when they arrived in sight of the little house beside the road in which Uncle Jeptha Atterson had lived out his long life. Hiram had a good fire going in both the kitchen and sitting room, and the lamplight flung through the windows made the place look cheerful indeed to thetravelers.
"My soul and body!" croaked the good lady, when she got down from the wagon and Hiram caught her in his arms to save her from a fall. "I'm as stiff as a poker--and that's a fact. But I'm glad to get here."Hiram's amazement when he saw Sister and Old Lem Camp was only expressed in his look. He said nothing. The driver of the wagon backed it to the porch step and then took out his team and, with Hiram's help, led them to the stable, fed them, and bedded them down for the night. He was to sleep in one of the spare beds and go back to town the following day.
Mother Atterson took off her best dress, slipped into a familiar old gingham and bustled around the kitchen as naturally as though she had been there all her life.
She fried ham and eggs, and made biscuit, and opened a couple of tins of peaches she had brought, and finally set before them a repast satisfying if not dainty, and seasoned with a cheerful spirit at least.
"I vum!" she exclaimed, sitting down for the first time in years "at the first table." "If this don't beat Crawberry and them boarders, I'm crazy as a loon. Pour the coffee, Sister--and don't be stingy with the milk. Milk's only five cents a quart here, and it's eight in town. But, gracious, child! sugar don't cost no less."Old Lem Camp sat beside Hiram, as he had at the boarding-house table. He had scarcely spoken since his arrival; but now, under cover of the talk of Mother Atterson, the driver of the furniture van, and Sister, he began one of his old-time monologues:
"Old, old--nothing to look forward to--then the prospect opens up--just like light breaking through the clouds after a storm--let's see; I want a piece of bread--bread's on Sister's side--I can reach it--hum! no Crackit to- night--fool jokes--silly fellow--ah! the butter--Where's the butterknife?-- Sister's forgotten the butter-knife--no! here 'tis--That woman's an angel-- nothing less--an angel in a last season's bonnet and a shabby gown--Hah! practical angels couldn't use wings--they'd be in the way in the kitchen-- ham and eggs--gravy--fit for gods to eat--and not to worry again where next week's victuals are to come from!"Hiram noted all the old mail said, and the last phrase enlightened himimmensely as to why Old Lem Camp was so "queer." That was the trouble on the old man's mind--the trouble that had stifled him, and made him appear "half cracked" as the boarding-house jester and Peebles had said.
Lem Camp, too old to ever get another job in the city, had for five years been worrying from day to day about his bare existence. And evidently he saw that bogie of the superannuated disappearing in the distance.
After the truck driver had gone to bed, and Camp himself, and Sister had fallen asleep over the last of the dish-wiping, Mother Atterson confided in Hiram, to a degree.
"Now, this gal can be made useful. She can help me in the house, and she can help outside, too.
"She's a poor, unfortunate creature--I know and humbly is no name for her looks! But mebbe we can send her to the school nearby, and she ought to get some color in her face if she's out o' doors some--and some flesh on her skinny body.
"I don't know as I could get along without Sister," ruminated Mother Atterson, shaking her head.
"And as for Lem Camp--bless you! he won't eat more'n a fly, and who else would give him houseroom? Why, Hiram, I just had to bring him with me. If I hadn't, I'd felt just as conscience-stricken as though I'd moved and left a cat behind in an empty house!"
