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Show COURTSHIP BY PROXY. "Indeed," said the deacon's wife. I knew by that she hadn't heard a word I had been saying. "Why, yes," I repeated, a good deal discouraged, for I saw I must begin again at the beginning, "she is more that a hundred years old, and entirely destitute. Yet she did not complain of anything but the cold. She was, formerly [unreadable line] suppose May was in earnest [unreadable] provoked him to be set so coolly aside. "Just as you please, May," he said, a slave [unreadable], but somehow strayed away up here, and now has outlived everybody that ever belonged to her. If I could manage to get her in the Colored Woman's Home for the rest of her life I should be glad. But as she isn't a resident of the city, it will be necessary to pay her board. A dollar a week, Mrs. Hoyt thinks it is." "Certainly, that would be the best thing to be done," replied Mrs. Deacon, waking up a little. "Still I don't know what we can do until we have called a meeting of the society." That was much like her! If the vestry had been on fire she would have stopped to call a meeting of the society before she would have ventured to throw on a dipper of water. "But the poor creature is freezing and starving," said I, impatiently. "Can't you as president of the society empower me to give her at least one of those woolen sacks we have on hand?" "I don't know but I might go as far as that, though I suppose it isn't exactly in order," returned the deacon's wife, leaning back in her chair, and smoothing the table cover between her thumb and finger. She seemed to be meditating, so I waited for a minute, and then she said abruptly: "What do you think of Mr. Brodhead, Bella?" "There! I shouldn't wonder if he would give us something handsome!" I exclaimed, going down on my knees in my heart to the deacon's wife for my injustice. "He is a man of means and a generous man, I've always heard." The deacon's wife looked puzzled. "Oh! your old colored woman!" said she, directly. "I wasn't thinking about her; I was thinking of you. Mr. Brodhead has a very high opinion of you, Bella. Did you know it?" "What do you mean, Mrs. Shackelford?" said I, as surprised as though the man in the moon had winked at me, for my friends all knew how I detested such talk. And besides, I never considered Mrs. Shackelford that sort of a woman. Her attention was usually centered in the sewing society and her flower garden. But for once some other idea had taken possession of her mind, and as her thoughts always ran in grooves, she never could harbor more than one at a time. "Mr. Brodhead is a nice man, and a fine looking man," she said, looking at me sharply. "A man of means, and a generous man, as you say." "I suppose so," I replied, gathering my shawl about me. "Oh! don't you go yet, Bella. I was wanting to see you, and I consider your dropping in quite providential. The deacon and I were talking of calling on you this very evening," said the deacon's wife, putting out her hand to keep me from rising; "and when I saw your blue shawl turning in at the gate, I said to myself, that's as marked a token as Rebekah at the well, with the pitcher on her shoulder. I haven't the gold earrings and bracelets to offer you, but I have all the rest," she added, laughing nervously. Just now the deacon came in. Now there is in the opinion of his wife but one reason why Deacon Shackelford didn't make the world. He found it already made. And when he came in she looked up to him as though Atlas had come, and she could safely drop the world on his shoulders, and go off picking golden apples. "I was just speaking a good word for Mr. Brodhead to Bella, deacon," said she. "Ah! and what does Bella say?" returned the deacon, looking as though it were a question of investing in real estate, or the price of gold. "Bella doesn't say anything," I replied. "Certainly not before she is asked. "You need not wait long, if that is all," answered Deacon Shackelford. "I'll ask you now. Have you any objection to an offer of marriage from Mr. Brodhead? There!" "He is a very bashful man, Mr. Brodhead is, Bella, and so he got us to help him a little. Why he is in love with you," interposed Mrs. Deacon Shackelford; "he is in love with you down to his boots." "Let it run out of his toes, then," said I, beginning to feel like new yeast. "But you can't have anything against the man," persisted Mrs. Deacon. "And think! after awhile you won't have your grandfather and your Aunt Susannah to talk to, and you will miss it if you don't have somebody in their place. It is best to think of these things. And you won't find a kinder man, if you search the world over with a wax candle, than Mr. Brodhead." "Mr. Brodhead is well enough, Mrs. Shackelford. I don't deny that. But the idea of making a proposal of this sort through ‘middle men!' It is too absurd!" I said laughing, and put on my hat. So I went home to my classes in embroidery and drawing, and wax work - to making Aunt Susannah's caps and grandfather's coffee. My life was full of monotonous work in those days; and sometimes I had a strange, uncomfortable impression of a machine wound up and running without any act of its own. One evening when I was putting away the silver after supper, and feeling the creak and crank of the wheels more than usual, as though the machine needed oiling, the front gate slammed, and steps came along up the walk. "I knowed some one was coming. I've knowed all day some one was talking of coming," said Gitty Pullon, who "to accommodate," as she often told us, had kindly consented to rule over our kitchen and us with a rod of pine (in the form of a crutch). As Gitty had no home, no money, and only one foot of her own, but as good as four ears and two tongues, it might seem sometimes that the accommodation was two-sided. However, things are not what they seem. [unreadable line]. of him again." She resumed her writing, but the [unreadable line]. "I knowed it was Mr. Corliss!" pursued Gitty, triumphantly, as grandfather opened the door and disclosed the figures of our minister and his wife. "I can tell his step as far off as I can hear it. Did you ever notice his eyes?" she continued. "They look like two holes burned in a blanket. And he holds his head just like Deacon Shackleford's old white horse." And then she disappeared into the kitchen with her crutch and the cat, while Aunt Susannah put in her teeth, put on her black silk apron, and went with her meeting step into the parlor. When I followed her soon after, I found her talking in as steady a flow as the waters came down at Lodore, to Mrs. Corliss, who sat by the woodbins window, with hands folded in black netted mitts across her lap, and her tea-colored curls shaking their heads, as it were, at the world and its vanities; while grandfather, who had been senior deacon for fifty years, and had no idea even the church edifice could stand without him, was already in deep discussion with Mr. Corliss upon the question then absorbing and disturbing us, as to whether our Sabbath school should hereafter be called a Sunday school. "I can never consent to have a religious organization known by a heathen name," grandfather was saying, as I heard him say half a hundred times before. And Mr. Corliss, with his serene white head bent toward him, was thinking how he could braid in one of the fossilized fathers and the versatile sons of the church. So there was nothing for me to do but to sit and smile and listen; for grandfather and Aunt Susannah were not the persons to yield the floor when it was once theirs by priority. "Mr. Corliss, is it not time for us to go?" said Mrs. Corliss, at early star-rising, with her measured dignity. "Certainly, my dear," replied Mr. Corliss, rising at once, with his head still bent to catch grandfather's last sentence. "Bella, put on your hat and walk out with us a little way. It is a charming evening," said Mrs. Corliss, turning to me after taking a ceremonious leave of Aunt Susannah. Of course I went for my hat. I should as soon think of insisting of breathing in an exhausted receiver, as of refusing to follow a suggestion of Mrs. Corliss. Or so I supposed then. But I trembled in my heart, and began to run over in my mind all my little over-dones and under-dones. She had such a Lady Superior way that, though I really loved your minister's wife, I always felt a sense of guilt, and never at home with her. But it seemed it was not that I had been late at church or absent from the sewing society this time. Neither had I a bow too many or a bow too few on my Sunday bonnet. Worse, though; Mr. Brodhead had been to her. "My dear," she began, as sweet and as cold and as stiff as a dish of frozen custard, "I want to have a serious talk with you on a serious subject, and perhaps I may as well say at once, Mr. Brodhead has solicited the good offices of Mr. Corliss and myself between you and himself. He seems to be a very earnest admirer, but a very diffident one. What should you say to the idea of entertaining a proposal of marriage from him?" "I couldn't think of such a thing for a moment, Mr. Corliss. I have no expectation or wish ever to marry any one," said I, feeling very much annoyed. Mrs. Corliss sighed severely. "Marriage is a divinely appointed institution," said she, "and not to be lightly set aside without due considerations and prayer. You are not now prepared to give a final answer to so important a matter. It comes upon you suddenly. Take time, my dear friend, to think it over carefully, prayerfully, and with a view to what is your duty." Mrs. Corliss shut her lips tight, as though to keep her teeth in, and then kissed me good-night - a soft, clammy kiss, which made me feel as though I wanted a lump of sugar. Accordingly, I went to the house and ate one, and thought no more about Mr. Brodhead for a month and a day. At the end of that time Aunt Kent asked me to go down and do up her caps. Aunt Kent was a dear, good old lady, who lived in a little yellow and white cottage at the end of the graveyard, where her husband and seven children were lying in one pathetic row, under the beds of heart's ease and forget-me-nots. But when they went she adopted all the world into her warm, motherly heart. So, though she lived alone, with a little cream-colored greyhound, she had a large family, and whoever was sick, or sorry, or needy, went to her, as well as whoever wished for sympathy in health and gladness. Dear Aunt Kent! when I went in there she was knitting a checked sock for young Mrs. Cable's first baby, with such a look of peaceful repose on her face that one would be willing to go over the same weary path of suffering, if it should lead at last into such a land of rest. "I don't know when I've felt sorrier," said she, when I was settled at my work by her side, "than I did for somebody who came to me last week in a love affair. He is a man of whose love any woman might be proud, but he is so full of humility and self distrust that he doesn't even dare open the subject to the young woman herself. And I don't know but it will cost him his life. He says he is sure it would if she should refuse him, and I guess he is sure about it." In an instant Mr. Brodhead flashed into my mind, and my heart grew harder than the meeting-house steps. "Why, Aunt Kent," said I, "it is too absurd! He has already been to the minister and to the minister's wife, and then to the deacon and to the deacon's wife, to ask them to intercede for him. I wouldn't have a man anyhow after he had made such a goose? of himself." [unreadable line] father's house, for [unreadable] says, "like the ministers who study in [unreadable line]. Aunt Kent opened her eyes in mild astonishment, and then I remembered she named somebody. Then I stopped suddenly and felt my cheeks begin to burn. "Dear child," said she, tenderly, "when you have seen a few more of the ups and downs of life, you will think more of a good man's love than you will of these outside manners. Mr. Brodhead told me he had been in his strait to some of our mutual friends, but he supposed they had not spoken with you. And we must not judge him by the standard we would apply to some people. He is shrinking, to timorousness, especially with ladies. And he says he is conscious that he always appears his worst before you. Poor man! I've seen him sit at church with his eyes fixed on the ribbon of your hat, as it fluttered a little in the wind, and looked so hungry and hopeless, my heart just ached for him." This time my face flushed with anger as well as shame. "I feel humiliated, Aunt Kent," said I. "I hope nobody else has seen him make such a silly spectacle of himself." "Bella, my dear, you are wrong," interposed Aunt Kent, gently. "We must take people as they are, not as we would have made them. The man is cast in a delicate, sensitive mould, and this is nearly or quite a matter of life or death with him. I doubt if you are loved again by so worthy a man, and I am sure you will not be any more sincerely. I hope you will not be so misguided as to throw away such a treasure, only for a romantic notion." I could not laugh at Aunt Kent's tender earnestness, but I shook my head and felt immovable from the bump of firmness down to my boot soles. And thus ended the third lesson. Weeks after this, one day in the "dawning of the year," when the bees hummed and the lilacs bloomed, I went out to dig blood-root where the road ran through a bit of woodland a little north of the village. Because if we didn't need it, somebody might, and Aunt Susanna considered a few roots and herbs "so handy to have in the house." Presently I felt an unconscious magnetic drawing to look up, and there stood Mr. Brodhead. To this day I cannot tell how he came there. It was as though he had shot up like a field lily, right out of the ground, and he stood with his eyes dropped shyly as a girl's, and his handsome lips trembling. I pitied him almost as much as Aunt Kent had done. "It will kill me if I don't speak; and it will kill me if I do; and you don't listen," said he, throwing out his words in jerks, like water running from a straight-necked bottle, and looking suddenly at me with such pathetic feeling in his great brown eyes that I began to feel abashed. For what was I that he should be so stirred by me? "You couldn't care any for me, I suppose?" said Mr. Brodhead, humbly. "Perhaps I might, I don't know," I replied, almost involuntarily. "Dear me!" But a love story sounds so different when a man tells it himself. And so, presently, it was I who trembled and cast down my eyes and blushed; and it was Mr. Brodhead who looked as though he was master of the whole world, and the stars besides. Aunt Susannah, waiting behind the wood-blue window, thought I was gathering herbs to stock a pharmacy, for the sun had dropped behind the cedars on the top of Mount Margaret, when I went home with Mr. Brodhead by my side, my hands empty, but my heart full. Yes, we are engaged, and are to be married two weeks from next Wednesday. And the moral of my story is this: "If you want your business done, go; if not, send." -Selected. |