The Preparation

Half-way up the hill she had to stop for a breath, resting the heavy package she bore against the boulder at the edge of the path. A robin in a birch tree by the fence twittered. She peered at him with her old blue eyes.

“Don’t you say ’twill rain,” she admonished him.

“Don’t you say it now, and them just comin’. Oh! There you go!”

“’Twill rain, ’twill rain!” announced the robin.

“Oh, deary me. ’Twill, now. And comin’ with a storm on them would be discouragin’. That might be the boat now.”

She cupped one hand behind her ear.

“I don’t know. Sort of early yet. But they can’t get drove over here short of an hour.”

She lifted her bundle in both arms and hurried up the hill, her skirt and short black cape fluttering about her little withered body. As she passed the bush of cinnamon roses under the great horse-chestnut tree, she slackened her steps.

“They do smell good.” She sniffed at the breeze.

The path led, not to the front door of the low gray house, but around to the kitchen.

“I do hope there won’t be no rain on ’em before they get drove over,” she said, as she placed her bundle on the kitchen table. “Now I’ll set down a mite and collect myself about what else to do.”

She folded her cape and laid it, with her rusty black hat on top, beside her on the couch. Then she looked about her kitchen. The fresh red-painted floor was almost dry from the scrubbing she had given it earlier.

“I’d liked to have polished her.” She looked at her range. “But you can’t always have stove polish on hand. I might boil them a cup of tea—and put potatoes in the oven. They’ll like as not be sort of famished, just comin’ so far. Them dishes on the table I’ll take out when I go. I do hope they’ll like here. Most folks do.”

She was silent a moment. Then she got to her feet, stiffly. First she went out to the woodbox for two round birch sticks.

“Good hard wood, I told them,” she said, as she lifted the stove-lid and thrust the sticks in. “Five dollars a cord. They might burn as much as two cord. That’d make ten dollars. John said five a cord.”

Her fingers picked at the string about her bundle, and she wound it into a ball before she undid the wrappers and took out the crockery wash-bowl within. She rinsed and dried it, and carried it through the sitting room into the bedroom beyond, where she set it on the painted washstand, with a pitcher exactly in the center.

“Mr. Thwaite was real good to allow me that in blueberries when they’re ripe,” she said. “Tin’s good enough for John and me, but not for them.”

She pulled the round rag rug nearer the bed. “Them floors do look nice, all fresh painted. ’Twas a good thing John didn’t have a good week at the factory or he mightn’t of got them painted.”

As she bent to smooth the white counterpane, the kitchen clock struck once.

“Half-past nine. They’ll be comin’ in half an hour.”

In the entry she opened the door and looked out. Below lay the bay, blue in the June sun, with blue hills beyond.

“Must say don’t look like rain. But when that robin says ’twill rain, ’twill, if only a smattering of drops.”

She stopped again in the bare clean sitting room. On the little shelf in the corner shone half a dozen oil lamps.

“I left a mite of oil in all of ’em. Like as not they’d never think of oil first thing. I hope they won’t mind it’s so bare.” She straightened the horseshoe, covered with wall-paper, which stood on the shelf over the fireplace. “I might pick some o’ my cinnamon roses. That marmalade jar’d make a vase. They’d be sort o’ sweet smelling.”

Out of the kitchen door, down to the rosebush she hurried. When she had come back with the flowers and filled the jar, she held it up to read the label.

“Dundee Marmalade. Mis’ Hawes, she must o’ left that. Land, I wisht was Mis’ Hawes coming this summer. She was a beautiful lady for a summer family. New folks is hard—but like as not they’ll be just as nice. Only never seein’ them before, I’d most rather it was Mis’ Hawes.”

She set the roses next the horseshoe and stood back inspecting them. “They do make it not so bare. Now I’ll take them few things out to my little house.”

She gathered her cape, hat, and the few dishes from her breakfast, and went out the rear door, along a grass path to a square shed several rods back of the house, with the upland pasture and woods behind it.

“Somehow, seems if it’d been the worst this year. Movin’ out and gettin’ ready for the summer family. Course he always helped some. He’s gone all of—” she stopped to unlatch the door—“all of four month now. I ought to be thankful John’s had so much work he couldn’t help.” She pushed open the door. “Guess my little house is good enough for me. There, I’ll wait till they come before I start my fire here.”

She lifted the sailcloth which curtained the door of the second room, and dropped her hat and cape on the cot within.

“Just room to get past them trunks. Good thing I ain’t big. Land, t’ see all them boxes, you’d think I had a heap of things to do with. Couldn’t leave nothin’ cluttering up the house for them. Wish I could of left some spices or flour or tea.” She had dropped the curtain and was straining up on tiptoe toward the rough board shelf above the table. “But you can’t have everything to once, and I ain’t over’n above high in supplies just now. I use’ to think someday I’d have my cupboards full of everything I want to do with, but you can’t depend on it. If a body could get ahead a bit—I did think we might get ahead this year.” She turned from the shelf with its saltbox, its bag of flour, and jar of molasses. “Someways the outs always gets it. If it wasn’t for the outs—we was almost ahead until he died. Now there’s the payment to make on the house. August eight. We can make it, though.” Her voice brightened. “I ought to be thankful we got a family comin’. What they’ll pay’ll take care of the payment August eight. An’ if it’s a good season for herring, an’ it might well be, so’s John can fry everyday, we’ll come out beautiful. But the outs does get it. There might be some outs—them you can’t reckon on. Land sakes! Must be time for them, and me moonin’ here.”

She latched the door behind her and scuttled back to the house, carrying two large potatoes in her apron.

“I’ll just put these in the oven. Ten o’clock! They might be comin’ right now.” She opened the side door, thrusting her head out. “Might be wheels I hear. No. A boat down on the bay. Like as not their boat was late.”

She washed the potatoes and closed the oven door upon them.

“Now I’ll set down a spell till they come.”

She sat down in the small kitchen rocker.

“John’ll have to get that grass in. ’Twill gravel ’em, tryin’ to walk through it. But ’slong as it’s good weather, he can’t count on getting home in the middle of the week. It’s an awful long walk after a day’s work. Eight mile and above. He’s a good son to walk so far every week. Not till Sunday this week, he said.”

She fell into a little silence. Suddenly she burst out, “Oh, Land! It will be dreadful nice havin’ folks round again. I ain’t much company to myself, even talkin’ as I do. It’ll be awful nice to see ’em comin’ and goin’ and sayin’ goodmorning once in a while. ’Twon’t be so lonesome like, knowing they’re here. I ought to be awful thankful I got a family, seein’ it’s so late now. I don’t know whatever we’d done if I hadn’t. I declare I don’t.”

She was silent again, creaking back and forth in the rocker. The clock striking startled her. She counted its strokes and then crossed the room to peer incredulously up at the face.

“Why, they’d ought to be here. Oh, d’you ’spose they missed on their boat! Still, it might o’ been foggy out, and the boat late. I’ll go start my fire.”

She moved slowly, laying the small round sticks across each other, lighting her spill of paper carefully, coaxing the sticks into blaze. After it had roared up well, she checked it and went back, slow of foot, rather more bent, into the kitchen.

She found a tiny leaf on the floor; bringing her broom, she swept it across the threshold, out into the little shed.

“Seems if they must of come before now,” she said. She stood for a few minutes, one hand picking with thin bent fingers at the buttons of her waist.

“Could I a been such a fool as to make a mistake about the day? Maybe I did.” She started in trembling haste to her shed. “I’ll look. I can put my hands right on the letter.”

On the sewing machine, with steel-bowed spectacles on top, was her Bible. Inside the cover lay the letter. It fluttered from her anxious fingers. Recapturing it, she turned to the end, and read it with long pauses.

“We will—take the—Rockland boat—Wednesday—morning. Reaching Sedgwick—at nine—o’clock—June thirty.”

“It’s right.” She closed the Bible. “That’s today. Wednesday. Might of been late. But it’s most one o’clock.”

Back to the house she went.

“I’ll wait a bit more. Then I could go up to the store to ask Mr. Thwaite did the boat come in.”

She drew her chair close to the window. Bushes hid the road, but if she left the door ajar she could hear any passing vehicle and stand up to see. After a dragging half hour, a wagon rattled along. She stood in the doorway, her old hands tight over her heart. It was only a farm team clattering past. Her lips mumbled, but she had no words. The clock’s ticking grew louder, until she crept into the sitting room to escape it. Away from the fire she began to shiver; so back she came, to watch the hands crawl along. When they reached two, she went out to the shed for her cape.

“I’ll leave a billet on the door,” she said, “so’s if they come the while I’m gone, they’d know I was expectin’ them.”

The pencil was in her sewing machine drawer and a slip of paper in the Bible. She wrote laboriously, spelling the words aloud.

“I am at the Store to see if your Bote come in. Walk rite in if you come becos this is your Home now. ile be Back rite off.”

Folding it and moistening the pencil between her lips, she addressed it to Mrs. W. Butler.

She pinned her hat unsteadily to her wisp of gray hair, fastened her cape about her shoulders, bolted her door, and returned once more to the house. Although she glanced hopefully toward the road, the path lay undisturbed in the sunshine. She weighted the note with a stone on the broad granite doorstep. Then she went down the road, a sea-breeze beating back the edges of her cape.

The road to the store climbed a long hill, passed a farmhouse, dipped gently through a stretch of woods and started up another hill. The trees cut off the breeze, and the afternoon shadows were short. She stopped once or twice, talking under her breath.

“I do feel sort of done up. But if you ain’t got a good heart, you can’t do nothin’ about it. They must of missed on their boat.”

The door of the red store was locked. She sat on a box to rest. In a moment she saw Mr. Thwaite crossing the road from his garden.

“Well, back again!”

“Ye-es, I am. I came to ask if you was over this morning to the boat.”

“Yes.”

“She did come!”

“Yes. Got in early. Quarter to nine.”

“Did she!” Her hands clasped over her breast. “Did you—did you maybe see any new folks get off her? My family ain’t come, an’ I thought they might of lost their way or something.”

“No. There was some folks for the hotel, that was all.”

“Did they?” She covered her trembling lips with one hand and stared at him out of frightened eyes.

“Maybe yours’ll come tomorrow. Did you want something at the store?”

“No. I didn’t want nothin’. I only wanted to ask did you see the boat come in.” She started wearily down the steps. “Come in early, you say.”

“Wait, I’ll get your mail.” He brought out her oilcloth bag.

“Stage hasn’t gone down yet, but I think there’s a letter for you. Maybe from your folks.”

“Oh, I thank you, Mr. Thwaite.” She peered into the bag. “’Tis a letter. I thank you.” She hesitated. “Are you goin’ to the boat tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind lookin’ to see if they come? Two ladies, they is, and a little boy.”

“I’ll look.”

“I’ll be much obliged. I don’t see but they must of missed on their boat.”

“Well, don’t worry. They’ll be coming along.”

“Oh, do you think so?” She blinked after him as he strode back to his garden. “Oh, do you ’spose so? The letter might be from them. I’ll hurry to get my glasses and see.”

With short, uneven steps, she hurried up the hill, down through the woods, past the farmhouse, down the hill. At her own path she paused to take out the letter. She folded the bag carefully and dropped it into the mailbox, the handle hanging out.

“That stage man don’t bother to take her unless I fix the handle out. Probably the letter says they had a mind to wait till tomorrow. I wisht I could come faster up my hill!”

She went straight around to her little house. Unbolting the door, she set it ajar by the string tied to the latch. She took off her cape and hat and laid them on the cot. She pulled a chair close under the small, high window, found scissors in a drawer of the machine, her glasses on the Bible, and sat down.

She cut the end of the envelope, the scissors quavering.

“Looks like their hand.” The paper crackled under her unsteady fingers. One sheet of notepaper, scented. She bent over it.

“‘We are sorry to disappoint you—’ Well, now, I won’t be a mite put out—” she took off her glasses to rub them—“if they do come a day later. I can rest a mite.” She read on.

“‘But we find—at the last—minute—’”

She went back to the first sentence and read from the beginning again.

“‘We are sorry to disappoint you. But we find at the last minute that if we go to Searsport to the hotel, my husband can reach it for week-end visits. And as I think it over, I think I really am not strong enough to attempt to keep house this summer. We hope you can find other tenants for your charming cottage. Yours sincerely, Mary Butler.’”

The letter dropped into her lap, and her hands moved on it, claw-like. After some minutes she gave a cry.

“They ain’t comin’! Oh, it can’t be they ain’t—My eyes are bad—”

She stood up nearer the window, and holding the note close to her face, read it again, her lips forming each word. Then she stared out through the crack of her door. The daisies and tall buttercups bent in the sunny wind. The little house was gray and placid.

“Why, they ain’t comin’. Oh, you have disappoint me—dreadful.” She crouched in her chair, her hands twisting against her shrunken breast. “Oh, dreadful. An’ John, he won’t know till Sunday. He’ll be comin’ up the path, expectin’ to find ’em there. They won’t be nobody! Why, they—they ain’t comin’!”